Your Hard Drive Is Spying on You
We do just about everything with our computers -- shopping, gossiping, and, occasionally, actual work. Meanwhile, your hard drive is quietly recording all of it, from Social Security numbers to credit card data to those honeymoon photos you didn't show the in-laws. For the most part, that's a good thing: It's that capacity for instant data retrieval that makes the computer so useful. But for an identity thief, it's a great thing: A whopping third of us leave sensitive information intact when we discard our computers. And even files you've deleted can be easily recovered.
Sometimes, those left-over bits can be valuable clues for crime fighters: The field of digital forensics is revolutionizing detective work say experts, just as DNA evidence did last decade. Watch the above video and step into the high-tech labs of a cutting edge digital forensics firm; learn how investigators reconstruct computer data to solve crimes -- and to win lawsuits. And most importantly, learn how you can delete files so that they're deleted for good. Plus: Recent headlines from the Switched newsroom.
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