How effective IS secure over-writing? 3

[spy1]

Situation: Dad (me) very active politically online - especially as regards out-of-control Executive Branch extension of power

Son - 20 year old normal male, likes porn sites.

Can you tell me whether following the "exit strategy" will be sufficient to make "bad" stuff totally non-recoverable on this SOHO computer?

(Note that Windows is set to clear the swapfile at re-start and Page Defrag from SysInternals - sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html - is set to run automatically at every re-start. SystemRestore is totally dis-abled, as are RemoteRegistry and RemoteDesktop.

All browsers - IE, FireFox, Opera - are set to delete personal data/clear temp files/not remember history for longer than one day/remove d/l history upon exit, etc.)

Run CleanCache v3.2 - buttuglysoftware.com with all options set re: finding/deleting what's found - 35 single wiping passes - with no back-ups permitted. (Covers all three browsers and is actually pretty awesome in and of itself - notwithstanding the fact that it requires the .Net framework).

Run CCleaner v.1.28.277 - ccleaner.com, set likewise except for a seven-wipe max (it's catches a couple of things that CC misses, mainly the jre caches and Windows Update un-install stuff). No logs allowed.

Run Index.dat Suite - support.it-mate.co.uk/?mode=Products&p=index.datsuite - to make absolutely sure all index.dats are found and deleted. (No "back-ups" and all other cleaning functions selected in that, too, although to just "deletes", doesn't multiple-pass over-write). No logs allowed.

Re-start computer.

Run SpyBot Search&Destroy, followed immediately by NTREGOPT and another re-start. No logging allowed.

At that point - having deleted everything I can possibly think of - I start off a single "free-space" wipe with Eraser Version 5.7 - heidi.ie/eraser/ as I'm walking out the door.

(Eraser also does another "free-space" wipe - scheduled - nightly).

Can anyone think of anything I'm missing? Maybe in regard to the .Net Framework stuff? Pete

 

[Kemisco]

Hi all,

I'd like to add to your discusion, if that's alright. This is a long thread that you all have going, but about what Grenage commented on in regard to the press:

"At least ISP's don't give out information to the press, especially over legal things."

The press has access to everything that goes on in e-mail and web browsing. Maybe my comment here will be removed, but nothing here is a lie.

In 2000, after having a computer for a couple of years for only Quickbooks, I went online with it for the first time. I was amazed. Shortly after doing so, I had a ball with e-mail, contacting family and friends. It was really fun. One of my friends started the habit of sending risky and weird e-mail attachments: porn and splattered people on sidewalks after they had jumped from tall buildings. That sort of thing. My fried, Chad, would even stop by my shop, and if I was helping a customer or making a quick delivery in town, he would mess with my computer. He'd change the wallpaper or place an unknown jpeg file on the desktop, which I would have to open to see what it was. It was always porn.

I got pretty upset one day when he forwarded some nasty pictures and I recognized about ten of the other people in the block of addresses. I thought right away, 'that's me in there, too.' That's the first time I ever really thought about forwarding and how stupid it can be. I told him flat-out that I couldn't stop him from sending the stuff, but I didn't need to have my name grouped in with a bunch of his "regular" viewers. He sent a couple e-mails after that, but they weren't forwarded to a bunch of people, just sent to me. One day he finally quit. I saw him in a gas station a short time after that, and he asked about an e-mail attachment that I had sent him; he said his girlfriend was pretty upset. He started to laugh and told me I should check my machine. Sure enough, in my sent folder was an e-mail to him. He was in my shop again, and for quite some time if he had time to do it. He just liked goofing around like that, and it wasn't my salesman's job to watch the shop.

It didn't take long for me to realize, after making several political posts on the Internet, that the media is everywhere and watching. Within a couple of weeks of posting, I started to notice that the topics and subjects of my state's largest newspaper, the Minneapolis StarTribune, reflected my exact e-mail comments and my Internet browsing. I could go to any gas station in town, pick up a morning newspaper, and see all of my Internet and e-mail subjects from the previous day. They were writing their own spin on what I was doing; I was their "idea" man.

The Minneapolis StarTribune is about a 900,000 subscription paper, and here they were hanging on everything that was going on in a one-person print shop. Today, if I'm surfing around the Internet and stumble onto porn, it's the main subject, the next morning, in their paper.

It's been going on for a little over 6 years, now, and I've talked with the FBI on several occasions. Nothing. They won't discuss it, and they will not meet with me.

I just thought I would tell you some absolute truth. I've been in the printing business since I was twelve years old. My dad always said that History is important, but English I needed to be the best at, that is "...if you're going to be in this business, kid." I like what I do for a living, and I'm proud to say that I'm now a politician. A mayor.

You find out what they could possibly want, and tell me. Then we'll both know. There's nothing illegal going on here, and there never was. There's no one policing the media, folks. No one.

Kemisco

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Take your computer outdoors when blowing out the dust; it's mostly skin dust. A clean computer is a cool computer.

 

[Grenage]

Err, are you sure it's just not paranoia combined with a bit of coincidence?


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Kemisco]

Hi Grenage,

No, no coincidence. In fact, the main picture and story on the front page of the Minneapolis StarTribune this morning was of a man with his first and last name so close to mine that, well, you can't get any closer. Something about him wanting to borrow $2 billion from the U.S. Government. His first name was exact, and his last name would be if you just glanced at it.

It would be like this:

"Bill Yates gives his time and money to help children."

"Oh," says a newspaper fella, slapping his knee. "You meant Gates! I get it!"

(laughter explodes through the land.)

Whenever I make a spectical about this stuff, they always drum up a big story involving mega bucks. Like today. There was no time lost at making a similarity for today; I missed their pressroom deadline with my above post, but their next run, for today's paper, worked out just fine for them.

I've never visited the newspaper website, but I just went there for the first time. I wanted to post a link to the story, but I couldn't find it. I saw the other stories that appeared in the paper today, but not the one from the front page.

I have a copy of the paper, if you're at all interested. Probably not. If you are, I can take a picture of it and e-mail it, mail you the actual paper, or scan the front page and e-mail that to you.

I think that they think that I want to be President someday. Mostly, probably, because my birthday is on the 4th of July. That would be neat, but not anymore. Now that my dad's birthday is September 11th. I phrased that differently there, did you notice that? "...now that my dad's birthday is September 11th." Obviously my dad's birth day was first, before September 11, 2001. It's just that now it's hooked up in nasty junk.

The date of October 17th, my sister's birthday, was the turning point last year for "No More Easy Bankruptcy" in the U.S.

You just have to shake your head and say, "Whatever."

Anyway, I have a lot of computer stuff to work with, and plenty of work to do in my shop. I like Tek-Tips because the people are nice and they seem to really know what they're writing. Six years ago I would have fell on the floor if my Windows platform would have become damaged or was no longer operational. Now? I have about twenty hard drives, about twelve computers that could probably make a good nine or ten, software everywhere, and the 'platform boogyman' no longer exists.

I fear nothing. What, is someone going to take away my birthday? Hey, when a birthday is all you have going for you--all that's 'cool' or 'neat'--you've learned a long time ago to get good at a hundred things. I have about a hundred and one.

Thanks for letting me post here and not deleting my comments. I have all kinds of cool pieces to add on just about any subject you can imagine.

Kemisco

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Take your computer outdoors when blowing out the dust; it's mostly skin dust. A clean computer is a cool computer.

 

[paintballer]

Wow, long thread.
Pete, you can also use BartPE, which is a win32 live cd, so you can package most of your normal windows apps into it, and it'll all be gone when you reboot. Unless you actively save something to the disk of course. Or you could use vmware's player application, along with their browser appliance.

BartPE:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

VMware Player:

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

VMware Browser Appliance:

http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html

SandboxIE may also help:

http://www.sandboxie.com/

Good stuff...

P

 

[spy1]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread.

The situation has basically resolved itself since we've moved (minus son), so I'll give a look at the apps mentioned. But at this point, I have no need for them anymore. Pete

 

[Grenage]

Bit drastic wasn't it? Wouldn't the applications have been easier? /wink


Carlsberg don't run I.T departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[spy1]

Not really - I actually enjoyed all the convoluted "solutions" involved (not to mention all the learning involved) - and my computer's never run quicker and less problem-free. Pete

 

[Auger282]

sorry.. but if I was on a jury.. and someone said you did something... and followed it up that you took all this effort to cover your tracks on the computer (regardless of what you were doing on it) I would still be suspicious.

Sometimes having a computer full of porn and nothing else could back up your story that it wasn't you.