Useful computer info

Nifty things on the Washington Post's Security Fix blog:

Hard drives can hold secrets. Those who follow the news about computer investigations year lots about data recovered from hard drives. And another article pointed out the best source for confidential data is the hard drives in discarded computers.

Getting the data off of the laptop proved the easy part. Then it was time to format the computer's hard drive to wipe it clean of any data. A full format with a Microsoft Windows DOS-based floppy disk appeared to erase all of the data. But then I scanned the newly-formatted hard drive with Helix, a free forensics tool often used by law enforcement folks to recover incriminating data from computers seized from suspected criminals. Within 20 minutes, Helix had retrieved more than 30 percent of the data that was supposedly erased from the drive, including personal digital photos, records of which Web sites the laptop's owner had visited online, as well as Microsoft Word documents and other personal files. <snip> With a little Web searching, I found a powerful and free tool called Dban. If you're just trying to delete certain files or folders (but not the entire hard drive), skip ahead a few paragraphs because you definitely do not want to mess with this tool -- it will erase everything on your computer, at least well beyond the recovery skills of most of our readers here. <snip> If you're in the market for a program that can securely delete specific files or folders on your PC (as opposed to wiping an entire drive), there are plenty of free options. One is WipeDisk. Another is Secure Delete. The one I prefer is Eraser.

PC Tools used to have a file erase utility. And I also recall reading that the NSA standard for erasing files from a hard drive called for sandblasting.

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Spyware exterminators are hot items. (Thanks to the spyware writers. grump grump.) However, before paying for a spyware killer, consider:

First of all, some of the best anti-spyware tools out there today are free. We review at least four of them in the video tutorials on computer security that we published recently. If you or someone you know is intent on purchasing anti-spyware programs, I would highly recommend paying a visit to this comprehensive guide to spyware programs at SpywareWarrior.com. This site is an excellent catalog of anti-spyware vendors, noting which ones are using questionable marketing tactics. SpywareWarrior.com also has a separate page that lists known, trustworthy anti-spyware programs.

One of the questions I field at work is whether the average consumer needs a water filter. The short answer is, "no". City water is treated to meet very high standards for health and safety, and the amount of extra safety you're buying with any kind of water filtration system is negligable. I get a trifle irked at people who make a living by charging big bucks for trifling amounts of additional safety. But that's just me, I suppose.