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| Author | Trashing old electronics with personal data - what do You do ? (Read 21853 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
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on: February 16, 2024, 13:25
A little off-topic: I do have a Blackberry Playbook Tablet which served for many years as the family's tablet. We took photos with it, the kids had some cartoons on it for watching during travel and so forth. Then, one day about a year ago, it stopped working. Most probably the battery is dead. I tried to charge it. Even letting the thing stay charging for 48 hours, but no avail. Replacement is expansive, the procedure a chore and the hardware obsolete anyway. But that's not the topic here. I'm about to let go of the thing. BUT - this thing has personal data on it which we can't access anymore. I backed them up in time, so data loss isn't an issue. But while there's nothing compromising on it, I don't really want others to access our family's photos. So the question really is, what is the safest way to recycle this thing? I thought that by taking it to the official recycling center of my city, it'd end up in a waste press. They're very strict when it comes to their electronics trash. Nobody is allowed to touch and take anything once it was dumped there (saw an iMac G3 out there in the rain the other day *sniff*). However, I just learned from a reliable source that they don't send electronics to the press, especially if it contains batteries. Instead the stuff gets sold to re-sellers on a price per weight basis. This is where the magic happens. These re-sellers can declare old trash as fully functioning devices, because re-use is legally priortized over recycling. So suddenly, a re-seller can sell off your dumped trash to whatever person. (who in turns then end up with a lot of personal data...) The other day, I saw a report on a public TV channel in which they put a GPS device into a broken TV and took it at the local community dump. A few weeks later, it ended up somewhere in Africa, despite a law that prohibits the export of broken electronics ... So my question is ... what do you guys do in such a case? Do you use a special recycling service? Do you physically damage your device and tear it apart? I'd be interesting in how you guys tackle the problem. |
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Last Edit: February 16, 2024, 13:26 by Bolkonskij
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cballero
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1024 MB  Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #1 on: February 16, 2024, 16:50
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That's a hard one, Bolkonskij! I really try to: 1. have all my backups of photos and things 2. erase *anything* I don't want 'recycled' in the future It almost renders device like that one useless at times, being it serves to play media and such, but it's mostly personal pics and videos that I scrub away from things to keep my private things safe (I mean if I have some cool IP ideas, those get encrypted and vaulted too, like songs, poems and other personal writings come to mind) In the end, there's only so much one can do, but it'd be awesome if charities would exist for folks to a little more safely be able to recycle their electronics like that, especially if teams are created that specialize in old, vintage tech, you know? Ah, an image of the perfect world comes to mind.. 
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #2 on: February 16, 2024, 19:56
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You've got a microwave don't you?
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #3 on: February 16, 2024, 21:05
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ouch!!   dat, dat, dat.. another one bytes the dust, dat, dat, dat.. another one bytes the dust
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #4 on: February 17, 2024, 02:03
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I would watch a Tic-Toc of a Playbook in a microwave. I did really like the Playbook. Mine was reset to factory when retired, and safely sits on a shelf in the book case. Typically items I retire are reset to factory settings. My state requires that electronics have to be recycled. If a device has simply died I usually tear it apart to see how it was put together. Any part of the device that may contain personal data is destroyed. Kids love to finish off hard drives with a sledge hammer and I personally like to drill holes in them. Recycling around here is charged by the pound (kg), so disassembling them allows one to dispose of a lot of the material through general plastic/metal recycling which is free. There are also place that will accept will accept circuit boards, RAM/ROM, wireless cards free of charge. Retailers are also required to take back and recycle items that they sell, so in some cases items like TVs and such can be returned to where you purchased them. Many retailer will also take your old device for recycling if you are purchasing a new device.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #5 on: February 17, 2024, 02:52
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I don't know how safe it might be to do what I've done in the past: I simply fill the memory with whatever until it's full to capacity with the hope that the previous data has been overwritten, then I delete everything and/or do a factory reset. This way, if someone would really, really want to get to my data, they would have to go to great lengths to retrieve it
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #6 on: February 17, 2024, 04:22
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Quote from: Bolko "I thought that by taking it to the official recycling center of my city, it'd end up in a waste press. They're very strict when it comes to their electronics trash. Nobody is allowed to touch and take anything once it was dumped there (saw an iMac G3 out there in the rain the other day *sniff*)."We have a very similar setup to this where I live. And yes, I also have seen awesomely desirable computer hardware of all shapes and sizes, unattainable for moi. Getting rid of and dumping hardware that no longer functions... Hard drives that have failed or shown signs of failure: I dismantle and scour the platters with an awl. If they are of the smaller laptop variety these can have glass platters coated with a magnetic surface. These shatter easily and are no problem to dispose of. I keep any potentially useful screw and I also keep the HD magnets, which make super strong fridge magnets. Batteries go to recycling, separately. Flash Memory: if not usable anywhere else, smash 'em with a hammer. If you don't want to see your photos and other memories end up in someone else hands - a hammer does make an old useless piece of junk look even more useless. Plus it's a good release of frustration.
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17lifers
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32 MB Posts: 57
Reply #7 on: February 17, 2024, 08:14
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You have a Blackberry?? What a legend.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #8 on: February 17, 2024, 11:45
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@cballero - The CIA and the FBI used to "erase" their storage media this way. Until a private data rescue company (its always those eager privateers crashing the party) proved that you can recover data from a magnetic media by checking the residue charge a data block has. Because, if you simply put a "0" in it it doesn't go completely back down to null. So yeah, that's why they came up with these "random overwrite multiple times" procedures. But in the end they decided the only save way to dispose of physical storage media was its physical destruction. Hence they invented the microwave. 
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #9 on: February 17, 2024, 12:05
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No microwave here. And I wouldn't feel comfortable putting anything with a battery into a microwave ... :-) I guess I'd rather use the sledgehammer approach @wove suggested. Opening up one of those tablets is just annoying, as they were clearly not intended to be serviced by average joe. @17lifers - the name might imply an older age as it is - the Blackberry PlayBook was officially released in 2011 and I think I grabbed mine back in 2012. One way or the other, it's just over a decade old. Given the machine I'm posting this from is 20+ years, the Playbook hardly reached full legal age :-)
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lauland
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512 MB Posts: 674 Symtes 7 Mewconer!
Reply #10 on: February 18, 2024, 00:35
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I've bought a lot of used hardware from Goodwill over the years, some absolute gems! They'd remove the harddrives as a policy (although a couple came through completely intact with user data! Whoops!) This worked well until the more recent machines...Apple laptops being big ones...where the drive isn't removable without disassembly. I saw piles and piles of laptops with loose covers and exposed motherboards...with no way to know how gently they were handled. Very nice G4 and Intel ones that I just couldn't justify buying knowing they were likely bricks. Sniff!
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 950 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #11 on: February 19, 2024, 22:57
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I used to sell my stuff on eBay out of principle. I hate to produce waste if I don't have to. But then they introduced the policy that you have to give them access to your bank account to sell stuff with them and that was it for me. So, back to the microwave I went.
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