On Computers
(a syndicated newspaper column by Universal Press Syndicate) December, 2003 by Bob and Joy Schwabach Original on On Computers website
Ah, Peace and Quiet
The "Acronis Privacy Expert Suite" from Acronis, blocks pop-up ads, erases spyware, prevents downloads of unwanted software, erases passwords from online forms, and shreds data on your hard drive when you want it permanently deleted. This last feature is a business must. We frequently read and hear about cases where someone purchased a used computer, took a look at the files on the hard drive, and... look at that: there's a list of all our clients and how much they spend and whether or not they pay on time. The U.S. Department of Defense standard for destroying computer files is 4X overwrites. That means the file or files should be overwritten with new data, usually some kind of gibberish, four times. This supposedly obscures the buried data to the point where it cannot be recovered. The Acronis Privacy Expert overwrites the files four times and up: pick a number and go as high as 35 times if you wish. Many people believe that simply reformatting the hard drive is sufficient protection against anyone attempting to reconstruct the data. But "Easy Recovery 6.0" from Ontrack is able to recover files from reformatted hard drives fairly quickly. If you overwrite a file 35 times, however, nobody is going to be able to recover it... The "Acronis Privacy Expert Suite 7.0" is $40 from ca.acronis.com. "Easy Recovery 6.0" is $95 on CD, at www.ontrack.com.
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Acronis Inc. Logiciels de sauvegarde.