Entries from May 2008 ↓

I posted this story on a non-technical message board I frequently visit, as a service for some of the users there who might not have a clue on how easy it is to retrieve data from a supposedly-formatted drive. I decided to pass it along here as well. I think privacy is very important, and with the proliferation of electronic devices that store data, it’s getting easier to retrieve information from others.

Here’s a story of some dumb-ass kids who recorded themselves smoking weed on a digital camcorder, returned the camcorder to the store, forgot to erase their tapings (most likely due to said kids smoking weed previously) and the next person who bought the open-box camera from the story posted the videos all over the Internet for all the world to see:

Remember to delete your stuff from electronic equipment if you’re returning it, selling it or giving it away. And even then, be wary of it.

I was once sold a USB flash drive from a friend, and although my buddy deleted the contents, I was able to see what he had their previously before with a freely-available program off the Internet (don’t remember exactly which one right now), out of curiosity. Dude had some… let’s say ‘interesting’ pics of his then-girlfriend.

His way of deleting the contents was to simply do a quick format on the drive from his Windows machine before giving it to me. To avoid all the technical details, for those who don’t know, what this does is simply destroy the FAT table and/or boot sector, which is a sort of ‘table of contents’ for the drive, thus nothing appears when you try to access the drive. But the data is still in the drive’s sectors, and unless you rewrite those sectors (either by copying something new in the flash drive or using some software, which I’ll get to in a minute), they’re easily accessible.

The program I’ve used for a while with Windows is called Eraser (I carry a portable version of this program on my USB drive, called Eraser Portable), which makes sure your data is clear from your portable device (like flash drives, SD cards for digital cameras, even iPods). In short, what this does is over-write the sectors on the drive multiple times with ‘garbage’, so it’ll be virtually impossible to get that information from freely-available tools. I’m guessing the government has more advanced tools, so for the overtly paranoid, you’d be better off just smashing the drive to pieces and dipping them in a vat of acid.

Just wanted to pass this info along so you people can keep your privacy, and know how easy it is to grab a hold of your data.

This is obviously not my first time that I have shilled the PeepCode website. I truly think that for any Rails developer, this is one of the most invaluable tools for learning available anywhere. I’ve purchased many of their screencasts already, and once I get the opportunity, I’ll even spring for their PeepCode Unlimited subscription. I know I will fully get my money’s worth.

If you haven’t been following what they have been doing recently, they have also added PDF books to the mix. These books provide a lot of wealth, just like their screencasts, but only in text form, perfect for printing or, for the environmentally-conscious of you, just keeping in your flash drive and reading it whenever you need it. I just recently purchased two of their PDF books: Git Internals and ActiveMerchant.

I purchased the Git Internals book to satisfy my own curiosity. As many of you should know by now, Git is a distributed version control system (a la Subversion) that’s taking the software development world by storm. I’m slowly getting into Git, thanks to a PeepCode screencast on the basics of Git, and even decided to pay for an account on GitHub (which I will write about in the near future). But I’m usually not content to just know how to get my work done. I like exploring beyond that, knowing how it actually works in the inside. Most of the times, I fully understand its strengths (and weaknesses - nothing is perfect!), making me more efficient. This PDF book does exactly that. If you’re a curious being, and are using (or planning to use) Git, I wholly recommend this book.

The ActiveMerchant book, I actually bought out of necessity. The web application I’m working on has the ActiveMerchant Plugin installed, and some work with that plugin done. However, since the developers who implemented those features aren’t working for the company anymore, and some core functionality has changed since I’ve arrived, it needs to be changed. I didn’t want to start from scratch, so I bought this PDF book to see what should be the “right way” (as per the author, who undoubtedly has tons more experience with the plugin as I have). I really got into this book, because it’s really, really easy to understand (thanks to the plugin actually being easy to implement) and it explains everything you need to know about the entire payment process. This is a must-read for anyone who’s building Rails applications where money needs to get to you.

The guys over at PeepCode are doing an excellent job, so why don’t you head over to their site and check them out? If you’re a web developer, particularly using Ruby and Rails, you’ll definitely find something interesting, or even necessary.