Data safety under Windoze

[trochee]

A friend's computer-illiterate dad asked me "how can I protect myself from the company I'm leaving? I have to give back their laptop, and I've saved all the data I want off it, but I want to be sure they don't pull things off there to use out of context in our ugly separation struggles."

After I gave him the short version of the story about (1) don't use Windows (too late) and (2) don't use your work computer for things you don't want work to read (too late also!), I agreed to look into solutions.

I found the Eraser -- an open-source (GNU-licensed) Windows disk scrubber. This seems like a useful tool for everybody who has to work with Windows sometimes. I don't run Windows, so if anybody reading this does and wants to try this out, please let me know what your experience is. Alternative recommendations are also welcome.

Comments

[solri.livejournal.com]

Alternatively, install Linux, or use a CD-based Linux like Knoppix. Then run shred on /dev/hda1. That erases so thoroughly, the CIA would have problems recovering the data.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

While I think that's a great suggestion, the "client" here (a late-50s guy who can just barely surf the net) is not ready for that solution.

One of the papers pointed to by the Eraser site suggests that the DOD (and CIA, NSA, etc) probably lie about the official wipe policy to preserve their own technological ability to snoop on the other guys' computers. Thus I would prefer the academic/open-source solutions, because I can be fairly sure that everybody's being honest about the algorithm they're using.

shred really is a good solution. But it won't work for him -- learning curve aside, he has to return this Win98 laptop to his soon-to-be-former employers.

bcwipe

[bryan-e.livejournal.com]

I have used bcwipe (http://www.jetico.com/index.htm#/bcwipe.htm) on both Windows and *nix. It uses Peter Gutmann's algorithm, described here (http://wipe.sourceforge.net/secure_del.html) for secure wiping.