PreOwned machine privacy - Was: Acclaim Entertainment Indy (with data, emails, etc) on eBay

[Fred Cisin]

When I did media conversion for people, I ignored their content, other 
than monitoring for quality control.
Same as when I used to do photographic color printing, and did some for 
other people.
Anything else would be seriously unethical.
THAT is simple professional ethics.


Otherwise, it's on a par with accidentally overhearing somebody else's 
conversation, credit card number that they are blabbing into a cellphone, 
ets.
If and when I end up with somebody's old drive, I check for anything that 
they might want back, and wipe the rest.
On one recent laptop, I found a folder of pictures that the previous owner 
had forgotten about, and was grateful to get.
On another machine, the previous owner had lost a password to a site, but 
it was stored in the machine.  I used the "saved password" to login and 
changed it to a known one.

Not only do I not feel a right to somebody else's work, I don't have an 
interest.

An exception is that after a friend died, I saved his documents and 
his non-personal pictures, as if he had shared them with me.
(I kept his landscape photos, but erased his personal erotica)


When I get rid of a machine, I'd like to just hand it off to somebody who 
would have use for it.
But, if people are going through what's on old machines, then I will have 
to start wiping hard disks before parting with them.  There are SOME 
people whom I would trust if they promised to wipe the content after 
receiving them.  For others, . . .

That's a hassle!
Yes, it really isn't much work, but, . . .
I've got a 200MB 3.5" ESDI drive to get rid of.  But, now I don't think 
that I can do so until after I locate a WD '07 controller, connect it, and 
low level format it.  Since "scrounging" that controller is on a priority 
level comparable to cleaning the gutters, it's not happening.

I've got a crate of ST4096s.

I've got a large collection of OQOs.  I guess that before I can give them 
away, I need to get each and every one working, or remove its HDD.

When I run into a TRS80 model 1 disk with some data and system, should I 
bulk erase it, or rely on the ethics of somebody who might need a boot 
disk?  Or do I need to delay giving away anything such until I get around 
to setting up a system to read it?   Would anybody WANT a TRSDOS 2.0 disk?
APR-DOS?
or a PC-DOS 1.0 disk with the weird double side (as second drive) patch?
Gavilan MS-DOS 2.11J? 2.11K?
Gavilan "bubble memory"? (already gave that away to somebody trustworthy)


There is an implicit level of TRUST when dealing with used media and 
hardware.  Let's not abuse it.

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com