Since 1995 I have been re-cycling computers from all kinds of places.I began with going to a car boot sale in the car park of a closing down hospital.I noticed a building in the grounds with a sign saying-"medical books for sale".And there were.But i also noticed a stack of computers.I asked about them.They were surprised anyone would be interested,remember this was 1995 and old stuff was 286 and old apple.I was introduced to the "caretaker".He had much more to show me.He had a better class of out of service machines.I say out of service.Not out of use.These were top of the range at the time 486 co-pros.I knew what they were.But our caretaker friend was an Apple man.So he had no idea.I bought 22 computers for 19 quid,it was 20 but after the boot i only had 19.So i take them and start to look at them.No ones medical records were deleted.I had.I had 44 hard drives with 20 os and 20 databases of names and addresses.If only i knew then what i know now.I wanted to make my profit,and i am not a rich man.I wanted just to have some good cash for once.So i did an unconditional format with the forward slash u..Telling myself,i remember it well -this is stuff that needs deleting.Peoples medical records should not be available to anyone but their doctor.Though my real motive was money,I openly confess to that.Now i kinow i could have sold them to a national newspaper for thousands then.Now i would not do that.So theres a turnup for if i knew then what i know now.But i would have shown the people involved,with some media they had agreed for publicity purpose what was on them.
Thats not the end of the story of the recycling of hard disks.
I continued in this new and ,not over profitable occupation for some more years.And i found more sources of them.One was the local skips.For some reason,known only to those who dump them.A lot of people dump nearly new pc's.When i first cottoned on to this those working in such places had no re-cycling proceedure.So i was on a boom time.Then they noticed that i took them and took the time to see why.So i had to pay a small,illegal fee.That was even better.I now had them making sure all pc stuff was put to one side.So i got the lot,anything in the crusher was pulled out for me.And i never ever once said a word.
Then one day i got some stuff from them with some software abandonned by ............police.with some papers in .txt form saying why."Too complicated for officers to understand".Being a nosey swine i could not resist looking.I won't name the company,and they were good at there job,joe plod was'nt.
But it was forensic recovery software.It was actually very simple to use.But at the time,in my area not many had pc's never mind being savvy.I think i put more cheap computers about than any aid agency.(sorry bout that ownsong)Naturally i began to use said software on all the computers i got that day.Stupid of them to throw away the pc with the software on it.But they were not stupid enough to throw away the machine with any results,or attempts..Then on one hard disk i came across some realy nasty stuff.It was impossible for me to connect the computer to anyone.So i began to use it on all of the hard disks of the computers i still had.I had about 350 disks.I found the same or similar stuff on about 21 disks.I had no way of looking back to dates or times.Maybe this is why people throw away what are fairly new pc's.
I still ocationally go and get some.Now it's pentium 4's.Yes with top of the range graphic cards,in the skip.But i don't even bother to unformat the drives.I just boot and nuke them,the best thing. and sell em on at a price your average unemployed single mum with a demanding 10 year old for a fast games computer can pay.60 quid.