By Will Sturgeon, 18 February 2005 18:10
NEWS A charity which reconditions second hand Pentium computers for use in the Third World has hit out at media coverage this week which encouraged companies to destroy old kit by driving nails through the hard drive of each computer they discard.
Computer Aid International assures businesses it will wipe data to government approved levels and offers strict reassurances to businesses that their data will be entirely removed before the PC gets its new lease of life.
However, the organisation fears media hype from mainstream press will see a decline in the numbers of computers it is able to send to schools and hospitals in countries such as Rwanda.
Vaneeta Mahtani, security specialist at Computer Aid, told silicon.com: "We cover all requirements in terms of legal responsibility. We will collect the equipment from the company and will ensure all data is removed to the strictest of standards."
The original research, compiled by Glamorgan University, suggested a high percentage of computers which get discarded at their end of life contain large amounts of sensitive data, however the University is concerned that its research will wrongly be used as a justification for the destruction of equipment which could still serve a purpose elsewhere.
Dr Andrew Blyth from Glamorgan University's computer science department told silicon.com the reason behind the research was an attempt to publicise the need to do more to ensure data is destroyed before it is passed elsewhere – be it a charity, a recycler or even a landfill, until understanding of the WEEE directive removes the latter option entirely.
Blyth told silicon.com: "I wholly support companies donating PCs to charity but only as long as they realise that doesn't abdicate their responsibility as far as the data on those computers is concerned."
Mahtani encouraged any companies still tempted by the hammer and nails option to talk to Computer Aid. She said the organisation would even give back control units for the companies to check after the data has been wiped.
"We are fully open to that. We have total faith in our methods and would urge companies to try us out."
Comments
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1. Dave Howe
Also worth noting is the increasing requirement for machines to be returned at the end of leases - often now up to half the pcs at a site are leased, not bought, and must be returned at the end of that period. Many companies are relying on the lessor to wipe and refurbish the equipment at the end of the hire period, but many auction them off "as is" or even dump them as their resale value is less than the administrative cost of reuse.
A useful resource in this area is the completely free DBAN package; this is a bootable Floppy (or by easy extension, CD Rom) which overwrites hard drives on a computer to MoD standards. A free, easy, and sensible solution to fears of data loss by this method....
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ for further details...
2. David Fletcher
Personally, I use a lump hammer and cold chisel, but the six inch nail solution also has to be excellent advice.
Any PC which is not too old to be worth using will have IDE interfaces, and IDE hard disk drives of modest capacity are now so cheap that anybody who gets the rest of the PC for nothing should not complain about having to purchase one.
3. Rob
David.F I think you miss the point it's charity based, so they would prefer not to buy a Hard disk, I think the point of success for this particular charity endeavour is the cost of the units they get, ie. nothing, free.
4. Mike Parker
Quite amusing that most firms would be worried about sharing financial data they have to declare publicly anyway. Especially as these machines go to the 3rd world. Who in the 3rd world cares about a firm 1000's of miles away? I would format the drive and send it on it’s merry way, unless I was working for MI5.
Also, most machines donated to the charity would be client machines who would have accessed their data via servers. In my organisation, no client PC has any company data stored on it.
5. Peter Still
The comment from Mike Parker "who in the £rd world cares about a firm 1000s of miles away" confirms my belief that IT Managers live on a different planet! Most PCs that have been used in a marketing or finance department will contain customer and market data that would be of immense value to the low-cost 3rd world producers targeting markets in developed countries. As an IT Manager Mike should know that client machines often cahe data locally even when the application is held on a server. I found this to be a thought-provoking argument and will check my own company's policy on wiping hard disks at a PC's end of life. Incidentally I once had a hard drive fail on a laptop, which contained some data that had not been backed-up. A specialist data recovery company was able to remove the platter from the drive and recover about 80% of the content, in spite of the fact that the platter was physically damaged by contact with the read/write head.
6. Jasmine Brackett
I agree with Rob, David F has totally missed the point. For a similar amount of effort to ensuring the hardware is disposed of correctly, companies can ensure the data is wiped and that the equipment can be used by someone else.
Destroying a safely reusable item is incredibly short sighted - both environmentally and regarding the digital divide between us and the 3rd world. Wouldn't you prefer that the item becomes useful rather than sit in a landfill somewhere near your town or city?