| Many people have noticed a sharp spike in identity | | | | there is of anything being recovered. This is the |
| theft over the past couple of years and are worried | | | | same technique that the tools that can be run from |
| about their personal information. A large portion of | | | | within the operating systems use to delete file |
| the information gathered for identity theft comes | | | | fragments. They take the area that the file is in, |
| from unsecured and discarded computers. Using data | | | | delete the file, and then overwrite that space with 1s |
| cleansing tools can prevent identity theft, at least | | | | and 0s. |
| from leftover information on your old machine. | | | | However as data cleaning tools advance so do data |
| Believe it or not, just because you delete something | | | | recovery tools. New techniques are constantly being |
| it is not gone from your system. | | | | developed to take care of leftover file fragments |
| When you delete an item in your system in most | | | | and full files. These methods may range from simple |
| cases it goes to the recycle bin. From there you can | | | | maintenance to complete operating system |
| either restore it, or delete it. Deleting it gives you the | | | | destruction. The latter of these is used when you |
| impression that it's gone for good but this is not the | | | | really don't want people looking at the stuff on your |
| case. In most cases when you delete an item the | | | | drive. This is mostly used by the military and |
| actual bulk of the item may be gone, but a rough | | | | government offices. |
| outline of what it is, and key data fragments are still | | | | You can also consider registry cleaners as a type of |
| stored. These leftovers can be retrieved by data | | | | data cleaning tool. They look through your registry |
| recovery tools and the information fully restored and | | | | for invalid references, and broken links and take care |
| used for anything. | | | | of them. Although not direct cleaning they can get rid |
| This is why <a rel="nofollow" | | | | of references to former programs. Right now the |
| onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(' | | | | primary types of data cleaning tools in simple terms |
| outgoing/article_exit_link');" href=" data cleaning | | | | are cleaners, wipers, and destroyers. Cleaners are the |
| tools</a> have become so popular amongst | | | | ones run from inside the operating system and take |
| standard computer users. These tools range from | | | | care of files and fragments. |
| simple cleaners that you run from inside your | | | | Wipers are the ones you have to boot from CD or |
| operating system to get rid of the data. To complex | | | | DVD and they completely erase your drive. There's |
| cleaners that you boot from a disc that completely | | | | nothing left to recover, all a person will see is |
| wipe your hard disk of all information. The later can | | | | repeating 1's and 0's. This is an effective solution to |
| take several hours to several days depending on the | | | | preventing identity theft if you are giving away, or |
| level of cleaning that you want. | | | | just getting rid of your machine. Destroyers |
| This task is accomplished by writing 0s and 1s to the | | | | completely erase the drive but also make it unusable |
| drive and overwriting all information previously stored | | | | thereby rendering it inaccessible, this is when you |
| on it. The more overwrites you have the less chance | | | | have to be sure no one will see what's on it. |