Even if you delete everything from the hard drive, or destroy the hard drive, there will still be information left on the server. Most email providers will backup before the deleted items are actually deleted on the server. You delete the files, they go into your deleted items, and the server deletes the files in the deleted items later, after backup. Email is a great communication tool, but as Microsoft has learned, you only say what you don't mind other's seeing. Emails can always be retrieved later if someone wants them bad enough. Mike On 5/22/04 12:01 PM, "johnnyfulcrum" <johnnyfulcrum at mn.rr.com> wrote: > > Hi- > > I have a friend of a friend that needs to make sure an email is removed > and cannot be recovered from his/her harddrive. > > I said no problem - I can physically destroy the HD or, if you want to use > it again I can DBAN the HD and reinstall, and if you don't want to go that > route, we can find software to rewrite over (an over) the empty blocks etc > etc... (any other ideas here?). > > (S)He then asked about the server that had the email - in this case it was > hotmail.com. I said I hadn't a clue about how to make sure that when > (S)he "trashed" the email on hotmail - that it really "went away". I also > had no clue if the "LAW" could get their hands on the email via > hotmail.com even if we cleared the local computer. > > Can anyone on the list help me address these concerns? > > thanks > John(nnyF) > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org > Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota Help beta test TCLUG's potential new home: http://plone.mn-linux.org Got pictures for TCLUG? Beta test http://plone.mn-linux.org/gallery tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list