[HN Gopher] Retro collectors are uncovering hoards of old data
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Retro collectors are uncovering hoards of old data
Author : LarryPage
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-10-29 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.co.uk)
| II2II wrote:
| I collected old machines about 20 years ago. It was very common
| to leave the data intact back then, even if it was being donated
| to a thrift store (where sale to an unknown party was assured)
| rather than being dropped at a recycle depot (where there was an
| assumption the machine would be destroyed).
|
| There was no real dilemma regarding what to do with the data, it
| was wiped without peeking. I figured out that looking for
| interesting software was unethical early on, since launching some
| software will expose you to the prior owner's data automatically
| (e.g. databases) while browsing the directory structure for such
| software can open the perilous doors of curiosity. Not only that,
| but it is very rare for the data to require preservation. Most
| machines are intentionally disposed of. The cited case of a
| stolen computer is likely rare (though I suppose that depends
| upon one's sources and the market value of the machine).
|
| I was recently given an old machine by someone I was barely
| acquainted with, data intact. He said he didn't mind if I looked,
| just destroy the data if I pass it on to someone else. I took the
| liberty to create bootable diskettes from the existing software
| since I haven't had a vintage computer in well over a decade.
| There was no question about how to handle the data though: even
| with permission, it had to be destroyed.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not retro, but when I worked for a consulting company, one of our
| clients had just acquired a small electronics company. He gave me
| all the information he had about the product we were supposed to
| update. He did a data dump without looking closely at the files
| because one of the flash drives had a bunch of invoices issued by
| the previous software consulting company so we had a pretty
| detailed view into what they were paying that vendor. I turned
| them over to our GM. No idea if he ever used the information!
| progman32 wrote:
| I once pulled an image of the CF card in my work's coffee
| machine (darn thing runs Slax linux...). I found a well-
| appointed home directory full of the developer's web history.
| Yes, they copy from Stack Overflow too.
| bob229 wrote:
| Amazing that such a tedious article has so many upvotes
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I still hold out hope that the very first game I ever made, in
| middle school using HyperStudio[0] on a Mac running At Ease for
| its desktop, will turn up on archive.org some day.
|
| [0] It may have been HyperCard with some extensions for color. I
| distinctly remember color.
| p_l wrote:
| I once managed to rescue AlphaServer 255/233 from being parceled
| out by unknowing e-waste dealer. Spent a bit of time trying to
| connect everything, connected the serial terminal that came with
| it, flipped the power switch expecting empty machine...
|
| ... Lo and behold, I see it autobooting into _heavily customized_
| VMS 6.1 (first patch level that could boot on it), that turns out
| to be special _Blockbuster Video_ version with appliance-style
| licenses loaded (NET-APP-150), probably designed to run with a
| DECserver connecting multiple terminals over LAT.
|
| Turned out the second of two SCSI drives still held not just the
| custom BBV software, but also the database, including PII and
| history data, with flags like "18+" on various movies.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I have a bunch of 8" floppy disks I got from fleaBay that have
| student records from a community college in California.
|
| I have no use for them, so I just have one framed on the wall
| for nostalgia's sake.
| blueflow wrote:
| A few month ago i took a machine from a scrapyard. That machine
| fell into my eye because its PSU had a female C13 socket in
| addition to the male C14 one, which i took as indication for an
| AT (not ATX) machine.
|
| It turned out to be a pentium with ISA ports. I cleaned it, upon
| booting, i noticed the CMOS battery needed replacement. The CMOS
| was part of the dreaded Dallas 1287 RTC. Cutting it open and
| attaching another story, but i did it. Reading the required disk
| geometry from the label, i was able to configure the CMOS
| correctly for the disk to boot.
|
| The yield: It boots into a windows 95 desktop, with a naked women
| with spread legs as a desktop background. I guess i recovered
| someones porn collection.
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| It isn't uncommon and it does raise generally ethical questions.
| I rescued a VAX 4000/600 and found that it still had the original
| drives in the main chassis (they aren't obviously in there and
| the system had an external drive chassis that had been
| destroyed.) The disks contained the OS and a shipping ledger (it
| came from a logistics company) of shipments that had come and
| gone from SFO during it's lifetime. Just from, to, short
| description of the contents and a tag of 'customs duty' or not.
|
| Given that it was clear the company thought they had destroyed
| all of the data on the system I went ahead and deleted all of the
| non-system related files, leaving just the OS and layered
| products that they had originally installed.
| neilv wrote:
| I used to salvage a lot of discarded PCs (use the parts,
| refurbish, etc.).
|
| I quickly decided on a rule to immediately wipe any hard drive,
| and destroy any drive that couldn't be wiped.
|
| One reason is that I'd been involved in some early online privacy
| discussions, so I had an awareness that snooping might be
| invasive.
|
| But if curiosity might tempt me to rationalize away the nagging
| sense of possible invasiveness, there was a second reason...
|
| I never wanted to technically be in possession of, say, a private
| photo that a 17.9 year-old took. Nor ever see anything worse than
| that. Thus, immediately pull and DBAN/destroy any hard drive.
|
| Given that I eventually salvaged around 100 PCs, the private
| photos scenario didn't seem too unlikely.
| beauzero wrote:
| Old computers are the new "old farmer's barn". You open it up and
| find some interesting stuff inside.
| agumonkey wrote:
| people still leave unwiped hard drives into machines, sometimes
| because old and forgotten but sometimes because the usb bridge
| died but the actual hdd is working fine
|
| beware
| yardie wrote:
| I bought an old Sparcstation at university auction. After gaining
| access found one of my professor's account. It was his
| workstation. Had a chuckle, wiped it, and installed FreeBSD.
| kps wrote:
| Some years ago I got a workstation (either a VAXstation or MIPS
| DECstation) that originally belonged to a university group
| where my then-boss had studied. Since the OS was old enough to
| have used the original weak crypt(3) for /etc/passwd, I
| checked... and yes, he did still use the same password.
|
| (I wiped it and installed NetBSD.)
| Lammy wrote:
| This happened to me once nearly a decade ago when I copped a
| Powerbook Duo 270c from a flea market in San Francisco and ended
| up with all the defense attorney's files for this dude:
| http://www.murderpedia.org/male.R/r1/rich-darrell-keith.htm :S
| classichasclass wrote:
| My personal experience with this: finding an old test NNTP server
| from Netscape. http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2021/10/shiner-esb-
| apple-network-...
| sneak wrote:
| I think all of us old unix admins have variously been
| fascinated by the Apple Network Server boxes, and this one is a
| prototype even!
| ghaff wrote:
| I have a big "hard disk museum." Partly because it's sort of a
| cool collection going back to old 5 1/4" platter days. But also
| because, at a minimum, I'd want to give the drives a few whacks
| with a sledgehammer before I tossed them. I'd also want to at
| least look through my floppies to make sure there's no "personal
| info backup" one.
| handrous wrote:
| Teenage-me once found a DOS porn text adventure on a used 286 I
| bought from someone up the street, at a garage sale. This was
| shortly before dual-core processors hit the market as a common
| item, so the 286 was already ancient by then. Never found it
| anywhere else, but I later scrapped the thing without thinking to
| preserve any of the stuff on the disk, in part because I didn't
| yet realize this was rare software, and just assumed it existed
| other places. It was really simple even by the standards of that
| kind of thing, just a single encounter that started with
| specifying some physical stats for your, ah, partner, which
| affected some of the in-game descriptions. For all I know the
| previous owner wrote it themselves in BASIC or something, and
| that was the only copy in existence.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| I bought a MacSE at an estate sale and found a bunch of half
| written stories [novels?] (they weren't very good).
|
| I'm so glad everything is password protected & encrypted on my
| machines now. Wouldn't want some rando to buy my funeral estate
| and find personal stuff on my hardware. My next of kin are my
| parents so I don't think they'd be very savvy about destroying
| drives.
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(page generated 2021-10-29 23:00 UTC)