MemeMachineGo!

Speaking of wiping hard drives, I came across Microsoft’s peculiar advice on the subject:

Don’t want a big hassle? Give the computer to a trusted employee, friend or family member.

This is sort of like protecting yourself from STD’s by only having sex with nice girls and/or boys. Your employee, friend, or family member could be wholly trustworthy, but unaware of the issues, and could later pass on the computer, still with your recoverable data, to someone else.

Reformatting a disk prepares it to accept a new operating system. It also wipes out everything on the hard drive. That’s your goal.

This is false. Reformatting does not wipe out everything. The author goes on to (correctly) contradict herself.

Reformatting will keep most people out of your old files. But specialized shareware exists to reclaim files after reformatting. If you do not know who will get the computer — or you do know and you don’t trust them — stronger measures are required.

The stronger measures:

Buy software and overwrite the disk, again and again and again. If you don’t know much about computers, this might be easier than [reformatting the drive.]

Despite leading with “buy software,” one of the programs she mentions is actually free!

You’re totally paranoid, so get out the acetylene torch.

No arguments here.

So, basically, we have two approaches that are extremely ineffective, and two that are extremely effective presented as being on a continuum of practical approaches. The article even allows as to how wiping the hard drive is easier than reformatting the hard drive and re-installing an OS. At the very bottom, the author personally recommends wiping the hard drive.

So why, why, why are the first two on the list? Why the language suggesting they could be adequate?