My son was right

[Maria 60]

This morning my employer called and told me he was having some lawsuit problem and needed something that I had. What he was looking for went around 5 years back when we were still saving pics on memory cards and I now use that memory card in my old camera for Maria pics. I take pictures on that memory card and transfer the pics to a secure memory stick and delete the pics on the memory card. I told him I may have deleted what he's looking for and he informed me that his TA has a program that could probably retrieve any information on that card, even delete files.
Well I told him I'm going to look for the memory card and we all know I'm not going to find it, and another warning to all my closet sisters. My sons favourite line is "DELETE DOESNT ALWAYS MEAN DELETE. Technology is great but it comes with a price, there's just no more privacy.

[andreanna]

Why would you be using a company owned card to take pics of yourself? The cost of a memory card is so insignificant. You don't delete your card, you format them and use the full format function to clean up the card normally.

[Krisi]

Why would you be using a company owned card to take pics of yourself? The cost of a memory card is so insignificant. You don't delete your card, you format them and use the full format function to clean up the card normally.

Well yes, don't use a company memory card to take compromising photos. Now if you are refusing to give your employer something that might be important in a lawsuit, that's not really fair so here's the deal:

Copy the stuff your employer needs onto your computer or a different memory card. Copy your dressing photos as well if you want to keep them.

Do a full format of the original card. Most computer management software or even the newer operating systems have a function that writes gibberish over all the old information. Use that to be certain.

Now copy your employers files back to the card and give it to him.

Or,

If the particular memory card is not important, just the information, copy his (her) information to a brand new card and give it to him/her.

[Cheryl T]

Reformat the card a half dozen times.
That should eliminate most everything.

[cindylouho]

If you want to be certain, reformatting wont do the job since the only thing deleted is the FAT, only writing zeroes (Or whatever data) to each sector will make it safe for you.

[sweetdreams]

Hi Maria.

There are ways to fix this problem. This is the easiest way. Make sure you first delete your sensitive files from the drive. Then create a new directory on the flash drive and start filling it with "safe" stuff until the drive is full (i.e. maybe put mp3 music files in the directory). Once the drive is full, delete that directory you created. Doing this will overwrite all available empty space on the drive with stuff you don't mind them finding. Any space your pictures might have used will have been overwritten by doing this and gone forever. This will make it impossible for the TA to recover any of your sensitive stuff.

I've mentioned before the idea of using a product called Veracrypt to protect sensitive files. This program is free and has an excellent encryption mechanism. This program ensures no one will be able to access files you don't want anyone to see. Worth considering.

[Robertacd]

I am not convinced that anything can recover filed that were deleted and overwritten several times throughout the course of years.

Otherwise how would the "secure delete" programs work?

To be safe download one of the secure hard drive cleaners and clean that flash card and reformat it before you give it back.

[CharlotteCD]

Would it potentially look *more* suspicious if a card goes back and it's got zero data, nothing at all? Stupid analogy I know, but say this was a dustpan and brush. You have been using it and the strands have worn down over the years. You're asked to return it, but the amount of use it's had is evidence that you've been using it for personal reasons. You could buy a new brush head, but then it'll look like the brush has never been used...

The company are asking for a memory card that should have only been used for their functions. They will expect to find at least the tiniest bit of evidence of their work on the card. If it comes back totally empty then that screams "This card has been professionally wiped".

We always jump to the worst conclusions, and I fear this one could end badly for you if it's totally wiped.

[docrobbysherry]

You're rite, Maria. Too bad u can't find that card to help your boss!

[Pumped]

New memory cards are inexpensive. Transfer what he wants to a new memory card and give them the new one. If they ask about the original card just tell them you had some personal pics on it.
They want the pics, I doubt they care about the memory card.

Sorry, re-read the post, nope, can't find the memory card!

[Taylor186]

Formatting, no matter how many times you do it, will not erase the memory card. A recovery program/specialist could still get at the underlying photos/data. You need to wipe the entire card, which is the process of writing over it one or multiple times. I use 'Drive Wiper' included with CCleaner (tools tab) but there are many other free (and pay for) options. Just be sure to choose "entire drive" not just "free space." Though, I agree with Charlotte above, a recently cleaned card will raise many questions given they told you they want to try to recover information from the card.

[DianeT]

Memory cards aren't hard drives and you can't recover overwritten data using forensics tools that read cylinder edges, so one wipe pass is enough (and for disks too, according to studies. Multiple wipes have mostly been abandoned nowadays, too lengthy and no evidence that anyone actually recovered data from a disk after a single wipe with random bytes, so, Linux or Mac users, dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/somedisk bs=1m is your friend). When a flash page has been erased it can't be recovered. The thing is to make sure all pages are erased. Sweetdreams has it right. Follow his advice to fill your card with dummy files and all will be erased (except potential damaged pages moved to spare ones, but they will hardly contain a full photo of several megabytes).
Formatting doesn't erase files. It only works on a few blocks of the card (the file system catalog aka FAT), always the same, and a recover tool will easily restore the files even after a thousand formattings.

Anyway, since you seem to have totally destroyed the original data that was on the card (you shouldn't do that, some companies may hold you liable for it), you might as well pretend it is lost.

[Taylor186]

Donna's comment reminded me of something that happened at the company I worked for around 20 years ago. We were bought by another company and one of the guys who lost his job in the takeover decided to 100% wipe his computer hard drive on his way out the door. The new company took a dim view of his action and denied him several months severance pay because he destroyed company property. So yeah, there can be consequences.

[Stephanie47]

IMHO, this may become a tricky issue for the company. If it was disclosed to the other litigants the company can run the risk of not complying during the discovery process. Destroying evidence may not look good for the company. What happens if Maria is called to testify under oath? Transfer what is perceived to be of interest to one party of the litigation may not be sufficient for the other party. Withholding evidence? And, if the pictures are of benefit to Maria's company what peril is Maria put in for retaining the companies property, using it or destroying it or losing it. Definitely, a potential can of worms.

[Maria 60]

Thank you all for your help, this has been a very educational thread. My employers call to me was a long shot, he thought that I maybe had something saved on a laptop hard drive and did say he would be surprised if anyone would produce a memory card because we just don't use them anymore. I only got a laptop from them last year and really don't like mixing business with pleasure. A lot of people at work use the company phone for everything, but again my sons advice that a cell phone is personal and to get my own. I don't even know if what he needed was on the card I use, after we stopped using them so many got discarded. I'm going to play around with some older cards and see if a old dog can learn a new trick.
We just can't let our guard down when leading this secret life. We try for the best of both worlds and it comes with a price.

[xam]

That is the way (Cindy) to do it also you can copy some large files to overwrite the so called "empty space".

[candykowal]

Great advice and learning experience for all of us, keeping our "personals" ...personal without exception.

[adelinapa]

I've been in tech a long time, like 25 years. I haven't trusted tech for a long time, like 25 years.

Back in the day of dialup when i was level 1 support, i posted something on deja news, which eventually became google newsgroups, about testing 56k modems. Under an anonymous name. My boss found it in less than a day and traced it back to me.

Since then I have a deep seated mistrust of technology in terms of what can be traced and how. For anyone living a secret life, please do yourself a favor and read up articles on something like "how to hide having an affair technology" and those kinds of things. You'll get quite an eye-opening education on how to, and how not to, keep things under wraps.

[susanmichelle]

I would put pictures of anything but your dressing pics and fill the memory chip up completely then delete about 3/4 of them and give them the chip. Most deletes erase the first 1-2 letters or numbers from the master header list they could do random reloading with a computer program looking to reload the deleted files. If their on a different list then they wouldn?t show up anyway they don?t know what you had as far as the memory chip you used anyway. Hope it works out for you maybe when putting files in to fill a chip up first maybe use around or before the dates their looking for to kinda throw them off too just my 2 cents worth anyway.

[nvlady]

Find the memory card. Take the mc to a private computer expert (possibly someone on this forum) and have him/her retrieve what your boss needs. Transfer only that info to a new mc and give that to your boss.

[Krisi]

I am not convinced that anything can recover filed that were deleted and overwritten several times throughout the course of years.

Otherwise how would the "secure delete" programs work?

To be safe download one of the secure hard drive cleaners and clean that flash card and reformat it before you give it back.

"Secure delete" programs work by writing gibberish to the entire disk or card, thus overwriting everything that is on the disk or card.

[Cheryl T]

Too bad your bosses card was destroyed in that flood you had in the basement...

[Maria 60]

I like Cheryl Ts very deveus way of settling this problem. Lol��������

[Vickie_CDTV]

There are programs to securely erase SD cards, among other media. They overwrite the media with random gibberish data several times. While it could technically be possible to retrieve data in bad sectors that can no longer be read conventionally, it would literally cost a small fortune and there is no guarantee anything they get will be meaningful.

If they let you take and keep the card, which is sounds like they did, just say you wiped it and used it for personal photos.

Also remember one copy of something important is not enough. All media can fail (and SD cards are super easy to lose) so if you care about your photos, make multiple copies and keep them on separate media.

[ronny0]

IMHO, this may become a tricky issue for the company. If it was disclosed to the other litigants the company can run the risk of not complying during the discovery process. Destroying evidence may not look good for the company. What happens if Maria is called to testify under oath? Transfer what is perceived to be of interest to one party of the litigation may not be sufficient for the other party. Withholding evidence? And, if the pictures are of benefit to Maria's company what peril is Maria put in for retaining the companies property, using it or destroying it or losing it. Definitely, a potential can of worms.

2nd attempt at responding to this.....

As you might not be exempt from legal action think long and hard before you try to hide most anything......
Take a look at (PhotoRec) part of TeskDisk https://testdisk.en.softonic.com/?ex=BB-1549.2 for a good recovery program.
And if you want to try to clean a hard drive or memory device try Boot&Nuke https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/.
Although IMO that would not be a safe thing to get involved with.
Do keep in mind adelinapa's post, this is a public forum so anyone in the world can find this post and drag you into court over your actions.