Hi James, I should have been slightly more clear - I did a 7-pass erase on the drive before doing a clean install of OS X and Windows with zero identifying information anywhere, including for registration and user account creation, and then only installed applications and copied files that I absolutely knew I needed to have for all of two days. On top of that there was the obvious points of not using password-protected sites on an insecure network, disabling everything in the Sharing panel in System Preferences, and using a secure VPN for whatever I might need to do. That was if I even dared to use my laptop there, rather than back at the hotel. And once I was back home, I reformatted just in case there was something on my MacBook that shouldnt've been, and reinstalled all the stuff I wanted.
Although one could theoretically achieve something similar using secure empty on a lot of files, there's no way to be completely devoid of that kind of information short of doing a complete reinstall...there's so much that could give you away, from your Safari/Firefox passwords and the Keychain to the files you might have on the computer. Honestly, it's annoying to be this insanely secure. At home, I wouldn't even care if a friend on the network messed around with me, or if I used insecure methods to login on sites and whatever else I might use. But I didn't want to make a fool out of myself. Defcon's network is definitely hostile to the extreme, and I'm sure there were attendees who showed up with pen and paper instead of a laptop because of all the threats, grin. cheers, jane On 8/7/07, James Austin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Jane, > > How did you wipe your hard drive of personal information? Id you just > put it in the trash and do a scur empty? > > Thanks James
