WEEE is a security risk

Merrion

I was down at the ringsend recycling facility dropping off my laser printer (under the new WEEE directive electronic goods can be dumped there for free) and they have a room full of second hand computers just from the last week or so. I wonder how many of their owners took the precaution of wiping and scrambling the hard disks......

Talliesin

Well, it's probably safer than throwing it into a skip, so there isn't exactly a new risk here.

Merrion

The room has some 30 or so PCs in it - a bit more target-rich than your average skip.

Talliesin

Unidentified targets, and it should be harder to rob from than a skip (not a lot maybe, but a bit).
I do agree that disks should be wiped properly before disposal.

Martyr

I came across an illegal dump once where i found backup media from 1 particular bank and some other well known retailers, i didn't bother investigating whether or not there was anything left on them, having been exposed to the rain.

tck

Even hard disks that have been submerged under water have a risk of data been recovered on them.

quinta

eh hard disks that have been physically damaged, i.e. drilled, have known to be recovered. It all depends on the time and money you have ... and whether your a major government or Agency!!

the_syco

I think its great fun finding stuff your not meant to on old disks:cool:

Esp when they have some serious stuff on them. Funny when thy have bank details, passwords, etc on them, tho.

=-=

Dunno if its still law, but you couldn't donate PC's to schools, due to licencing laws, so they dumped them by the dozen into dumps. A few mates who worked at dumps built some serious rigs from being at the right place at the right time!

quinta

Slightly OT

What to do with all those 'useless' PC's you find in the dump .... ?

Build a Distributed Password Cracking Cluster using Clustered Knoppix

http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=262750

Martyr

eh hard disks that have been physically damaged, i.e. drilled, have known to be recovered. It all depends on the time and money you have ... and whether your a major government or Agency!!

tck Even hard disks that have been submerged under water have a risk of data been recovered on them.

OK, point taken, but what about old analog tapes?
As thats what most of them were apart from some minicartridges and floppy disks.

Martyr

What to do with all those 'useless' PC's you find in the dump .... ?

Build a Distributed Password Cracking Cluster using Clustered Knoppix

If there is a harddrive, i usually take it back home and see whats on it.
I'm a nosy bastard.

quinta

Be aware, if you stumble across certain types of material, you have an obligation to inform the guards. But IANAL.

Martyr

In fairness, I don't think the guards where i live would care as much about me taking certain types of material, as they would about the illegal dump itself.

But of course, if the material was something sinister, I would inform them immediately.

quinta

Well yeah I think we both know the type of material we are talking about.

rsynnott

Average Joe wrote:

OK, point taken, but what about old analog tapes?
As thats what most of them were apart from some minicartridges and floppy disks.

Tapes have extremely low coercivity compared to hard disks, and are easy to destroy magnetically. Ditto floppies.