Erasing your digital footprints these days is tougher than ever. Inboxes, iPods, cameras, laptops, cell phones and other tech gadgets mean bits of the digital detritus of your life can end up in places you didn't imagine.

But it can be done.

What's at risk? Money. Jobs. Relationships. Even life behind bars.

A company that sells phone-security tools for businesses, Trust Digital, bought 10 used cell phones on eBay this summer. The phones had been reset by the sellers according to the instruction manuals, so it appeared all the sensitive information on them had been erased.

But curious researchers at Trust Digital resurrected data on nearly all the phones, including some juicy tidbits.

A married man's girlfriend had sent a text message to one of the phones: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days. "I'll talk to u next week," she wrote. Now we know about their adultery.

Another phone gave up the secrets of a chief executive at a technology company in Silicon Valley. It spelled out details of a pending deal with Adobe Systems, and included e-mail proposals from a potential Japanese partner.

Other phones contained a company's plans to win a multimillion-dollar federal contract, e-mails about another firm's $50,000 payment for a software license, details of personal prescriptions, bank accounts and passwords.

"This isn't just a problem for cell phones," says Simson Garfinkel, another security researcher. Garfinkel once bought 158 used computer hard-drives on the Web and at swap meets. He found thousands of credit card numbers, medical reports, banking information and gigabytes worth of e-mails and pornography.

Sometimes the stakes are higher. Hot on the trail of a Defense Department analyst suspected of espionage, the FBI quietly broke into the woman's apartment and copied all the data off her laptop. It included a warning from her spy handlers in Cuba: Don't leave any evidence lying around the FBI might find.

"Do not leave prepared information that is not ciphered in the house," the message warned her. "This is the most sensitive and compromising information that you hold." Too late: She was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.

___

A DELIBERATE DIFFICULTY

Garfinkel says most gadget manufacturers don't make it easy for consumers to delete their personal, even embarrassing, information. "They're not taking it seriously," he complains. "If they were, it would be a lot easier to do."

Why doesn't the delete button always work as advertised? When can you finally breathe a sigh of relief that no one will ever see that embarrassing photo taken at the beach last summer?

Blame the need for speed.

Most gadgets read and store information, but devices can read data faster than they can write it into memory. Manufacturers compensate with methods that erase data less completely but don't make devices seem sluggish: Gadgets effectively pretend that erased information no longer exists. But it's still there, just not obviously so.

That's not always a drawback. On a visit to Disney World over Thanksgiving, a family friend accidentally deleted a vacation photograph from her new digital camera. I used commercial data-recovery software on my laptop to resurrect the lost picture on her camera's memory card in just a few minutes.

A safer method erases sensitive information by overwriting it with zeros or other spurious data, but this takes longer. Lots of software on the Internet can help do this -- programs with names like "wipe," "shred," "burn" or "nuke" -- and some even are free for downloading.

One more warning: Sometimes being diligent destroying old data can get you in trouble, too. A federal judge in Texas this month came down hard on a woman who was sued by the recording industry for downloading songs illegally over the Internet.

Computer experts hired by the record companies found evidence that Delina Tschirhart of San Antonio -- whose online alias was "ugotburnedby21" -- had used wiping software to delete more than 200 songs off her hard-drive before she turned it over for examination. The judge said she showed "blatant contempt" in trying to destroy evidence -- and entered a default judgment against her in a case that could wind up costing her tens of thousands of dollars.

___

HOW TO DELETE?

To erase a cell phone, follow the manufacturer's instructions carefully.

It's not always convenient or easy. On a Treo, for example, it involves holding down three buttons simultaneously while pressing a fourth tiny button on the back of the phone. But it's so awkward to do that even Palm says it may take two people.

To erase data from a computer, try the following programs:

PGP Wipe, part of the PGP's Desktop software: http://www.pgp.com/products/desktop/index.html

Data Eraser: http://www.ontrack.com/dataeraser

Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net

___

asap contributor Ted Bridis is an AP reporter in Washington.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.