Owl Content

In Deutschland werden ab und an gebrauchte, aber unzureichend gelöschte Festplatten gefunden oder nichtsahnend weiterverkauft. Alles nicht so wild, sagen die die besser aufpassen müssten. International gibts das in wesentlich größerem Maßstab, da könnte man solche Relativierungen fast hinnehmen:

UBC graduate students and instructors visited Ghana, China (the world’s largest electronic waste dump, in Guiyi), and India to find out what happens to electronic trash. Criminals scour the hard drives for credit card information and other personal information. (The electronic waste also pollutes the environment and poisons scavengers seeking to extract metals.)

In Ghana, students bought a hard drive originally used by U.S. defence contractor Northrop Grumman, containing about 50 files marked as competitive and sensitive, including information on government contracts for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Northrop spokesman Thomas Henson said that the company has a detailed procedure to dispose of electronics and the drive was likely stolen from a vendor that handles its disposed electronics. (Yeah, right.)

(Maybe the Chinese don’t have to hack into important computers to get sensitive info …)

http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/media/releases/2009/mr-09-077.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/News/team+uncovers+sensitive+defence+records/1723318/story.html

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/ghana804/ (Sehenswert!)

http://www.timescolonist.com/Technology/secrets+found+trash/1723812/story.html

http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/2009/06/ubc-journalism-students-find-sensitive.html

[via datalossdb.org]