how to completely "Clean" my hard drive?.

[Ceewan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function

 

[Rollyco]

SecretPal's statement about secret hash functions in video files was nonsense.

Regarding indexing... if you let "Windows Desktop Search" (or "Windows Search") index your documents (the default state in Vista and 7), you are allowing windows to scan and store data about your documents in a separate database, sometimes located in

%Profiles%/All Users/Application Data/Microsoft/Search/Data/Applications/Windows/

This database contains vast amount of values about various artifacts found on a Windows system, e.g. files and directories, emails, appointments, attachments, images, audio and video, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) history, etc. It can also contain metadata and partial content data of deleted files for unknown periods of time. Possibly for years.

This database can be examined easily by anyone with the right tools, like

http://www.woanware.co.uk/?page_id=89

or

http://sourceforge.net/projects/libesedb/files/

 

[Ceewan]

SecretPal's statement about secret hash functions in video files was nonsense.

In addition to helping the police locate users through their IP addresses, Fairplay tracks the illegal images through "hash marks" or "hash values" — i.e. the unique digital fingerprints associated with each image of child pornography. The software then helps police sort through thousands of images by flagging those with hash marks that previously have been identified as child pornography.

source:
http://knowledgebase.findlaw.com/kb/2010/May/100890.html

This is more than likely what SecretPal was refering to, even if he overestimated or inflated the programs capablity. I had heard about it before but it took a little bit for me to remember.

 

[Rollyco]

That's just a description of a hash. It's a property of a file, just like size and filename are. It's not a "program" and it's not capable of doing anything.

 

[Ceewan]

That's just a description of a hash. It's a property of a file, just like size and filename are. It's not a "program" and it's not capable of doing anything.

???? which post are you reading?????

A powerful tool in combating online child pornography - [highlight]Operation Fairplay software[/highlight] - has been developed and is being adopted by law enforcement agencies nationwide.

http://www.search.org/programs/hightech/calendar/feb09/

Fairplay tracks the illegal images through "hash marks" or "hash values"

I never said it had anything to do with video, as far as I know anyway. But Fairplay software can compare "hash marks", (the property of a file), against a database to determine if it is a known illegal image. Not all that complicated really.

 

[Rollyco]

My bad, I didn't realize you were referring to "Operation Fairplay."

 

[Gzed]

Did a search..found nothing..which forum should i post about cleaning my hard drive?

i just used Privacy Eraser Pro in a cracked version to clean my hard drive. the i followed with Easeus Data Recovery Wizard: and was a little shocked @ what turned up.

This happened before, and I've even Defragged then just spent a few hours recopying random files to fill up the disk, then deleted them and then erased the empty portion again: still found recoverable file and file names.
Since then i've tried to rename new files to something simple/unrevealing as i've saved them.

Suggestions? no i don't want to reformat. if i was selling it, sure.

If you want to get rid of all the stuff on your hard drive then the only way it will not be recoverable is if you take a big hammer to it and buy a new one.