ERASING HARDDRIVE MAY NOT DO IT
Two MIT graduate students, Simson Garfinkel and Abhi Shelat bought 158 used hard drives at secondhand computer stores and on eBay. "Of the 129 drives that functioned, 69 still had recoverable files on them and 49 contained 'significant personal information' - medical correspondence, love letters, pornography and 5,000 credit card numbers. One even had a year's worth of transactions with account numbers from a cash machine in Illinois."

They suggest that "the only sure way to erase a hard drive is to 'squeeze' it: writing over the old information with new data - all zeros, for instance - at least once, but preferably several times. A one-line command will do that for Unix users, and for others, inexpensive software from companies such as AccessData works well."

I have an even more thorough approach. The last time I threw a computer away I removed the hard drive and spent 5 minutes hammering it into little pieces. Not only did it remove any possibility that someone might get my secure information but it also felt good. Computer therapy.