Giving away your identity

At the recycling center this week, I noticed that Chapel Hill added a second trailer to accommodate all the old tech that we're replacing. Our appetite for new technology is clearly growing and I'm glad that people are recycling their electronics responsibly...or are they?

How many of those hard drives had been wiped? How many phones still had email settings configured? How many DVD players were still set up to access their previous owner's Netflix account?

When we give up a gadget it often gets reused, and if we leave information on that gadget we should assume that it's in someone else's control. A recent example of this occured when Motorola resold customer returned tablets without first wiping them. Motorola offered those customers two years of identity protectioin, but by that time the damage had already been done.

From laptops to Internet connected Blu-ray players, gadgets should always be wiped or restored to factory default software before being sold, donated or recycled. This applies equally to electronics that we return to the store after a week of use or a laptop owned for five years. Either one can contain equally sensitive data.

Neil Berman, Helper-in-Chief, TheONbutton