Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Wipe Files for Security

There are different categories of files. The first one is the important type in which we often read, edit or copy. Another is the unimportant files which can either remain or be removed from the hard disk drive. They do not have direct effect on us whether they are present or missing. In fact, there are some cases that we do not even know that they exist. Third is the significant file but should be removed in the drive due to some privacy issues. So now that you have secured a copy of your file in which others cannot access, you choose to delete files permanently. What you do not know is that these files are not actually removed unless you wipe files.
When you wipe files, you counter what is known as data remanence, which denotes the residual representation of a file or a document that remains even if a user has chosen to delete files permanently. This is exactly what happens when we press DEL on our keyboard or when we hit the Yes button to continue the transfer of files to the Recycle Bin. Whether we like it or not, the file that we may have deleted is actually left intact even though we cannot get a trace of it. The truth is, if a computer hacker or any experienced computer technician gets access into our computer, he or she can easily retrieve the data that we have just erased.
In this case, we really need to wipe files especially if you want to delete files permanently and also to avoid the risk of anybody else getting their hands on your very important file. Wiping files is just one of the many ways to counter data remanence. You can also format your hard drive but this is quite exhaustive and lengthy. You will eventually need to lose all of your files including the installed applications and saved documents except if you have a backup drive. Then of course there is overwriting in which you can put more documents or files into your computer so that your deleted file will no longer exist. There is also the physical destruction of the hard disk. Surely this is not what you want to do unless you really have a strong reason to do so aside from deleting one file permanently.
Hence, you should really turn to the process of wiping of your documents. The beauty of this method is that you can just download the most appropriate software for your computer. Once installed, you can let it do the whole process of removing the erased docs eternally. Most of these programs make use of the overwriting approach. What they do is that they arranged your files including those that you have already deleted and then instead of using new spaces or sectors, they will utilize those in the used zone. Thus, you have finally deleted files permanently. This is much easier than manually doing so since we do not really know which sectors have been exploited by our machine already.
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