I have seen loads of private data.
i use to work for a computer recycling scheme (government scheme obviously) and we use to strip donated computers and rebuild them to sell cheaply to low income familys in the area. The donated computers were from universities, schools, hospitals, banks and small businesses and although most of the machines were fairly old none of them ever had the hard drives wiped before we collected them. Volunteers who worked with us use to take these hard drives home to use in there own computers and i will admit even i did too, infact we were told to take them if we wanted them because it was easier than paying to have them destroyed. I did nosey on loads of hard drives just out of pure curiosity. its like if one of your mates leaves there phone laying around you just have to pick it up and have a look. On the hard drives i saw photos, personal letters, database information (from a bank no less!) and student passwords, grade information i mean you name it. I think i still have the drives gathering dust in the back of my wardrobe but i never use them, this was like 8 years ago and the drives are no good in todays machines. it just goes to show though that not even a charitable scheme run by the government itself can protect users data and it is worrying. best way for a non computer savvy person to render a drive unreadable is to take an ordinary household drill and drill a hole into it shattering the data disc inside.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
