FBI....Oh my!!.....lol

[haraam77]

Just out of curiosity sake. I f the FBI were to seize a computer during a raid.....I heared they can retrieve any info off of it even if u have tried to erase it. Is this true?

[nabylbt]

depnads what the dude did to its pc.... if you send a emc sockwave trough it, you won't get much.... if he has an explosif rigged to the case, same thing, but make sure the charge is big enough ( i'm pretty sure i read something about some finnish? agency recovering data from a burned hd)
if it is encrypted, it depands on the type, strenght of the scheme used, but they'll get through
otherwise they 'll get everything for sure... when you delete a file, the os, usualy, just erase the filename's location and not the data itself...
so you got to use a shredder (norton's got one i'm not sure what it's worth) a shredder will overwrite the data several times (at least 7 ?) so run twice and that's it...

[smirc]

Hmmm, why would the FBI want to raid your computer? Are you doing something you shouldn't?

[Remote_Access_]

If the FBI or any other agency takes your computer they can find ANY information that is on there. Your computer is like a tape recorder. It recordes everything that you do. All of your activities. Damn near every thing that you've ever done on your box can be traced. It depends on how old the information is.. but yeah, they can.

Remote_Access_

[morfius]

Hrms...everything? I knew it just deletes the file location, but after a while wouldn't your system just overwrite that sector, therefore making the previous data on it unrecoverable?

[haraam77]

Alrighty then, thank u all for the interesting replies....sheds some light on the subject. And, by the way "smirc".....the FBI would not want to take my pc. Also, did I even say such a thing?

[gold eagle]

Hey RA are you back? Wasn't today the ....day?

[wab73]

ra, getting a bit paranoid ???

a lowlevel format gets rid of any data.
(or get a tool that rewrites all sectors... )

btw... ever used encryption ??

[llipschutz]

RA, are you sure about that "everything" comment? A few low-level formats (writing zeros to the entire drive) should erase prettymuch any trace of anything. . . Or so I have believed. . .

[k41d3r07h]

ahhh, the beauty of linux....unless I'm mistaken the shred command first overwrites the contents then hides it from the OS, that way it's securely deleted..