Read more about data recovery here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_re... I used Raise for this project, it is available here. www.raisedr.com/ I ultimately deleted all of the data that I recovered.
If you imagine the SD card is a book, when you format it, you're erasing the table of contents. The text and images of the book are still there, but anyone who looks at the table of contents would see an empty book. If your computer wanted to write something in your book, it would look at the table of contents for an empty page, write the data on the empty page, and then update the table of contents. The original data on that page is now gone and anyone who looks in your book sees just that new data. But all of the other pages are untouched, and the rest of the original book is still there.
The ethics are questionable but fun to look at stuff like this from goodwill. Best rule is to wipe your own stuff and hope the recycler also does the same.
You're a good and ethical man for sharing this knowledge. 3:40 - Rembrandt’s iconic painting “The Sacrifice of Isaac." 3:15 - I liked the banjo-playing skelly.
Ask any cyber security company if they recycle their preowned storage devices, they all send them for secure disposal (aka destruction), you can wipe them securely but with storage devices nowadays you really can't be sure, and it also damages the drives lifetime.
This would be the responsibly of the person who donated the storge device to ensure that all there data is gone and if it did contain sensitive info they should destroy it. Goodwill receives so many items that they need to move items fast and don't have the man power to check every item to see if they work or if someone forgot to securely erase a storge card or hard drive.
This is why I have a box full of old phones (with batteries removed so no boom). I'm a boring person in any illicit sense, but that doesn't matter to me, given what our phones know about us I think it's a fair precaution. Same goes with hard drives. I've given computers to family members but they get new SSDs in them.
What do you use to verify the cards are actually the size they claim ? I found a LOT of cards, even from Walmart, brand name, it was half the size it claimed I am looking for a way to verify the size they actually are
The page that mentions the Department of Defense standards also says, you're still responsible for erasing your data. Also, I'm genuinely surprised that they even claim that they wipe your data. Testing if electronics work is already pretty uncommon for them so wiping data seems above and beyond for them.
Goodwill & most other thrift stores do NOT have the time, expertise, or CARE about data stored on donated items. Have you never shopped at these stores? They sort, price & sell.
I stopped shopping at goodwill because I can obtain used electronics so much easier and cheaper now. I have to pull all equipment from the schools I contract with after five years. I perform a government wipe even if they are being recycled.
I REALLY need the smaller capacity SD cards. The older scanners use the 1,2, and 4 GB cards Finding a new one of these is impossible anymore. I could really use these old cards for the scanners I have. The original cards have failed. Thanks
You actually don't need to write to the drive 3 times like that. If you just write random data to the flash drive it will destroy any data on it. Also for flash medium and SSD drives don't just write zeros and think your ok. Many drive controllers will write a few zeros and then ignore the rest of them to try and preserve writes to the drive. This is why you should always just write random data. Neat command in powershell though I did not know that existed :)
also need to be aware of any overprovisioning going on for wear protection. I do know there are some tools that can access it but it's normally just an internal process that isn't exposed to the user (which just thinking, perhaps the tools could just be using techniques to trigger the wear protection, and not directly accessing the whole thing?)
I have bought bulk hard drives and found some interesting stuff on them..... Some very personal.... and some I was able to contact the owner and let them know what I found and told them for their security I did a destructive...aka smash of the drive.... People if you donate old computers please pull the drives.....
I was looking for some micro sd cards for some raspberry pis and bought a lot of them off ebay, all were formatted, but most of them still had data on them. All of the used hard drives I've bought however seem to have had giberish written to them and there were no files to be found.
Many HD platters are made of glass. Just toss your old HD up in the air to land on a hard surface. Pick it up and shake it. If it sounds like a maraca, you erased it.
Physical access while running the scans / read /writes will be faster when a physical machine is used to begin with. With a VM, IF the VM can access USB devices, also means that the host actually touched/ read the device before it was passed over to the VM. That in itself puts the host at risk. Some utilities will not work thru the software layers that exist when accessing external devices thru a VM. All in all, a physical device is what's going to be needed often to scan/repair/wipe the device effectively; more of an issue especially when performing the same operations multiple times.. All in all, a new or used physical desktop, i.e. a windows workstation can be had for probably less than the guy spent on used storage devices. As he had a used desktop, it is the safer approach. Some malware can survive a reboot; which is why the drives I use to rebuild systems have a physical write protect switch on the USB drive for reloading the OS. That way, at least malware cannot be written to the USB device and inadvertently tracked back to another system. Why ? Imagine, you put the USB drive in a system you plan on rebuilding; but you miss the opportunity to push the necessary hotkey to select the boot device; now the system, potentially infested, now has full access to that USB drive; Will it happen ? Maybe, not likely, but possibly. But if you are rebuilding a system, do you want to take that chance? This is the same reason you should not use a VM to access a physical device like a USB flash drive or memory card from an unknown source; do you really want to take that chance..
I dont think I would ever buy used drives, theres not much risk but id be afraid of viruses or even worse possibly illegal content that would have to be reported. Its a common enough occurrence that IT shops usually have a procedure to report stuff like that.
Word of caution here: Just because you buy new does not mean that you have a new drive nowadays; I know that there are new scams where folks swap out their old stuff with new; and the vendor just re-shrink-wraps the box and sells it as new again. Or with RMA'd devices, you have a decent chance of getting not a new device but a "refurb" or "tested" device meaning it's used, just maybe wiped, and pulled off from a shelf. Most warranties state that your replacement drive may not be a new device, but a refurbished or tested device.. Taking in a laptop/desktop in for repair; and you also run the risk that a tech replaces the drive as well; sometimes without asking.. Vendors will cut costs everywhere they can, and that includes using refurbs/ tested over providing the customer with a new drive. BTW: Most drives have SMART info on the drive; it's often a good idea to take a screenshot of the SMART data ( like with something like CrystalDiskInfo ) because you can take a screenshot of the Serial Number, power on hours, power cycles, etc... Take such a screenshot prior to sending your device in for repair just in case someone swaps it out. Even if you buy a new drive off from Amazon, you should use a tool like CrystalDiskInfo to verify that the drive was not used or refurbished, or just swapped out and re-shrink-wrapped.
They have terrible data practices, Anyone donating should be mindful of the data they are leaving on devices. I got an old Windows 95 sony vaio, the thing boots straight up to an ancient 95 desktop complete with all the data. Some locations do not seem to have anybody even remotely technical judging by a few of the laptop lots I have won.
