Old Data

At 05:58 PM 3/30/98 -0800, you wrote: The way I see it, if they want to make sure the data doesn't get out, they need to delete files. But, I wouldn't take someone's personal spreadsheet of their monthly finances and post it on the 'net, either. What I've done in the past is look at it, and then generally delete it. Why? Because it's generally boring as hell. Now, if I came across some Hubble stuff, and I knew how to use it/what it meant, I'd probably hang on to that. But only for my own personal use/interest. As I see it, when someone gives you a computer with data on it, they're giving you the data as well. However, they're not giving you license to sell that data to the Weekly World News. I'm working with Long's Drugs, a chain of pharmacies on the west coast. If I poked around in the store databases and told you that, say, Grace Hopper was taking birth control pills, that would definitely be an invasion of privacy. (and would likely get me thrown in jail.) However, there's nothing wrong with telling you that there are 13 women who go to the Serramonte store to get birth control pills. Same thing with e-mail, word processing documents, spreadsheets and the like. If your buddy Joe gives you his old computer, you should go poking around his old e-mail or wp files. If, however, you get a computer from company x that was used by employee y that you don't know, the data is only statistical. I think generally, it's a moot point because it's usually too uninteresting to keep around. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/