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Several years ago, two MIT graduate students conducted an experiment to restore data from 158 second-hand computer disk drives that they bought from online auctions. They were able to recover 5,000 credit card numbers, detailed medical records, personal emails and even corporate ledgers from 129 of the drives. Three drives contained the details of years' worth of banking transactions. A test by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology produced similar results, with all kinds of personal information like resident registration numbers pouring from second-hand computers.
Ēš A U.S. security company managed to recover 27,000 pages of personal information from 10 used cell phones. Second-hand PCs and cell phones often contain bank account numbers and passwords needed for online banking transactions and stock dealings. That means carelessly tossing out a cell phone or a computer can be like allowing people to steal money from your bank account. Information stored on hard disks is often not fully deleted.
Ēš When you delete a file by putting it in your computer's Trash Can or Recycle Bin, only the physical "address" of the file on the hard disk is removed. The data still exist. Even formatting a hard disk does not erase the data storage section, it only deletes the addresses where information resides. Most data can be restored with software that is easily available on the Internet. "Low formatting" is the de-facto only way to completely erase a hard disk and make it as clean as if it had just come from the factory. However this process is time consuming and can destroy the hard disk.
Ēš There are other ways of obscuring data, such as writing over files with meaningless data after an ordinary formatting. According to the security standards of the U.S. Defense Department, information from dumped computers is considered unrecoverable only after it has been blanketed with garbage files seven times. But research shows that only by covering files 36 times is data restoration fully impossible. Of course breaking the hard disk into pieces or melting it down can do it, too.
Embryonic cell research pioneer Hwang Woo-suk was disgraced after decisive evidence proving he had fabricated research results was found in "deleted" files on his laptop. The recent talk of the town is prosecutors' success in recovering deleted emails between Chief Presidential Secretary for National Policy Byeon Yang-kyoon and former Dongguk University assistant professor Shin Jeong-ah. Prosecutors restored emails from Shin's computer while investigating the scandal of Shin's bogus academic credentials and Byeon's attempts to protect her. Shin apparently tried to cover up Byeon's involvement by deleting the emails several times. But experts employed by prosecutors succeeded in recovering 100 email love letters between the two, containing explicit messages.
Computers might be thought of as a kind of Pandora's box, capable of revealing everything about their owners and leading to their utter ruin. For those who want to hide the truth, there can be few bigger headaches than computers.
This column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Kim Ki-cheon.
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