Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Selling a laptop on ebay

  • 13-09-2011 12:13am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22


    If i sell a laptop on ebay with no hard drive is it possible for someone to get my personal information from the laptop,
    Credit card details etc?


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,381 ✭✭✭✭Allyall


    Highly Unlikely..

    RAM is cleared when you switch off the machine...

    BUT.. :D
    Most people know that the contents of RAM are lost when a machine powers down. The paper notes, however, that this process isn't instantaneous. In their tests, the authors found that various forms of RAM take anywhere from 2.5 to 35 seconds to reach a null state (newer RAM got there faster). That process is temperature-dependent; dropping the RAM to -50°C cut the rate at which memory was lost to 0.1 percent per minute. If that temperature seems hard to reach, it's not. The researchers achieved it by turning a canned air dispenser upside-down and spraying it on the RAM chip. Dropping the chip in liquid nitrogen kept the error rate at a similar level for up to an hour.

    LINK

    I'd imagine you would have to be extremely paranoid, to imagine that somebody would go to that trouble, to pay their hard earned money, to get a scrap of data, about somebody that they know nowt about.

    Short answer is no.

    Long answer is yes, possibly, but it's hard, a long progress, it will prove worthless, and it's pointless to anyone.

    If you are really worried, then stick a drive in and overwrite it with games.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,531 ✭✭✭Drakar


    To be fair, to allow that to happen, you have to turn off the machine, pack it in liquid nitrogen and deliver it to them in an hour. That's not usually one of the delivery options on ebay.


Advertisement