another 'great' post saved for posterity via this quote....

Orange is obviously a bit confused....and you are not even close to understanding where he/she is coming from....

he's thinking an IP address is somehow correlated to ones hardware, which its not for what he is thinking...though technically it is, as the MAC address of the NIC card and modem is associated in a way with the MAC address....if one changes a NIC card or modem then one will immediately get a new IP addy...in fact if you don't power down a modem when connecting a different computer (note I am not referring to a router here) then the new computer will not connect to the internet as the modem expects to be seeing the MAC address of the old machine....once powered down the new computer will connect to the net and one will have a different IP addy....

as a note it is illegal to harvest MAC address, though hackers do it all the time and I'm sure many websites do it also...that is a 'true' way to identify a machine in specific, and it is also a way to illegally hound a person across the net as while you IP addy may change, the MAC addresses particular to specific hardware will not (unless the hardware is changed out)....

This quote is what I am replying to, not the rest of his post.ISP's do work with MAC addresses and assign IP addresses to MAC
addresses as they are found on the network. Telus, for example, allows advanced
users to manually register two MAC addresses for each DSL account.

So, in order to impersonate another user on a typical broadband connection you
need three things, the right MAC address, physical access to the same line and
the opportunity to use both of those quickly enough to fool the ISP and any
potential investigators. The odds are strongly against it and the risk of being
caught in the attempt is high. It could also be done if the victim has an unsecured
wireless router but that circumstance also gives said victim a plausible defence.

Hush, please.

No need to go fighting.

@Orange County: Main question: Which kind of IP do you have?

There are two different ways IPs are given out.

In the USA many people have stable IPs. Those remain the same every time you connect to the internet. For this the USA uses most of the available IP addresses. That's called static IP.

Therefore, in the rest of the world, most people only get their IP assigned, when they connect to the internet, and lose it once they disconnect, because there weren't enough IP addresses left for all. That's called dynamic IP.

If you have a static IP, it is like a phone number.

If you have a dynamic IP, it is just a temporary number, but the ISPs know, who had it at any time (in Germany up to 3 months back).

And if you go that far, you can just break into his house, hope that his computer is connected and then just use his original connection :)

…and if one was using it to get porn and got caught,
it would probably be literally with his pants down. :shoot:

alright im 17 and i came across this stuff
after seeing people of your own age having sex its kind of hard to get off of it
so anyhows i scared myself to stop reading how ppl got caught and stuff
i always deleted what i watched but idk if it permentaly deleted it
so anyone know how to like permentaly delete junk


btw im righting a paper for more class in school on this topic

window washer does a nice job of overwriting data...Norton's system works also has a sub routine that overwrites also...

you might try googling data erasing or somesuch to see if there is a free program available....

Since you're 17, I suggest you go for older women, or men, perhaps as old as 20! (Some day you'll think that's funny.)

BTW, please don't let your school send you out into the world until you learn the difference between righting and writing. I mean no disrespect. As it seems that no one knows how to spell nowadays, you will do very well in the future if you learn that skill.

I'm beyond ashamed.
 

Greetings, and good afternoon.

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

I'm an eighteen year old who recently committed a horrible atrocity.

A few evenings ago I curiously and impulsively "downloaded" a couple files of illegal pornography. I placed the verb inside quotations because:

I never finished the downloads

Why? I realized I was idiotic for even contemplating such absurdities.

Now, before you judge me...as I hope none of such will be done.

First, it was impulsive, reckless, self-destructive behavior. It was a "spur of the moment holy ****" "Why the hell did I do that" moment.

Secondly, there was absolutely no malicious intent. Why would I care about such material, anyway? It is disgusting after all. More so, I had no intention of exploiting, providing or in any manner even needing said child pornography. I do not have Limewire configured to allow uploads. Midway through the downloads I quit the downloads. I then used Spybot's shredder tool to "destroy" the files. I have also defragged my laptop five times now.

I'm beyond paranoid...more so though, I'm completely devastated by guilt and shame. I had no cruel intentions, but the mere fact that I did it without even viewing the files, is disturbing. I am not some psychologically disturbed, disgruntled or perverse human - I was curious...but curiosity was a tragedy.

I don't know what to expect. I have no idea if I was traced and I'm being investigated. I cleaned the files and it's not like I ever intend to do anything malicious again. I further deleted all the pornographic material I did possess, to "clean myself"

Does anyone know:
What are the odds that a mishap like this could have been traced?

Further, how long would it take for police to show up at my doorstep?


Please, I'm scared. I'm just a college student who has dreams and hopes in life. The guilt is tearing me apart as it is. I'm paranoid beyond belief. Every time a car drives down my street I gaze out the window in hopes it's not a police officer coming to arrest me.

This would ruin my life...everything I have and am would be obliterated because of a careless, stupid and reckless mistake

My great reputation with community members, my education, my personal life, my time...would all vaporize before my eyes.

And I have a deathly fear of incarceration and prison.

If the police were to come to my house...would there be any hope of apologizing, talking about it with them and trying to make them understand that I am human and I have made this mistake?

Also, there is a police officer in the town I live in, whose family and he are good friends with cousins of mine who live in my town. The officer's son is best friend's with one of my cousins, actually. I'm on decent terms with the officer and his wife - (his wife has employment at the high school I attended, so I'd speak with her a lot). Should I maybe talk to them and confess and cry hysterically and hope things work out...

I'm paranoid because of a dumb action...I don't want this to ruin my life.

:(

Firstoff: Keep the paranoia down. You don't archieve anything by acting hastily.

Second: You began downloading files. Get rid of your incomplete folder with one of the data erasers Peerless mentioned. Best also get rid of your download folder. Then erase any of your LimeWire config files (so log files and similar disappear).

Third: The chances of you getting caught when you did it only once and didn't even finish the download are extremely slim. No need to get careless, but also no need to get paranoid.

@all: Please correct me, if anything above is wrong, or if anything could be done better.

ummm sorry about my spelling I was in a rush, but yeah i also have the same paranoia, but anyhows I found the files by doing search and typed in keywords and I found them and deleted them, are they gone forever?

deletion of files only does one thing...the fact that they are on your HDD is simply removed from the operating system's sight...the files are still there and can be recovered very easily...the only way to even come close to truly getting rid of the data is to physically overwrite it with an application such as those I mentioned above...even then with time and money they can still most likely be recovered if someone really wants to...

Deleting a file simply removes its 'address' and makes the space available. The data at that address will be there until it is overwritten. If only part of the data is overwritten, the rest of it will still be there. The government uses software that deletes, writes (usually 1's and 0's), and deletes again, a few times, to ensure that data cannot be retrieved.

Defragmenting will overwrite some of the (deleted) data, as it moves files on the disk. But just figure that whatever you put on your disk will be there for awhile, even if you deleted it, defragged, and added a bunch of new stuff.

Should you worry? Not in any of the circumstances described in the above posts. Uncle Sam is not coming after you for downloading a couple of files that you shouldn't have. If they did that, then most of those illegal videos would not be available for you to download!

For those uninitiated, we're not talking Tracy Lords, (who did X-rated at age 17), but actual [I]child [/I******ography. If you've never seen it, trust me, ignorance is bliss. The makers of this crap are sick criminals who like to be watched (for some, it's part of their motivation). So if you download it, you're rewarding them, while contributing to the continual abuse of the children.

To Hungry Ghosts, above, there's a big difference between thinkin' and doin'. People can steal anything you own, but they can never take your dignity; that is something only you can destroy. Yours seems to be quite intact. Don't be hard on yourself for being curious. Take pride in your self-restraint!

I'm just scared. I stupidly downloaded a few child pornography images out of some reckless impulse. I don't want my world to obliterate as a result. I was an idiot for that. I'm a college educated student with many opportunities, and I do something so mindless...for what, some stupid self-indulgence that's pointless and illegal? I don't understand this still...I'm trying to make sense of it. I'm still trying to understand a temporary lapse of reasoning and a moment of...derangement?...that crossed my mind.

Blah!

I don't need my life to be ruined by a judicial process and incarceration because of this. I've suffered torment already just worrying.

It would help me if I knew how long it typically took for police to execute a search and seizure warrant. Does it take hours? - Days? - A week?
A month? :(


How long must I worry until I can move on and accept the idea that I screwed up, made a mistake, and can continue with my life. I don't want to suffer because of a 1:00 a.m. impulse. :(

And still, I feel if I do end up investigated...I'm going to prison no matter what. It seems like the law is set up entirely against you. Lawyers carry enormous expenses on the federal level, and the law is just going to call you guilty. I doubt I could use some pathos - soothing argument on a jury, reminding them that they too are human and have made mistakes, and may regret many mistakes in THEIR lives.

This isn't fair. This isn't right. I'm sorry for everything, but I'm fearing the worst...:( It's hard to find pride when all I feel are shame and paranoia. :(

You mean like when I type in "Amy Lee" for some music, I come upon "Amy Lee: Cute Teen has orgasm on screen!"

I mean dude, I'm 13. My mom has seen it as she used to use Limewire on her old labtop. Not pleased.

Why doesn't anyone that works on Limewire get rid of these Spambots or whatever in hell they are? I REALLY don't want to see Futurama Porn or Anime Hentai.

Since you were searching for MP3s, one would guess that you could only listen to said orgasm.

Adding "orgasm" to your filters list will remove that little annoyance. Filtering out "pthc" and "hussyfan", and, perhaps "hentai" will also help reduce the crap that shows up in your searches.

Remember to use Bitzi, it will save you hours of useless (and dangerous) downloading of mis-named or corrupt files.

HungryGhosts: They aren't coming after you; quit apologizing, go to law school, become a prosecutor, and then you can go after the people who have caused you so much angst.

Yeah. Read previous messages in this thread :)

Most advice should be already there.

What kind of network did you use? We can't give you technical advice, if we don't know which network you used.

It's very good that you are scared. Hopefully it will keep you away from this dangerous precipace forever. Please let it. By opening that door, you would not only harm your soul by opening yourself up to harmful behavior, you would ruin your life. You would be given a label you could never escape from that would cause your neighbors to hate and fear you. Thank you for seeing the danger for what it is, very real and please go and stay free of these things.

Am I wrong?
 

As I understand it Gnutella acts only as a mechanism to bring two users together. Then one user can down/up load files from their PC to the other. No note of IP addresses is made by either PC or the P2P such as Limewire.

I've read about efforts to make the P2P facilitator such as Limewire record the IP addresses but I understand they have failed so far. Once the transfer is complete no record exists that it even took place.

Am I incorrect?

not sure what you mean by record IP addys...there are plenty of gnutella clients besides LW that list IP addresses...

:cheesy::confused::yikes::aweof:

Good for the soul?
 

Although I cannot argue with the feelings expressed here I'm afraid that some people posting here are speaking from a moral rather than from a legal standpoint.

This serves to unnecessarily scare those of us who downloaded by accident and erased. If you fit into this category quit worrying. The authorities are concentrating on uploaders. In the lower left hand of LimeWires screen is a option to view uploadable files. If these are free of CP then you are free to go about your business.

its according to who you downed said file from....if you are a truly 'innocent' person then even if you downed it from the 'law' they will be able to tell after they observe what you are doing (packet sniffing, etc) after the 'incident'...

OK... Normally I try to avoid this thread, but...

First, have you folks noticed how many people come in here... I mean HERE, only to this thread, and post 2-3 times and then depart ?
What's that all about ?

re: seeyavo ... All these 'deleted' posts ?
Hi, Arne ! Perhaps you have been trying to advise this person via PMs ?
I am certainly not going to quote anything from those deleted posts but the point of concern is clear...

I should also state that I have not read every single post in this ever-growing thread, but there does seem to be a recurrent theme regarding

cleaning data storage devices.

There have been many discussions, arguments and even 'fights' here in GF regarding this topic.
Some members have made efforts to educate others as to the simple and irrefutable realities about data removal.
Most people seem to be unable to either understand and/or believe the facts about data retention in storage media.

The simple truth is that it is an absolute impossibilty to delete data to such an extent that it cannot be recovered.
(The ONLY exception to this is to perform an absolute physical destruction of the storage media. This, of course, is not a form of 'deletion'... It is physical destruction... Physical destruction to the extent that the discs are destroyed, practically to ashes. I am not being dramatic here.)

There exists no process and/or device that will 'securely delete' data from any existing data storage media.

There has been much confusion as to various claims, primarily for commercial gain, made by numerous application vendors as to the efficacy of this or that 'Cleaning Program' and/or variations on the 'Bulk-Eraser' DeGaussing devices.
Not one single claim from ANY of them is true.

You can place an electro-magnet, used normally for collecting huge pieces of ferrous material in scrap-yards, directly over an HDD for hours upon hours... Nada... Sure, your computer may not be able to read the data but there are many individuals who would be able to treat it as almost a normal working drive.
They work inside one room that costs more than many mansions.
I hear many say, "Yes, but these processes cost a fortune and there is no way that little me and whatever I would prefer to have hidden is going to be worth the investigation charges."
Untrue.
Yes, most magnetic storage material that has been severely damaged by fire or corrosive elements can be very time consuming and expensive to recover. But, it is incredible just how much can be recovered with time and labour. True, these really serious recovery jobs are mainly done by only one company in Germany, normally for insurance claim purposes or corporate databases, and it costs large amounts of money.
But, for 'you little folks' there are normally several recovery service companies competing for business in most mid-size to large cities.
In other words, "No big deal."

You can run any one of the many, many applications available with a DOD 5220.22M scan (As many times as you like).
So-Called NSA multi-pass...
Or, Gutmann, 10,000 passes ! Hey, Why Not ?
The above are just a few of the more common and popular buzz-word type processes that are freely available.
Nada.

Defragmentation only increase the probability that a 'deleted' file will be overwritten by a later file sooner rather than randomly later.
So what ?
The old data is still there, even after an overwrite... After 1,000 overwrites !
10,000 !

System Erasers ?
"Replace All Free Space With Zeroes"
Sounds like the magic bullet, eh ?
It's nonsense and in no way makes ANY historical data unrecoverable.


So, as this thread has, to date, been remarkably well 'controlled', may I suggest that the actual original intent of this thread be pursued and that there be no more time, effort and/or polemics wasted on the so-called pros and cons of data destruction ?

If you have stored data, of whatever nature, that you wish to be made unavailable to anyone then your only choice is the total destruction of the storage media and ALL of its storage material components.
This does NOT mean throwing it in water or driving over it with a car or a steamroller or whatever.
It means the physical, i.e. mechanical destruction of the discs followed by fire. Yes, even fragments of 'mechanically destroyed' discs can be used for data recovery.


btw... Be sure to check out the on-going stats regarding the internet...
What are the primary commercial enterprises 'benefiting' from the internet ?

On-Line Gambling

followed by

Porn


"What's new, daddie ?"

@ursula: I normally don't advise anyone by PM, and I didn't do it here. If I write something I want it to stick, so I won't have to write it again :)

I wanted to retrieve data from an old disk once and sent it to a company. They took it, checked it, then sent it back after I told them that the data isn't worth >400€ - that would have been the price for clean-room data retrieval.

Besides: Do you know the name of the german company who does the really heavy work? Would be interesting to read up a bit about them.

Skeptical
 

I'm still skeptical. Ursula are you saying that if I store a document with only the letter "a" in it and write over it with random letters other than "a" thousands of time that someone somewhere can tell me what that original letter was?

And that given time and money that person can pull out enough information to determine a file was porn and specifically child porn?

Sorry, don't buy it. Governments with billions of dollars to spend will recycle hard drives after overwriting. With that kind of money incineration would be the avenue of choice.

Please give us a reference to your information.

PS: Most of the returning people I see here are either asking how to get rid of it or telling people how to get rid of it.

I suggest you buy it d00d....

read through this thread and you will notice is used the metaphor of cross talk on a vinyl record....

and I also stated that our (US) military planes have algorithms for both deletion and physical destruction of drives...

finally...Guttman recently admitted that his algorithm for data overwritting is not totally fool proof...

as Urs has stated, the only secure way to delete the data is to physically destroy the HDD...and I do mean destroy...completely...tiny, tiny, little pieces....

I understand. If you'll notice, my post was a response to someone who stated they did it on purpose, not by accident. The thing is, we have a sheriff a county over that is basically wiping the floor with people for this crime over and over, it seems like every few months there is a new story in the paper with 20 or so guys in deep doo-doo and I can't see how he differentiates between uploaders or downloaders, he looks for anyone and everyone that he can catch with evidence. So when I read this thread and all these guys, I get a little worried for them, not judgemental. I am worried that for such a dumb, thoughtless act they could face serious consequences. So, please excuse my prostelytizing, it's really only meant to be a danger flag. And I don't to plan to wave it again.

Thank's for that Virtualcoder. Can you give us a link to the newspaper? If 20 guys in one county are getting arrested a month I'm wondering why its not being done everywhere. Maybe it soon will be. But as of now there is nothing going on in the Los Angeles area.

Thanks for that Peerless. Buy what? What is d00d (d zero zero d?)? Can the "a" in my example be discovered?

Well, I said every couple of months. But probably every six months is more accurate. It's Polk county, FL and we hear about it in Orange county, FL (Orlando) next door. The last article may be dead on the local sites but I found the abc news article on it. Reading it is going to freak people out but I will post it. The thing about it is that he catches like 20 people in ONE county. What the f are these guys thinking? Some of those old guys are truly sickening, but I can't help but wonder about the young guys, one of the ones here is only 17. Was he just being dumb? Would this have been a problem in a few years after a girlfriend or two? His life and his familys life is basically destroyed. I can't find the article, but the sting before this one of the guys actually killed himself. The idea of the pictures put a knot in my stomach, but so does the idea of a 17 yo old boy facing that kind of personal destruction for being stupid. Anyway, here is a link.

ABC News: The Many Faces of Child Porn Suspects

I am sure they is working on another one as we type.

that

It's probably every six months actually. Polk County, FL. This story is only a few months old but the local links are dead.

ABC News: The Many Faces of Child Porn Suspects

Its refreshing to get cites.
 

Thanks for that virtualcoder. The sheriff was deliberately vague about what, where, when and how in that article. But no doubt he made the arrests. A Google search turns up more facts**. These guys were following invitations from "girls" they met on line. You may have heard about adults posing as girls on Facebook, You Tube and etc. Initially the sting was organized by a TV show but all those cases were thrown out. The TV crew was operating with the approval of the local cops and baited the guys in. Its called entrapment.

Now in Polk County Florida the sheriff did the same as you've pointed out. After the arrests of the guys who showed up at the "girls" home to have sex they were arrested and their homes searched where the computers were found. Presumably the sheriff was smart enough to not entrap these guys. Undoubtedly they'll make that claim and the court will have to make a decision.

Back to our situation. Chatting up a girl in some chat room, suggesting that they have sex and actually showing up often with a bottle of booze in hand is a far cry from accidently downloading and erasing an errant file.

I'm unbent. Unless laws change (including the Constitution) you're not going to get busted for download and erase. And I think you and the others should be upfront with people who come here scared out of their wits because they saw a picture of a naked 3 year old and are now worried sick the cops are driving up the street right this instant.

Peerless have you found that "a" I hid?

** Undercover Internet Sting Nabs Eleven Men for Traveling to Polk to Have Sex With Children « Inside Poinciana Florida

yeah...it was tucked away in a .txt file in your system32/dllcache folder....

you're riding in a sinking boat d00d....get real and stop arguing with facts....and yes, it is not very often that such technology is used to get data back, but it can be, and that is the argument...

Fiction then?
 

Should I just make the argument up then? Oh I get it. I should stop argueing against your "facts". I thought you were saying I should stop using facts in my arguments. Silly me.

That technology you're talking about can, with luck, pull up a partial file thats been written over once or perhaps twice. The CIA may fire a guy over something like that but law enforcement will need a lot more.


You guys should be upfront with people coming here scared out of their wits. They downloaded and erased a picture of a 3 year old kid and now think the cops are coming down the street any second now.

Tell them to erase it and move on with their life.

I'll be upfront with... It's ALL a Crock of BullSh!t.
We've used LW for about 3 Years now and have NEVER "Mistakenly" OOPS!!!! Downloaded CP. If you have, then You're an _ _ _ _ _
What a Load of CraP.
Ya'll are a bunch of Freaks that could'nt resist the temptation, and now we're supposed to feel Sorry for You. HA HA HA!!!!!!!
If Johnny Law a comes a knockin', then thats something You will have to Deal with.
You made your Perverted Bed and Now You have to Lay in it.
If this is the Kind of Bullsh!t you seek, then You get what you Deserve.

This Thread is Getting Very old with the same ol' SOb Stories. Get Over It Already!!!!!! Freaks:mad:

@Orangeboy

if you take the time to read this overly long thread in full you will see that I do advise overwriting files when needed...this will make them go away as best as can be done....BUT...they are still there if one wants to spend the time and money (and its really not all that much when taken in the big picture) to get at them...its not star trek technology (which is of course at this time fiction), its real technology out there right now...let's say you were a political figure and someone was out to get you...they knew you did such things and were out to prove it...they could if they got a hold the your HDD...are you getting my drift, or do I need to pull out a sledgehammer and beat it into your skull?

@Remoc....it is possible to mistakenly download such stuff...misnamed files, files with names such as DSCN_1023..yep, I've come across a few with names like that when I'm blindly downloading images just for giggles to see what's out there...I have to say you would be surprised at some of the images people have in their shares (probably because they allowed LW to search their drive for media files to share)...the heart of your response is correct, but I just want to make it clear that it is possible to end up with a nasty file by total mistake...

I'm afraid its possible Remok. I downloaded what I thought was a cartoon and got one. You might say I should have used "Preview" but that wouldn't help. Why? Because now the preview and incomplete file are in there. Either you stop downloading images and videos or you are at some risk.

I came here to get help and was accosted by paragons of virtue like you. After listening to your rants I got my toothbrush figuering Johnny Law was turning onto my street about then. While waiting I did more research and found that even if I left it unerased the cops will need more information about who I am.

Here's a short list of situations I remember pedos being caught:

Being seen downloading onto a CD at a public library.
Bragging to other idiots at a bar.
Lured by adults into thinking they had a teen ready for sex and showed up.
Buying CP off a web site using a credit card.
Public nudity, kidnapping and inappropriate physical or verbal contact with a child.
Unrelated crimes that caused the law to invade a home with a sparked interest in the computer.

Its obvious you've got to get the authorities attention before coming under scrutiny and all you're doing is scaring law abiding decent young guys unnecessarily.

Peerless I don't think Obama has downloaded CP here. The guys you're addressing don't read the whole thread. They come here and you and guys like Remod scare them into a panic. If you repeated your qualifying remarks like you just made I'd have fewer objections.

It is possible that I will be hit by a bus. But I can't let that stop me from going to work. Nor should I let one overwritten file push me into physically destroying my hard drive. I hope thats an appropriate analogy.

I'll be here from now on the same way you are and will try to moderate the shrill bombastic chest beaters like Rebok who inform 14 year old kids their life is effectively ruined now that they've peeked at the forbidden. They are the same type of people who 100 years ago told kids they were going to go blind if they masturbated.

be very very careful when insulting a mod orangeboy...very careful....you might find that another mod (like me) will step right in and put a stop to it before the offended mod gets a chance to deal with it for him/herself

Obama?..more like that nasty republican McCain....definitely Bush/Cheney!

Please get the tempers down again.

People who come here mostly are already scared, and we give them advice what they can do which can work.

I won't go telling someone "just erase the file, then you're safe", if I know that to be wrong.

I prefer saying
"First: calm down. You're not likely to get into problems.
Second: If you want to delete the file, do it right."

Followed by an explanation, how to do it right, and what risks remain.

And playing with the names of others is a definite act of aggression.

And while I'm at it:
Never EVER open a site in freenet which has a name similar to a certain widespread PnP RPG. That's how easy it is to see really bad files by accident.

Best wishes,
Arne

And leaving a trail of posts expressing remorse carries no weight in court.

OC's got it right. In the future use Bitzi, so you'll get no more nasties. Now go outside and see that the cops are not coming, breathe; stay there while you consider spending more time outside. Do that often.

Not too long ago a friend of mine accidentally got some filth on his harddrive. It was a deliberately mislabeled file, changed to the name of a popular kids movie at the time. Thankfully he had the common sense to preview the file before watching it with his daughter.

So he should have checked the file with Bitzi before downloading, but apart from that, he had no way of knowing it wasn't a legit rip. Name looked like a scene release, file size was the normal 700ish MB, avi extension, the works.

Just always use Bitzi to check the file before downloading. Can save you heaps of trouble.

Not sure what all the heat is really all about here, but...

Two simple points for now.

It is NOT emphasized strongly enough - and the very title of this thread is fundamentally in error - that it is NOT Limewire or any other Gnutella Network client providing 'offensive' material.
Limewire is just one of many 'clients'.
The material is made available by individuals who happen to be using one tool/client or another. So, cease any specific references to Limewire or any other one client. Those who have posted with the conviction that there is some degree of responsibility due to any Gnutella Network client are only expressing their ignorance of the system and p2p networks in general.

And...

In the great majority of cases file recovery can be achieved very easily and at no cost...

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File Recovery - Home

Try it.
Be amazed... After so-called overwrites, defrags and 'cleanings' you will still be able to recover enormous amounts of data - either perfect clean files or partials that can be 'repaired' and certainly file names and locations.
Even the Piriform 'Secure Delete' function doesn't really wipe anything !!! :eek:

Thanks urusla
 

Thanks for that ususla. I visited the site and it claims to recover normally deleted items via the recycle bin. I.e. files that have been dumped from the recycle bin but not otherwise overwritten. These fellows here are claiming a video file can be recovered well enough to determine if its child pornography after being overwritten several time. The overwrite might be in the normal course of using the computer or deliberately by a program which targets that file.

I asked this fellow if his program could pull up a single letter file after it had been overwritten several times and was given a cocky answer. No pun intended there.

Most people interested enough to find out know that a file is never deleted via the recycle bn. The space is simply made available to be written over. However a "cleaning" program can target that specific file for you and overwrite it immediately with random code and do it multiple times if you desire. Its been claimed here that even when overwritten a video file, with its massive amount of data, could be restored enough to view it well enough to be used in a court of law as proof of ownership of child porn.

Like recycled steel made into a car its impossible to tell it used to be a tin can. In my humble opinion anyway.

I have recovered deleted files myself, not cp but that's beside the point. E.g a whole movie - 27-29 minutes into it. This was not deleted through the recycle bin. Probably the main reason that I was unable to recover the last two minutes, was that I didn't have a lot of free space left and Limewire was downloading for several hours before noticing the the file was gone.

Strewth !

So what ?
NOT true.
It's all just false marketing of ineffectual products.
(See numerous references, above.)

Correct.
It IS the reality.

Incorrect.
If desired, by whatever 'powers-that-be', the probability is extremely great that the metals (alloys) and plastics can be defined to the actual producing factory and batch code(s).



A moment of recent personal history...

3 weeks ago I was doing some 'cleaning lady' stuff on some of my older external HDDs... One of them was an old Seagate IDE '160GB' drive...

Said drive has been 'cleaned' with WindowWasher 5 and 6 more times than I could count... well, at least 3 times per day, every day, while it was 'active'. Also zapped with C r a pCleaner - the old name for Piriform's CCleaner of today....It had been Diskeeper defragmented 100s of times, including changing the MFT size at least 10 times...
While I had it up, I thought, "Hey, let's see what the latest version of Piriform's Recuva 'finds'..."

Magic ! I recovered, clean and complete, a 1.32GB .avi file that some fool (no names can be divulged for legal reasons - but it was ursula !!!) had deleted in error. Me happy to have it back as it was a rare one... And mega-Tas to Piriform !
Not only was the .avi fie recovered, but it was recovered from a disc that had had all of the above mentioned 'cleaning' and 'sorting' AND had been severely abused by filling it to total capacity, many times... (DOH !)

This is real.


Forget any ideas about Recycle Bin being the 'culprit' and accept the reality that no matter what you do, no matter what marketing cons you fall for, the stuff is still there and EASILY recoverable.

Now, about some of the comments that have been made regarding the intentions behind some of the 'warning' posts here about the impossibility of actually deleting data...

I cannot speak for the others, except perhaps for Peerless, but my intentions (and I am certain the motives are the same for Peerless) have NOT been to frighten people... ONLY to educate them regarding the hard-a$$ real-world reality of 'deleting'.
And, to attempt to help people avoid wasting money and considerable amounts of time attempting the impossible, i.e. 'secure deletions'.

Last, AGAIN, I must repeat that Limewire or Phex or BearShare or Frostwire or Shareaza or Gnucleus or any of the Torrent apps have absolutely nothing to do with the content distributed by the users of said 'clients'.

If it wouldn't cause what I am sure would be a sh¡tstorm with the admin here, I would edit the title of this thread right now. Don't misunderstand... I am practically the president pro tempore of the anti-Limewire brigade, so I am not 'protecting' anyone.

The problem with 'child porn' is not anything to do with p2p networks...
The problem is simple...

!. There is a client base that buys the stuff.

2. (And secondary to 1.) There are the producers of such stuff supplying the existing market. The existing market is not new. It is ancient.
(Ain't no market without buyers, eh ? Late night mass, anyone ?)


Of course, 10 year old brides (practically bred for the sole purpose of financial gain as 'wives') in the so-called biggest 'democracy' in the world does not constitute child porn, right ?
So India is ok, hmmm ?

Hypocrisy abounds.

Even in the environs of good old SNA ! ;)

as a note...I freely admit to wanting to instill a bit of fear....hopefully it will make the person be a bit more careful in the future...

in the big picture Urs has understood my motivations correctly...and she definitely has a grip on the reality of the world, both present and past....not many people have taken the time to have paid attention to the real history of mankind...

Only one thing to add:
When I tell a program to write to a specific sector on a disk, I cannot know anymore that the disk will really write there.

I can only know that it will write the data somewhere.

We tried that in an informatics class: Write data to the outer rim and to the inner rim of the disk. The outer rim should have different access values than the inner rim, for physical reasons (the disk spins).

Our results didn't show that effect. Rather they showed us that modern hard disks optimize the data layout internally, so even when some tool completely erases any trace which could be found by software, you can't know if there aren't parts which remain in a sector the disk began to see as unfit.

Another example: If my disk gets a "dead bit", I won
t see anything of it, if I didn't have some data on it.
If it's empty, the disk will just silently remap the logic bit to some otehr hardware bit, and no software tool will be able to access it.

Long story short: Additionally to recovery programs, a physical check of your disk can uncover stuff which wasn't even reachable by software anymore.

Words fail me in expressing how very, very disappointed I am that no one, especially OCca, picked up on the above !!!

Perhaps it is because said SNA is the international prefix for good old
John Wayne International Airport (Love the 'International' bit !)

Nah !!! That can't be the reason.

Must be because any community that is so disturbed as to name an airport after a d00d that was ashamed of his real name is also, rightly so, perhaps ashamed of itself !?

I mean, who wants to park their illicit-gotten-gains G7 at
Marion Michael Morrison 'International' Airport ???


er, It's also kinda hard to believe in some ugly right-wing psycho named Marion,eh ?...

Even if he was fabricated into being Saint John of Dumfukistan.



Which brings me to the closer of this delightful post in this totally useless and grossly misnamed thread...

OCca, there's a lot of the californica in you and the majority of your posts make it obvious that you are one of the untold millions of sit-in-zens of The People's Imperialistic Kleptocracy Of Dumfukistan who have learned to write before they can read.

Kiss Kiss

OK

I changed the title of this thread.

It was always inappropriate and grossly unfair to Limewire.

This should have been done long ago.