7 Apr
1998
7 Apr
'98
2:04 a.m.
On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Uncle Roger wrote:
Except, that people may feel it's easier (and/or
safer) to just destroy the
machine than it is to try and make sure no one can read their data. What
if some one told you, "yeah, I had one of those imsai computers, but I had
it smashed up to make sure no one could get at my old tax returns." Not a
pleasant thought.
I've held onto machines that I would've happily given away except for the
time involved to go through the stuff on the hard disk and clean it up.
This is a real problem. Somebody recently asked me for a solution to this
problem that could be easily communicated to the masses, and I couldn't
come up with one.
Reformatting the disk and installing a fresh O/S is probably the closest
approximation for a lot of people, but it has a few problems:
1) High-level formatting may leave data intact.
2) Installing the O/S doesn't install the drivers for any odd-ball
peripherals the machine happens to have in it.
3) 90% of users probably don't know how to do it.
What the world needs is a painless one button backup-and-clean program.
-- Doug