Before I leave my job, how do I make sure all private info is erased? Besides written documents, and other “easy to see” things I wish to remove. How am I assured that any “remember this password”, credit cards and other info are erased?
Thanks.
That information is nearly always stored in cookies. Clear your cookies and temp files, and you should be ok. Also, if you can, be sure to clear the AutoComplete cache as well–this won’t save passwords, normally, but it sure as heck will store CC numbers. Of course, a system administrator can probably still get to that information, depending on how the system is set up, but a casual user can’t.
Open computer.
Remove hard drive.
Now all you have to worry about is their backups.
Maybe a small missle targeting the IT Department?
Of course they probably do an off-site weekly backup to a storage facility elsewhere in the city.
OK, a tactical nuke, then.
Hmm, I notice you don’t list a location…
Please waste your time elsewhere Ahunter3.
Behind the ribbing, there’s some serious in that post. You asked how to make sure all the data you’d want to keep private is not left behind in the hands of your soon-to-be-former employer.
Mostly you can’t.
In most companies, rest assured that they will “re-ghost” your hard drive, not so much for your protection as for starting new folks off with a totally standard computer.
It is possible that things on your computer have been backed up elsewhere… and you can’t do anything about that. However, a new person in your cube or using your old computer won’t be able to get to that.
One thing you can do, after erasing everything, is to install and then uninstall a large program a few dozen times. That will overwrite all your data, probably.
Unfortunately, lots of firms don’t allow employees to install and uninstall anything. Only IT can do that. As long as you get everything off your local hard drive, you should be ok. Any personal documents you have archived on the netword, you should just delete the contents if you do not have the permissions necessary to delete the document itself.
Delete caches, temp files, and cookies. If on a network, look for your user profile and see if you can delete the folder. That’s where most personal information is kept.