The day will come when your shiny new laptop is no longer an asset but
instead surplus inventory to be disposed of. You will have spent many
years protecting your laptop and especially the information contained
within. The most value in your laptop is the information on it -- your
files, your personal history, your research data, your private
correspondence, etc. Be very careful how you dispose of your laptop.
- Criminals and hackers will purchase surplus equipment and scour
them for valuable information that are recorded on the filing
systems. E.g. many web browsers save form data, passwords and
much more.
- Removing user accounts, documents and settings for those
accounts, etc. is not sufficient. A determined hacker can find
remnants on your filing system -- when a file is "deleted" the
contents remain on the physical media.
- At a bare minimum surplus equipment should be thoroughly wiped
clean (there are security standards requiring multiple writes of
the entire file system) and restored to a clean vendor provided
image. Colleagues recommend Darik's Boot and Nuke -- a
self-contained boot disk to securely wipe the hard disks of most
computers.
- Some organizations, with high-security requirements, insist that
the physical media be destroyed -- a replacement disk for a
typical laptop costs very little, the old disk in a surplus
system is worth very little (apart from the information on it).
- Make sure that you surplus your equipment through proper channels
where these issues are dealt with (check that your channels are
doing it correctly). When all else fails, destroy the laptop instead
of selling as surplus.
- When you need to return a laptop for service, some components or
the entire system may be disposed of, so prepare appropriately. Insist
that everything be returned.
The above applies as well when you pass equipment on to others (to
colleagues, to friends or family). Who knows how they will guard your
secrets?
