As an employer, let me tell you that, if I think I might need to look through user files after I fire you, two things will happen: First, I will have a copy of everything on your PC and all email and network files well before you know you are being fired. Second, your user account will likely be deactivated while you are in the room with me getting fired. You won’t be able to reach back into your system to modify anything after you are fired, and it won’t matter even if you manage it. All it will do is make you look bad should I decide more needs to be done than firing.

- Bret

Be careful. Anything like that, that you do, or even talk (write) about, could easily come back and bite your ass.

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
Second, your user account will likely be deactivated while you are in the room with me getting fired. You won’t be able to reach back into your system to modify anything after you are fired, ...

This ^^^^^

As the senior I.T. guy, I'd receive a heads up when somebody was to be terminated and notification when it was in-process. Even if an individual was allowed back to their work area (rare), they would not be unescorted and certainly wouldn't be allowed near their computer.

These days, actually for many years now, any organized company with competent IT staff have standard procedures and monitoring software for monitoring computer use via multiple vectors, for finding out pretty much anything they want to know about any employee's computer use. As JHE said anything you put or do on their computer is their property in whole without exceptions. New employees sign a document that contractually binds them to those terms, and is well established and universally recognized as a condition of employment.

Some companies allow occasional personal use as long as the use is occasional, legitimate, and doesn't interfere with your work. A little personal online banking or looking up a wiki page about the Hubble Telescope could be completely legitimate. Sigforum or anything controversial is best avoided, anything beyond that is up for grabs depending on what the company wants to do with the adverse information, internal and external politics and relationships, and personal decisions of managers, directors, and executives. Bottom line though is that the main driver in these situations for Directors and Executives in particular, and by extension the HR Department, is to protect the company, anything it owns, and its relationships with other organizations and people of influence. And above everything else, to keep any negative information out of all media. I've seen otherwise legitimate supervisors, managers, and executives take very unpleasant, and sometimes unfair and possibly unethical action, including using fall guys, to fulfill that responsibility.

No. There isn't. "Erasing" a drive for real takes too long, requires too much access.

Physical destruction of the platters or chips into many tiny pieces is necessary before someone who knows what's what can no longer put the drive back together out of pieces of other donor drives...

I've seen data recoveries first hand from all manner of messed up drives, from fires, from being run over, from attempted intentional destruction... almost nothing short of absolute destruction of the physical media can stop a well informed person with access to the drive and time, assuming it isn't encrypted, I'm just talking getting a drive to work again or show "erased" data again.

The only way to be 100% sure in a short time frame with a single source is to turn those platters or ssd into dust with repeated hammer strikes/etc.

Basically.

And even that only works if copies of the data don't exist elsewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
...almost nothing short of absolute destruction of the physical media can stop a well informed person with access to the drive and time, assuming it isn't encrypted , I'm just talking getting a drive to work again or show "erased" data again.

The only way to be 100% sure in a short time frame with a single source is to turn those platters or ssd into dust with repeated hammer strikes/etc.

What about just encrypting the data? (for my own data of course). i've got some old portable hard drives with personal data that i just want to get rid of. Encrypt it, run a drill thru the platter once or twice and throw it away? No need to even erase the data. From my extremely limited understanding, today's encryption is pretty close to impossible to crack short of the using NSA computers.

quote:

Originally posted by JimmyRayBob:

quote:

Originally posted by 46and2:
...almost nothing short of absolute destruction of the physical media can stop a well informed person with access to the drive and time, assuming it isn't encrypted , I'm just talking getting a drive to work again or show "erased" data again.

The only way to be 100% sure in a short time frame with a single source is to turn those platters or ssd into dust with repeated hammer strikes/etc.

What about just encrypting the data? (for my own data of course). i've got some old portable hard drives with personal data that i just want to get rid of. Encrypt it, run a drill thru the platter once or twice and throw it away? No need to even erase the data. From my extremely limited understanding, today's encryption is pretty close to impossible to crack short of the using NSA computers.

My personal drives become great reactive handgun and rifle targets.

A whole lot of 2.5" form factor comsumer hdds have glass platters, so it shouldn't take much to make your data unrecoverable. Metal platter drives take a bit more destructive power, but a 223 or a 308 are way more than up to the task.

Bonus: they bounce really well.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
Second, your user account will likely be deactivated while you are in the room with me getting fired. You won’t be able to reach back into your system to modify anything after you are fired, ...

This ^^^^^

As the senior I.T. guy, I'd receive a heads up when somebody was to be terminated and notification when it was in-process. Even if an individual was allowed back to their work area (rare), they would not be unescorted and certainly wouldn't be allowed near their computer.

Same here.
Short of an employee quitting outright, we usually have some lead time on the Term before it is effected.
Having 21 offices (hub/spoke) and 5 hubs makes it take some time to get the physical hardware back to corp in Houston.

Tragic boat accident?