Re: PC disk wipe software

[Mark <mark@lochard.com.au>]

Crypto  relevance: None.
Privacy relevance: High.

>> Often files retrieved include e-mail thought to have been
>> erased long ago. It survives because the diligent
>> computer system manager makes backup tapes of everything
>> on the system every night, then stores those tapes for
>> years.
>
>Uh... they back up their *mail* spools?  Yeah, right.

machine:/home/mark/.elm mark> grep mbox elmrc
receivedmail = /home/mark/mail/mbox
sentmail = /home/mark/mail/mbox.out

People do record their incoming and outgoing email. Smart ones will store it
offsite (auto farward to their home machine). Others will pgp them online.
Mostly though the cleartext email files will be happily archived away each
night to the nice friendly DAT tape down the corridor in the machine room.

This is also a situation on PC and Mac POP clients. They can be configured to
record your email as it goes in and out. Here we also backup the PC's each
night to a DAT. Thats why it's important to self sanitize your files.

Me, I just nuke any sensitive information that may arrive in my work mbox,
or save/forward it to a safer place. I discourage people from using my work
address as a regular personal contact point.

Also ensure your admins aren't the nosy types. I started work at one place
and noticed in the /.sh_history file that the previous admin was regularly
grepping peoples mail spools for his name. This caused some concern to the
management when they were informed. Obviously these forays were not part of
his everyday job and were a personal endeavour.

Cheers,
Mark
mark@lochard.com.au