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Man Finds Divorce Papers, Tax Docs On "New" Laptop
An anonymous reader writes "25-year-old Hidayat Sudirman found that his new laptop came loaded with more than just the usual software, it also contained 10GB of someone else's documents. From the article: "A buyer on the lookout for a new laptop got more than he bargained for at his local computer fair when the 'new' device came loaded with over 10GB of personal documents — including divorce papers and tax returns."
I think I saw an article a while back that IBM was going to add even more bloatware and start including "starter docs" to take the guess work out of creating day-to-day files and records. That's not personal data, those are "templates".
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It could have been any one of us who sold their laptop to some guy who sells laptops at an IT fair in Singapore!
Let
The article pushes the use of TrueCrypt rather heavily, but while it is nice for most people on a Mac it's a lot easier to just turn on FileVault (which stores your whole home directory in an encrypted disk image) and then make sure you require a login when you wake the computer.
I believe there's also a similar solution for Windows. In general it's better to promote the solution that works and is most likely to get used.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hopefully most Slashdotters would at least make a minimal effort at wiping personal data off of any computer before selling it on.
which is totally what she said
1 - The seller got his hand on a bunch of identical, lightly-used machines and decided to resell 'em as "new". Creep.
---or
2 - The seller imaged a bunch of boxes from a used machine (with the end in view of not having to register/activate multiple copies of Windows) - i.e., the seller is pushing a pirated version of Windows with his new machines. Creep.
If we're going to mention specific OSes that have encryption built in, then I'll add Ubuntu and Windows Vista/7* to your list.
* probably just the more expensive versions, I'm not sure though
which is totally what she said
I just got a "new" Boxee Box from Amazon that had some one's name in the accounts. To bad he didn't subscribe to Netflix. How come big business can sell used things as new?
If I return something. It should never be able to be sold as new again!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
My fear with using BitLocker (win) or FileVault (mac) is that if for whatever reason my computer stops booting I won't be able to get in and get my files back. If you leave your files unencrypted you can usually just use a boot cd or worst case plug the drive in to another computer to save your files. Before anyone says it yes I do back up regularly, but you never know
However, with TrueCrypt you get a file which is a disc image that can be opened on any system as long as you have the TrueCrypt software and the password. So I throw all my general stuff on the drive unencrypted and sensitive stuff (passwords, financial data, etc) in a TrueCrypt file.
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Trying to fix or change something only guarantees and perpetuates it's existence
With FileVault, you can recover your files on any Macintosh system. (You could technically recover your files on any system, but I don't know if anyone's written a sparsebundle reader for other OSes.)
Your home directory is, in fact, stored as a OS-X-specific disk image (sparsebundle) encrypted with your passphrase. It's not tightly bound to your particular computer or user account, except that the passphrase is required to be the same as your login password.
The divorce papers spelt his own name. That futuristic laptop, top-spec and top-notch in every possible detail, was actually a gift from the future. And after reading through some pages of the divorce settlement, he called his fiancée and cancelled the marriage.
As if by magic, the laptop was now empty. He would not be able to show the nifty features of Office 2018 to his office mates.
In Vista and 7, yes, it is in the ultimate version and is called bitlocker.
Windows Vista
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/products/compare
Windows 7
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Sure -- a library. But how many libraries of congress would it hold?
I worked in the IT department for a company, and we ordered a couple of laptops for evaluation from CDW. One of the laptops was defective (the lid closure switch didn't work). So I sent it back and got a replacement. A week later, we ordered a dozen laptops. In that shipment was the defective one I had sent back, still in the same box I shipped back in (I had torn the box trying to get the box open). Needless to say, a nasty phone call was made to our sales rep and he overnighted a replacement and they never asked for the defective unit back. I kept the defective unit as my desktop.
Yeah no kidding. This is like me buying a car stereo from a guy who walked up to me a gas station and then recoiling in shock when it already has a cd in it. A better title for this article should be "Newsflash: Sometimes People Steal Things"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8D1e3kD4W8
Although my main issue with this ad is you'd really give some flunkies at Staples access to your tax files? REALLY??!?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
This was bought at a computer fair give me a break. Retailers selling returned stuff as new, not a surprise, definitely illegal. Manufacturers pulling it, extremely illegal. I had a friend that bought a "new" external hard drive only to find that it was loaded with someone else's photos, tax returns, etc. We believe that was the manufacturer buying refurb drives to install in the external case. Does that constitute a "new" product?
I do this - what you do is take your data, and make a copy of it. The second copy is your key. Then you XOR the plain text and the key together, just like a one-time-pad encryption method. This leaves you with a giant file that's all 0s. You can then compress down to almost nothing and save it to disk. The last step is to store your key somewhere. If someone gets that compressed, encrypted file, I can guarantee that as long as you keep your key safe, they won't be able to decrypt it.
The article pushes the use of TrueCrypt rather heavily, but while it is nice for most people on a Mac it's a lot easier to just turn on FileVault (which stores your whole home directory in an encrypted disk image) and then make sure you require a login when you wake the computer.
The last time I looked (which was fairly recently), FileVault conflicted with Time Machine in that TM would only back up your home directory while you were actually logged out of the machine if you had FileVault enabled. Is that still the case?
Reference to an example discussion of the issue: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa;jsessionid=49AFF6673807DC58FD81B4150F261932.node0?messageID=11535839&
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That is unfortunately true but you can make TM actually back up your files and not the sparsebundle (which means it will back-up while you are logged in):
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100123173425191
Sadly not something you could easily direct a normal person to do, as an encrypted laptop with an un-encrypted backup is the ideal situation for most users.
Also I would kind of worry how fast you could recover if you had tricked TM in that way, it seems like the process would be a lot more hands-on than normal as you would probably restore, set up FileVault in a new users, and then copy in the backed-up user directory into it. But if you know enough to get it to work you could get the data back out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hidayat Sudirman, a 25 year old civil servant from Singapore, bought a 14-inch Asus laptop from a stand at his local IT fair on the understanding that it was a brand-new device. When he got it home, however, it appeared not to be the case.
So he didn't buy this at a store or from Dell/HP/whatever. He bought it at an IT fair in Singapore and they LIED and said it was new?
This is news?
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
That's quite a lot for a single individual to amass in a (presumably) short period of time between buying and returning a computer. I think they perhaps mean 10 gigs in personal files alltogether. If the previous user imported their music library, photo albums, video*cough*porn*cough*, then that's easy enough. Documents alone would be surprising, tho.
If it's porn then hopefully they'll at least wipe the machine down with a cloth to remove any "personal data"..
which is totally what she said