Throw away infected computers
NY Times had a story about people throwing away computers because they got infected with malware.
And that may shock some computer people.
But as one who has been in the trenches, helping people get rid of viruses, it actually makes sense in some cases.
One computer was so old and underspecced, we couldn’t install anti-virus on it. It just wouldn’t run on it. I wish the owner would have bought a new one.
Many of the thrown away computers in the story were around 4 years old. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t many computers ship with Windows 2000 around that time? It makes absolute sense to buy a new low end computer with Windows XP, then have it patched immediately and anti-virus installed, rather than battle with a leaky win2k computer! New computer are almost down to 500 $ these days, so it’s easier to buy a new one with OEM winxp, rather than buy a new windows version retail.
But please, if you do throw out a computer - back up your user files on CD, DVD or USB drive. And consider donating the old one to a school that uses old computers for SkoleLinux (School Linux, it’s a Debian based operating system developed for schools). Unless you have geek offspring that could use it for a Linux server or some other interesting purpose?
*I* wouldn’t throw out a computer as recent as that. I’ve always got uses for it (not including running win2000!). I’ve been known to butcher one computer to get parts for another. I’ll usually only throw away an old computer if I get a newer one and don’t have space or use for the oldest. Oh, and whiny fans are an abomination.
But then I gave away my old 300MHz P2 to my aunt, who won’t take it on the internet. She needs a glorified typewriter. I can’t read her hand writing, so I’m really looking forward to her letters now… Win98 is the best operating system for an old typewriter computer (win 95 is OK for those older than 300MHz). It can handle memory down to around 64 MB (though mine had way more) when it’s newly reinstalled. I also need to clean out the basement of the crud that has accumulated - old this and that…
March 6th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I went to the article and this name jumped out at me: “David Gelernter ” The NYT article quotes David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale, who was a victim of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.
I can undestand the surrender by many in junking their old PCs for new ones. I have wasted a lot of time, too, of ridding desktops of malware. I tend to keep my computers. The only suggestion I have for your useful comments, Spamhuntress, is recommending people deleting all their old data on the old computers they give away. They could have tax returns or other sensitive data on their old computers.
March 6th, 2006 at 8:28 pm
I was just going to add the same as My0, whether you give away or throw away, make sure that you don’t have any of your data on the machine. Just deleting your files though doesn’t mean they are gone. Not even considering the Recycle Bin, there are plenty of ways to recover deleted data. Unless you are giving it to a relative you really trust, you need to securely wipe the data.
This InformationWeek article has something about this problem.
March 7th, 2006 at 3:10 am
Yeah, I forgot to state that outright.
It was sort of inferred, when I was recommending avoiding windows 2000 in favor of windows 98. You’d have to at least reformat for that to happen.
I would go for the full treatment: AT LEAST fdisk and reformat. For very sensitive data, that isn’t enough. In fact, for super sensitive data, the only thing you can do, is stomp on the old harddrive, archive it and then and get another harddrive to put into the computer. And remember that old computers won’t eat brand spanking new big hard drives. Depending on how old it is, there are size constraints (number of gigabytes).
March 7th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
This conversation is very timely: In my neck of the woods my Provincial government is in a lot of hot water (with voters, opposition, and even themselves) for auctioning off a big box of backup tapes and the tape drive that can read them. The successful bidder (naturally) took a look at the contents of the tapes and discovered peoples’ medical records from 1996 to 2001. Sensitive information about mental health and HIV tests, applications for income assistance based on medical conditions, etc.! Of course, they have a policy about ensuring data is destroyed (even if that means destroying the medium that carries it) but the policy is only as good as the follow-through. I FDisk my old drives (it’s sufficient, I don’t care if people recover my email correspondence to my mother) but if it was sensitive, I would just destroy the HDD. It’s easier that way.
March 7th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
It’s quite normal for bigger companies to take out the harddrives before throwing out the computers. The computers are usually sent to recycling or special waste of some sort.
But for Skolelinux, you don’t need the harddrives. You can use special network cards or floppies to start the computer, and then it interacts with the server, never having anything stored locally.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Interestingly, the older computers are GREAT for breaking in the VERY YOUNG….especially leaning word processing and spreadsheets…..
Why should they touch the ultra modern computers, yet.
March 10th, 2006 at 4:53 am
There’s a nice file/disk wiping utility here called Eraser which was mentioned in the Information Week feature. Easy to install and use.
March 20th, 2006 at 11:47 am
A few years ago, when working for an IT security company, they had a policy of physical destruciton of hard drives before disposing of computers.
The reasoning was simple: They were capable of recovering a lot of data, even after fromatting, fdisking and various other procedures, but they’d never recovered data from a disk that had been through a grinder.
Ironically, one of the tools available from the company “destroys” files by multiple overwriting with random data.