RIDDLER PART 3

Certain information is kept in log files, and in certain instances this could be embarrassing - particularly to the paranoid. Since the same Windows used on a home machine must be useful on a network with a hundred machines, it is not too difficult to justify most of the logs. Most of these logs are in binary files, which the casual sneak probably can't read. Most of these log files can probably be deleted (but will start compiling again at the next boot-up). The key point to remember is that anyone who can access your machine can (if determined) access your data.

"Deleting" a file merely erases the first byte in the cluster (The first letter of the file name). This tells the disk controller that it is free to use this cluster to write new stuff. It is relatively simple to "undelete" the file by substituting any non-null character in this space - untill something else has been written there. For all practical purposes, a good defrag will move everything around enough to make recovery impractical.

It is conceded that Windows and IE do a pretty sloppy job of cleaning up when you tell it to delete temps and such, but this is a compromise between actually deleting everything and deleting what "probably isn't wanted." The program just isn't very smart. But then if it's not smart enough to delete the "right stuff," how do we expect it to be smart enought to "save and hide just the embarassing stuff?"

John