Discussion on:

New Asus Transformer Prime comes complete with previous owner's personal info

But I think the unit was switched in shipping.It's a rare day to actually get a brand new piece of equipment even if it's a pen drive.

I once received a new Acer laptop that had obviously been used - there was a kid's homework on it, and enough personal data that I could work out who it was.

Before I dispose of disk drives, I cut a big slot in them with an angle grinder.

However, if you return something because it is faulty - maybe it won't power up, then you are entirely at the mercy of the vendor that they will wipe it. Probably about time that it became law for a vendor to send you a signed certificate confirming that where they have replaced anything with storage, they warrant that they have destroyed all data and indemnify you against any losses if they allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

Sometimes when returning stuff you are between a rock and a hard place. And of course there are those dumb enough to take stuff in for repair with material that gets them jailed, like a former famous resident in my area.

It shows you never to shop at the place where you got the Acer computer from. There are ways to get around falty equipment from starting up. When returning, ask them to wipe the drive [of course if it's faulty it generally goes back to the manufacturer]. Alternatively pull out the hard disk and either attach it it an adapter [or another computer and format the drive. Or just put it near a good magnet.
I had a friend who returned a computer undser warranty and they replaced the motherboard but wiped out the hard disk and iunstalled a fresh copy of Windows - without backing up his data.

...because it will NOT do anything to your data.

Did you see what is inside of normal Hard Disk? Very strong magnets! I always recover them them from failed drives - they are strong as (whatever you believe: hell or anything).
About 20 years ago we took floppies (5??", double-sided, 360kb capacity, and 1.2Mb) to the Aluminium Smelter plant - where people with pacemakers are prohibited to enter. After few hours of moving aroud the source of heavy magnetic field (busbars carrying ??1,600 kA (1,600,000 amperes of DC current - if you need this clarification). The data was readable without problem after our experiment.
About 15 years ago driving small Suzuki SUV across magnetic field created by over 3,000kA flowing through busbars over 4 m away (behind reinforced floor ) was stalling the engine, but did NOT affect data on electronic devices (PSION) and various magnetic disks.
If you extend 5m tape measure it stick to aluminium smelting pots and stay horizontal without help; if you drop the spanner, dont look for it on the grond - it is stuck under the equipment. Such strong magnetic field you won't be able to recreate in your "home" lab.
This days strong magnet does not affect even the screen - as it used to with CRT displays.

BTW: Do you know that CRT's were made for specific hemisphere (north, south) because of compensation of Earth magnetic field?
Once I got 20" monitor which the technician could not repair (colours were in wrong places, smudged etc).
After letting him sweat for few hours (arrogant type, deserving to get the lesson) I told him that HE won't be able to do it, but I can do it in 2 seconds without any tools. That statement made him more angry - adding some more time to his lesson. When he was "cooked enough" I turned the monitor up side down. Everything became perfect. After few minutes of silence he asked very quietly and politely: "what the F...?". I explained to him that the monitor was probably destined for NORTHEN HEMISPHERE and compensated for the magnetic field there, not in South Africa!

Don't underestimate Earth's magnetic field and overestimate man-made ones. Steady, constant (i.e. non-alternating) magnetic field won't wipe data.

I received 2 identical refurbished units from Asus. They both had prior customer data and settings. (ie they didn't wipe them)

One would not boot the win7 OS, but booting a live CD I saw customer data in Documents and the email client had been set up. The other did boot but into a German locale, and I needed a password if I had wanted to get to a desktop.

In both cases I wiped the drives clean to the bone with Darik's boot-n-nuke, as these were to be set up as servers running Linux.

Ironically, they were purchased without an OS, that's the main reason we selected these two. Yet they both had win7, I could have used the recovery partition and had "free" win7 boxes.

I guess Mr. Detwiler is ignoring Blackberries [after all, people are dumping them for others].
The same problem occurs for those returning a computer. Too much info left behind.

What to do if you get a new device, put all your personal stuff on it, and then Kaplooey! It fails and you have to return it, but it won't start up so you can't wipe your data? I faced this problem with a laptop, which would not turn on, so I could not wipe it. Fortunately, it was a simple repair, but some warranties offer over the counter replacement, which leaves them with a device with all your stuff on it.

My brother once loaned me a spare phone when mine was in for repair. I saw some lingerie photos of his wife in the pictures folder and heard a few screaming matches with his daughter in the audio folder. When I mentioned it to him, he told me he thought he had 'erased' everything. LOL

Isn't it sufficient to use iTune to restore phone to default setting? This should wipe all personal data.

Yes if your device is dead and you have the facilities, take the disk out and wipe it on another machine. But not everyone has the know how, or the capability to do so.
That is only an option for some.
With solid state drives - such as tablets that is not going to be possible for many, including corporations with IT departments. And if the phone has died it will be beyond many. No actual disk device or memory to access anyway as it is probably soldered to the motherboard. And if you get to that level your warranty has been voided.
In some cases it may be best to physically destroy the device and buy another. It is probably time for a new one anyway - isn't that last years model?
As for buying new devices and finding that they are pre-loved, I would be complaining strongly. I actually think that is illegal in Australia, you need to inform people if the item is second hand or used even as a demonstrator.

As far as spinning hard drives go, DBAN is the way to go. http://www.dban.org/ Burn the CD, put the CD in any computer, and boot from CD. It will wipe any and all drives it can find. For SSD, you simply have to fill up the entire capacity of the drive, same for flash. It rotates location so that areas don't get wiped out, requiring every memory location to be filled first. This is not as impossible as it sounds.

However, this is possibly for Android phone memory as well if you have the manufacturer/carrier drivers to get into SBF. With direct access to phone memory, a system wipe (except for ROM) is possible.

However, I'm with you. Sometimes, physical destruction is just plain easier and guaranteed. The dangerous method for a CD is the microwave (may catch fire, do not do unless you are a professional stuntman) or the shredder. As for hard drives and other devices that won't fit into a shredder, disassemble the device entirely, and run through a trash compactor that is rated safe for hazardous waste. And never, ever, ever, EVER, try to destroy a battery in any way, shape, or form.

If the drive is to be reused, DBAN is the only way to go. I've done the fullest wipe with it a few times, one 500 GB drive took about 4 days to complete the wipe.

Normally one pass with the default setting is enough to hide data from all but the most advanced equipment, the kind only an NSA or FSB (KGB) would have.

If the drive is not to be used again, I'll wipe with DBAN anyway, then pull the platters and rings out to make a mobile with it.

My wife made a great mobile out of about 20 platters of differing sizes, and hanged it in a southern-facing window. The reflections of bright light zoom about the walls, floors, across counters... dozens of spots sometimes all moving randomly, jerking to a halt, sometimes moving on, other times reversing course.

We have 10 cats, 2 of them months-old kittens. nuff said (things do get broken on occasion)

Bought a used Macbook off eBay. PO left me all of her online accounts, emails, other personal info and some naughty pics. I did a clean install of OSX and emailed her but never heard anything back.

How nice that Office Depot saw fit to send you a used/returned device when you bought (and paid for) a new unit. It makes me wonder if anyone in the Returns Dept bothered to inspect the unit to see it was was working or damaged in any way. If they had, would be too much to ask that they wipe it? Or at the very least, mark it as "used". Sadly, this is all-too common. I've purchased items at Best Buy that looked to be brand new until the package was opened. The phrase "There oughtta be a law" comes to mind. If i"m going to buy something used, I expect this to be revealed up front. Some sort of discount would be nice, too.

Returning an item is not the only way to let other see your personal info, lose track of your phone or pad for a while or lose it altogether. The restaurant may have it in lost and found but who has been looking at it while you were not in possession. If the person in the article had password locked the tablet things would have been different. I have not checked other device but the iPhone 3G and above allow the use of the cloud to locate, lock or erase your phone if it sneaks way. I like that.

I sold my old 3GS, to someone at work.
I, manually, removed, all the identifying information, accounts, etc.
I then did the erase, and the phone appeared blank.
Two days later, she informed me that when she restored her backup of her old 3G,she got all my apps. I checked, and there, on the phone, were all my apps
Don't trust the 'build in erase', MANUALLY DELETE EVERYTHING!

have had three friends get "new" phones. apparently the big thing is for the phone stores is to try out those new phones and then put them back in the box. a trip through the shrink wrap machine can help too. happend at t-mobil and verizon

one had photos of the guy's girlfriend in various poses with him. the others had other personal information- including phone numbers etc.

worst thing were the stores not wanting to admit their employees were playing around- in all instances the manager kept trying to put the blame onto the buyer.

"Kudos to Office Depot." ARE YOU CRAZY??

Kudos for selling a used item as new?

Kudos for putting a returned item back on the shelf to be sold again without even turning it on to see if it worked?