Cleaning a laptop isn’t as easy as it might seem, but how far you go depends on how much security you want. The NSA won’t have anything less than the physical destruction of the drive: most of us don’t need to go that far. On Windows, you can use Eraser (http://www.heidi.ie/node/6), which is free of charge, to shred your files and then shred unused space, so nothing you’ve deleted in the past may be recovered. On Macs, use “Secure Empty Trash” under the Apple menu, and then “Erase Free Space” in the Disk Utility application, which is included free with OSX. These measures will be enough for most: the real solution is not to use other people’s computers for private applications.
Cleaning a laptop isn’t as easy as it might seem, but how far you go depends on how much security you want. The NSA won’t have anything less than the physical destruction of the drive: most of us don’t need to go that far. On Windows, you can use Eraser (http://www.heidi.ie/node/6), which is free of charge, to shred your files and then shred unused space, so nothing you’ve deleted in the past may be recovered. On Macs, use “Secure Empty Trash” under the Apple menu, and then “Erase Free Space” in the Disk Utility application, which is included free with OSX. These measures will be enough for most: the real solution is not to use other people’s computers for private applications.
[Reply]
expert reponse by: Joel Johnson of Boing Boing Gadgets | July 15th, 2008