Be Careful What You Do With Your Old Hard Drive

The British Telecom's Security Research Centre recently carried out a joint security study with the University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US. They bought 300 hard drives on eBay, originating from the US, UK, Germany, France and Australia. A proportion of the drives were formatted, but none were done with a destructive format and many contained easily recovered files.

100 of the drives turned out to contain extremely confidential information such as building blueprints and launch procedures for the Lockheed Martin's surface-to-air missile defense system. Other drives included everything from medical records, x-ray images, patient photos, confidential letters and confidential corporate information detailing a 50 billion currency exchange.

So the moral of the story is that if you're selling or throwing out your old hard drive, you better remember to perform a destructive, all-zeroes format.

via Daily Mail

eBay pay up €40m

Ebay has finally paid the price for the countless counterfeit goods that populate the website. A French court has ordered eBay to pay Louis Vuitton €40m. This is a landmark in both online sales and counterfeit goods actions. The LVMH (Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton) claim was based on eBay not taking proper measures to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods and to continually allow genuine products to be sold outside their proper retail channels.

The case has been with the Paris Tribunal de Commerce for over two years. The actual payment will be split between Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture. The company's fragrance brands were awarded around €3.75m.

Although Ebay will appeal the ruling, and have made a counter claim that LVMH is attempting to "protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day", it is doubtful they will receive any leniency.