This Is Why I Let My Old Phones, Pcs, Etc. Lay Around The House Forever.

I've always been paranoid about these types of occurrences as well and it also is partly why I don't sell my used gadgets. However, admittedly, it's more due to the fact that I probably won't get much out of my old gadgets by selling the second hand and the amount I'd get for the time I'd be spending just doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

ID theft is big and you do have to be very careful about how you put your information out there. No matter how careful you are you can still be hacked. You want to check your information on a regular basis to make sure your ID is still in one piece and not being used by someone else.

 

I have 3 laptops and 3 phones in my house and am always getting flyers through asking for old ones to 'buy for parts' and I simply can't do it. I'd rather take a hammer to them and dispose of them in pieces that are unusable and not salvageable than potentially sell my identity for a few pounds.

 

The one I sold was a windows phone, so I guess I'm safe there. I sold a netbook, but didn't use that for much besides game playing and pretty pictures. I also sold a laptop, but it was one my friend had given me to sell, because she dropped it the day she bought it, but hadn't bothered to return it or have it fixed via the warranty. I actually made $70 on that sale, yay.

I have done as @Natalie89 mentioned, and hammered my other hard drives and phones. My back porch is a concrete slab, so I just put on my safety glasses, and hammer away out there whenever I (or a loved one) has a phone or hard drive that needs to be destroyed.

 

Wow that's interesting, I have not read about that one yet on phones.
I know it can happen with old computer hard drives too.
Thing is to know what is actually going on when you hit delete or reset the phone. It doesn't actuallly "delete" anything. What it does is it takes the space where the information is stored and changes it's status from read-only to read/write. Then the data will only be "deleted" when you save something over.
it. Luckily there are actually a lot of programs you can get that will "nuke" the drive.
PLEASE don't just hammer away at your old electronics in your backyard and throw them out. Computers contain a mix of toxic chemicals and need to be disposed of properly. If you are really worries why don't you just remove the hard drives and recycle the rest of the computer? Hard drives are small you could just keep them in a shoe box somewhere then you don't have to worry about your data.

 

Wow, that's scary! It has never occurred to me that once you've wiped all your data from devices, you could still be open to identity fraud because the data is still accessible. I think it would probably be best to just destroy the gadgets yourself and not sell them on. You'll probably have to get the most use out of them, use them to within an inch of their life, and then destroy them!

 

One of the first things I learned in my computing life is that deleting data doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gone. It’s one reason I never bothered selling or recycling old computers. But I’d definitely rather nuke an old hard drive, or remove it and keep it, rather than destroy it. Maybe I ought to do that with the couple of old laptops I have sitting around, and then see about taking them to a recycling center…

 

I have never sold anything, I have given a few phones to friends, but yes, the data can be stored on them so I have a house full or rather my parents do of old phones and computers.

If you only sent texts then you can wipe those, but other things can still be retrieved. I wouldn't destroy them either as what's the point? It takes a lot of effort to charge up a phone and then look for data and if the battery is dead, it may not even happen if you have no chargers for it.

 

So true, because I was a victim of identity thief. Its a horrible thing to experience, and a big hassle to overcome. You have to really be careful with how you handle your information. I watch people use the internet (especially social media) and tell all their personal business. I do make it my business to watch my information very closely.

 

You always got to nuke your old hard drives before disposing them off. Formatting your hard drive 7 times over completely wipes out all the data on your hard drive and is the military standard. You can't simply delete files and wish to have erased your information.

 

Fox News? Really? You believe Fox News?

Why am I not surprised to see them trying to frighten people?

If you clean your phone or computer right then you are good to go unless the person who gets hold of your phone or computer has specialised equipment to retrieve data that only the police should have.

 

I always thought reformatting does the job of wiping your data. I tried to recover the data in a memory card that I just formatted, but no data was recovered. I doubt that most people who buy 2nd hand phones are interested to steal your identity, and I agree that most laymen wouldn't have the means to extract such confidential data so it's not that alarming, at least for me.

 

Thank you for that, I have an Android. I'll be smashing, dicing, stabbing, drowning, shredding and incinerating mine when I'm done with it. I'm usually paranoid about these things anyway.. when it comes to technology that ever learns my personal information, I treat it like a little traitor waiting to make it's move lol.

 

If you really want to dispose of your old gadgets and old pc but are too worried that your identity might be compromised, The best way to do it is to totally destroy these things and throw the refuse for scrap. Beat them in such a way that they'll be useless to anybody. I'm not sure how good today's e-pirates are though.

 

Use a drive wiper. The 35 pass Gutman method makes it almost impossible for anyone to recover data from that drive.

Of course there's a possibility that some very smart people could still recover the overwritten data but the exercise would be very costly. No one buying a used device would want to spend that sort of money so they can recover data from your device.

 

When it comes to old devices with personal data on it I tend to keep them and let them gather dust in the attic. I've always had this fear of data and identify theft before and reading the news article made me more paranoid than before. I think when ti comes to hard drives the only way to clear the data off is for you to write zeros all over the sectors, burn the drive, smash it with a hammer and dump it on a lake or something.

 

Well, I never thought of that problem with phones. I guess it could be an issue. They even have gathering places for phones at the mall where they can be recycled and cash issued. I don't think you get anything near what your phone is worth, but yes, someone could steal your information I guess. I never thought of that!

 

This may sound silly to some, but when I get a new cell phone, I smash the old one and take it apart. I then throw away pieces of it each week or two so that the whole cell phone could never be put back together and used to steal my identity. I just read an article recently about how even when people smash and destroy their cell phones, forensic tools can still be used to extract information from them. I am not sure if cell phone stores have data cleaners or anything that they could use to wipe your old phones.

 

I just clear the data on my phone uninstalling stuff if I want to sell it. It's too much of a hassle to do all that for a few dollars. I agree. Most people who buy second hand phones don't really care and if a person does they don't have the capability to do it.
Also the way I see it is we are already being "watched". By simply just browsing the internet you are at risk. There are hackers and government watching all the time whether you smash the phone or not so why bother going to extremes. I am paranoid when it comes to my computer but usually a phone that I would try to sell doesn't have as much to worry about.