“When Tim Selbo bought a used computer tower at a La Crosse police auction last month, he thought he was getting a good deal on a second computer for his family. But when he hooked up the $25 unit at his Holmen home, he found some disturbing images — hundreds of child pornography photos — still stored on the computer… Selbo said he was surprised when he found files had been left on the computer’s hard drive. Curious, he began delving into the files, and photographs began popping up on the screen. At first, they were old pictures and family photos, he said. Then he began hitting images of young, nude children. His reaction upon seeing the photos was ‘Yuk.’ ‘I didn’t see any photos of kids doing anything, but they were naked,’ Selbo said. ‘I mean, these were pretty young children.’” — La Crosse Tribune (US)

A year or so ago a computer security expert performed an experiment in which he purchased a bunch of cheap old computers on ebay. Then he searched these computers and found all sorts of personal information that could be used to commit identity theft. It was a pretty astonishing experiment because it demonstrated just how easy it can be to obtain “private” information — social security numbers, bank accounts, mother’s maiden names, etc. And now this story demonstrates yet another peril of the un-wiped hard drive: not only can you make yourself vulnerable by revealing your own information, you can also corrupt others with the information that you give to them. The man who purchased the machine bought it for his family. “I feel lucky I didn’t just hook it up and give it to them,” he said.

It turns out that this particular computer had belonged to a man convicted of possessing child pornography. The police didn’t wipe it because in court they had used a duplicate — and though proper care was presumably exercised in securing the duplicate, everybody just plain forgot about the original.

Now obviously law enforcement agencies should have a stringent policy about wiping any computers that they auction off — and yet there is a larger problem here. Computers are only becoming more and more disposable — many are sold via auction, many become “hand-me-downs” given freely to friends and relatives, and many others are just put out on the street to be thrown away. And all of these machines should be completely wiped before leaving the owner’s possession. This is not an extraordinarily difficult task, but it is time-consuming and it does require customized wiping software — which makes people, including cops, disinclined to do it.

Microsoft and Apple ought therefore to consider including secure wiping software in their operating systems. It should be dumbed down so people would know to do it: “What do you want to do? Give your computer to another person? Click here to wipe.” It should be easy to use. It should perform a genuine wipe of the hard drive. And users should be taught that this is something they absolutely must do when giving “my computer” to you.

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