curious computer privacy questions

#1. Does a computer keep track of what files, videos, audios, and documents you write on a cd or disk, if so, how do i delete the traces

#2. Even though you delete files, videos, audios, and documents, does your computer still keep a trace of them, if so, how do you get rid of them perminantly

 

Woo... paranoid. As far as I know the computer does not keep a trace of what you have burnt to a CD unless of course you have made an image of the CD before you burned it. All the files on your computer are stored on the hard drive. If you delete them in windows you are only deleting them from the 'windows environment' as such. This means that they are still on your hard drive but not recognised by windows. They 'linger' there until they are overwritten. Even if you format your hard drive the files can still be there and this is how paedophiles have been caught, not mentioning any names *cough* Gary Glitter *cough*. All this being said the only real way to get rid of any incriminating evidence is to use a program such as Killdisk and run around 10 passes on it . Of course this is far too much effort. If what you have is really that bad then consider smashing up your hard drive with a hammer, placing on a roaring fire, melt it with acid and book a one way flight to Peru.

How do I know this?? no I don't touch children ... at the place I used to work at we had some old government laptops come in and we were ordered to get rid of all data.... and yes it was a pain in the arse.

 

In addition to my last reply I should mention that if you delete files from windows then you shouldn't really worry about people being able to find them, your typical user wont, unless they feel like breaking out some expensive software and trawling your hard drive for a few days (which I doubt they would do)

It's best not to be too paranoid with computers, there is too much fear surrounding privacy and hackers these days. If you have downloaded porn or some pirate software then I wouldn't get too hung up about it because everyone does it ....except me of course

 

Wow thas really crazy lol

 

lol sure u dont ... its just im probably going to take my computer to my uncle to put in a new video card once i find a good one, and he likes to snoop through my computer, and he is good with computers so im hesitant

 

Well, put the videocard in yourself, it really isn't that difficult
Remove the drivers for the videocard, shut down computer, remove old videocard, install new videocard, install new drivers, job's done

 

Well if all the stuff you dont want him to see is on CD and not on the HDD I wouldn't worry too much. Installing a new video card takes about 10 minutes from start to finish so if you're stood next to him he isn't gonna go snooping
Like fleppen just said, you could probably install it yourself.

Your uncle probably has more dodgy stuff on his computer anyway

 

well im not to familiar with the inside of a computer, i have a see thru side, and neon type light inside so i can see, but i tryed to open the computer the other day to clean out the dust but after taken out a few screws i decided not to because i didnt know what i was doing, and hes going to snoop regardless if im looking or not and im pretty sure my mother is going to be on his side with the situation

 

Well, just erase your internet history if you've got something to hide and he won't find it

 

Or of course,this is the easiest way of doing things... simply say you were looking for a music video of your favorite band, you went to the website, which had nothing bad on it and say pop ups started coming up (ones for casinos and online dating/chatting) and say your restarted your comp and thought everything was fine. (claim you didnt think about spyware if asked, since they were just pop ups) it worked for a friend i know (definitely NOT me) but thats if your talking about ya know.... if its a game dont worry, unless EA made it, they'll hunt you down...

 

lol thanx