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Walked into a pawn shop in Reno and saw 6 laptops with the drives still in them
Was killing time in a pawn shop on Virginia St in Reno last Saturday and counted 6 used laptops on the shelf with the original drives still installed. Nobody had wiped anything, one still had a sticky note with a login password taped to the lid. I asked the guy behind the counter if they pulled drives before resale and he just shrugged and said it wasn't their problem. That means every one of those machines walks out the door with some stranger's tax files, saved passwords, and family photos on it. If you do refurb or repair work that touches used gear, pull and wipe drives before anything leaves your bench, even if the customer says they don't care. How are you all handling drive wipe proof with customers, do you hand them a receipt or just tell them it's done?
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nelson.vera7d ago
Man, this fits right into a pattern I keep seeing everywhere, nobody wants to own the cleanup step. The phone repair kiosk at the mall, the guy selling refurb desktops out of his garage, even my old office when they swapped out machines, all of them just hand the thing off and hope the next person deals with it. A wiped drive should come with a plain paper slip that says what was erased and the date, because a verbal "yeah it's done" is worth nothing once that laptop leaves the building. It costs almost nothing to write that slip and it protects both sides.
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