How did the DEA read my E-mail?

[sk*]

reformating the disk will get rid of everything and then do a clean install of you operating system.

You're wrong, please don't spread nonsence.

-sk

 

[MrMakaveli]

Temporary Internet Files hold simply a record of the sites visited or the cookies from those sites. If the cookies were used to gain access to your private email accounts or other private things, you have a case against them for intrusion of your privacy. You may want to contact the owner of 2600.com who seemingly loves to fight government intrusion into privacy. Good luck man.

 

[DeepZenPill]

If you want complete destruction of any incriminating evidence you must sacrifice everything on the hard drive. There are several tools for this job which you can find if you look hard enough. They'll rewrite over the entire harddrive several times with garbage data and make it unfeasible for such a small investigation to uncover anything. I've had a friend successfully use such tools when under investigation twice. His offenses were not enough to warrant the cost of more advanced investigation. If you're a big time case on the other hand, they would obviously go through much more effort to retrieve the data.

 

[manny78]

ulter is right. The only way to really get rid of the info on your hard drive (and I'm serious) is to melt it. remove your hard disk, put in an iron bucket or something similar. Drop some kerosen (or anything that can bring high temperature) and there you go. As long as you can reach 600 degrees Celsius you're Ok.

 

[Baby Gorilla]

That's the key....

Let me make this clearer. NOTHING will keep the technicians at IBM Labs from removing your disk in a clean room from the drive, removing the layers one at a time, and retreiving any information that was ever put on the drive. NOTHING.
....Your local prosecutor probably won't spend that much time and money to do this. But it CAN be done.

That's all it comes down to. A very good sanitation program will eradicate the data so most common efforts won't get it back. However, you gamble that they don't want the info bad enough to spend the $$$ for it.

In your case, it sounds like most of their case is built on what they found in your house. If you did the HD right, they wouldn't bother spending the $$$ since they had enough without it. If they suspected bigger things, they might pay out for it.

 

[John G]

Wait a second.

First off what you do next time is remove the partition and format. Defrag and Disk Cleanup doesn't do it. Or Clean up temp internet folder. Secondly, in order to recover the data you need to bring the drive to a recovery center. Which costs lots of money. Who knows if they take it that far. Third even if you physically damage the drive, chances of them recovering it and brining it to a recovery center and retrieving data is also good. They can recover drives that have been submerged in water and exposed to prolonged heat and fire. The extent of recover depends on how much damage. If you open the drive and stratching the metal plates would do the trick.

 

[MrMakaveli]

Just use PGP to encrypt your hard-drive..if they actually take the time to break it, more power to them.

 

[TraxZBT]

What about a really strong magnet near the hard drive... Heard from some computer techs that this would wreak havoc on all the information within it.

 

[manny78]

What about a really strong magnet near the hard drive... Heard from some computer techs that this would wreak havoc on all the information within it.

It's a lottery. It could work on 20, 50, 70 or even 100% of the HD surface...... burn it. It's the only way.

 

[oneandthesame]

get yourself a propane torch.
remove harddrive from your tower.
proceed to torch till completely melted.
evidence eliminated (unlike the program by a similar name)