While it may be true that older media are easier to recover data from, we mustn't forget that modern hard drives remap bad sectors. You cannot get to the remapped sectors from your OS, so you can't overwrite those. Therefore, there is a probability that classified, readable information exists on a hard disk drive if you have the proper tools. Physically destroying the disk is thus called for.
Actually, I think what is needed here is data management. Storing your data for a long time is one problem (which can be solved by re-storing your data on other, and, very important _the at that time newest format_ devices), the other problem is you need to re-store your data in the file formats du jour, ie import it in an application and save it in the then current file format.
Further I fail to see how the point and click method of configuration is better than editing a text file than can be searched, backed up and version controlled.
Then you're not looking hard enough. In fact, you must be not looking at all to not see the obvious benefits of nicely-layouted GUIs. I'm fairly sure you've heard the term "user interface design", so why are you ignoring what dozens of highly intelligent people have been teaching for decades? Besides: Just having a GUI for editing config files doesn't take away your favourite way of editing them or whatever you wish.
How about putting a little work into understanding and using a Linux distribution.
Nothing against that, but every learning curve has its optimum steepness. Before you can learn to properly edit config files, you first need to:
be aware of their existance (!)
know their location
know how to start a usable text editor as superuser
All of which are non-obvious things for first-time Linux users, IMO. And you still wonder why Linux distributions aren't more popular than they currently are?:-/
I call this B.S. Most GUI applications have their own interface to configure them. You don't need to know that their configuration is stored in ~/.app-config or in the registry or whatever. Actually, if you're told to edit the windows registry because there's a problem you always get the warning 'Only do this if you know what you're doing', indicating Joe L. User does not need, repeat, does NOT need to do this. If you're talking about editing `server' configuration files I bloody hope you know what you are doing. It would be a shame if you mess up your companies' dns server.
You assume that governments will always act benignly. History shows they don't. You also assume that the presence of DNA and identifying the person whose DNA it is can solve all crimes. Well, if you think a bit about this for a second, you'll see this is wrong.
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You put it more eloquently than I could possibly do. Thanks.
While it may be true that older media are easier to recover data from, we mustn't forget that modern hard drives remap bad sectors. You cannot get to the remapped sectors from your OS, so you can't overwrite those. Therefore, there is a probability that classified, readable information exists on a hard disk drive if you have the proper tools. Physically destroying the disk is thus called for.
Actually, I think what is needed here is data management. Storing your data for a long time is one problem (which can be solved by re-storing your data on other, and, very important _the at that time newest format_ devices), the other problem is you need to re-store your data in the file formats du jour, ie import it in an application and save it in the then current file format.
If you're looking for help desk workers you may be right. For more intellectually demanding jobs, a PhD here or there might prove more beneficial.
Further I fail to see how the point and click method of configuration is better than editing a text file than can be searched, backed up and version controlled.
Then you're not looking hard enough. In fact, you must be not looking at all to not see the obvious benefits of nicely-layouted GUIs. I'm fairly sure you've heard the term "user interface design", so why are you ignoring what dozens of highly intelligent people have been teaching for decades? Besides: Just having a GUI for editing config files doesn't take away your favourite way of editing them or whatever you wish.
How about putting a little work into understanding and using a Linux distribution.
Nothing against that, but every learning curve has its optimum steepness. Before you can learn to properly edit config files, you first need to:
All of which are non-obvious things for first-time Linux users, IMO. And you still wonder why Linux distributions aren't more popular than they currently are? :-/
I call this B.S. Most GUI applications have their own interface to configure them. You don't need to know that their configuration is stored in ~/.app-config or in the registry or whatever. Actually, if you're told to edit the windows registry because there's a problem you always get the warning 'Only do this if you know what you're doing', indicating Joe L. User does not need, repeat, does NOT need to do this. If you're talking about editing `server' configuration files I bloody hope you know what you are doing. It would be a shame if you mess up your companies' dns server.
You assume that governments will always act benignly. History shows they don't. You also assume that the presence of DNA and identifying the person whose DNA it is can solve all crimes. Well, if you think a bit about this for a second, you'll see this is wrong.
I think the issue here is that the LHC is *large*, several orders of magnitude larger than an MRI.
Looks a lot like PVM, doesn't it.
peter