[HN Gopher] Retro collectors are uncovering hoards of old data ___________________________________________________________________ Retro collectors are uncovering hoards of old data Author : LarryPage Score : 55 points Date : 2021-10-29 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.wired.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.co.uk) | II2II wrote: | I collected old machines about 20 years ago. It was very common | to leave the data intact back then, even if it was being donated | to a thrift store (where sale to an unknown party was assured) | rather than being dropped at a recycle depot (where there was an | assumption the machine would be destroyed). | | There was no real dilemma regarding what to do with the data, it | was wiped without peeking. I figured out that looking for | interesting software was unethical early on, since launching some | software will expose you to the prior owner's data automatically | (e.g. databases) while browsing the directory structure for such | software can open the perilous doors of curiosity. Not only that, | but it is very rare for the data to require preservation. Most | machines are intentionally disposed of. The cited case of a | stolen computer is likely rare (though I suppose that depends | upon one's sources and the market value of the machine). | | I was recently given an old machine by someone I was barely | acquainted with, data intact. He said he didn't mind if I looked, | just destroy the data if I pass it on to someone else. I took the | liberty to create bootable diskettes from the existing software | since I haven't had a vintage computer in well over a decade. | There was no question about how to handle the data though: even | with permission, it had to be destroyed. | HeyLaughingBoy wrote: | Not retro, but when I worked for a consulting company, one of our | clients had just acquired a small electronics company. He gave me | all the information he had about the product we were supposed to | update. He did a data dump without looking closely at the files | because one of the flash drives had a bunch of invoices issued by | the previous software consulting company so we had a pretty | detailed view into what they were paying that vendor. I turned | them over to our GM. No idea if he ever used the information! | progman32 wrote: | I once pulled an image of the CF card in my work's coffee | machine (darn thing runs Slax linux...). I found a well- | appointed home directory full of the developer's web history. | Yes, they copy from Stack Overflow too. | bob229 wrote: | Amazing that such a tedious article has so many upvotes | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | I still hold out hope that the very first game I ever made, in | middle school using HyperStudio[0] on a Mac running At Ease for | its desktop, will turn up on archive.org some day. | | [0] It may have been HyperCard with some extensions for color. I | distinctly remember color. | p_l wrote: | I once managed to rescue AlphaServer 255/233 from being parceled | out by unknowing e-waste dealer. Spent a bit of time trying to | connect everything, connected the serial terminal that came with | it, flipped the power switch expecting empty machine... | | ... Lo and behold, I see it autobooting into _heavily customized_ | VMS 6.1 (first patch level that could boot on it), that turns out | to be special _Blockbuster Video_ version with appliance-style | licenses loaded (NET-APP-150), probably designed to run with a | DECserver connecting multiple terminals over LAT. | | Turned out the second of two SCSI drives still held not just the | custom BBV software, but also the database, including PII and | history data, with flags like "18+" on various movies. | reaperducer wrote: | I have a bunch of 8" floppy disks I got from fleaBay that have | student records from a community college in California. | | I have no use for them, so I just have one framed on the wall | for nostalgia's sake. | blueflow wrote: | A few month ago i took a machine from a scrapyard. That machine | fell into my eye because its PSU had a female C13 socket in | addition to the male C14 one, which i took as indication for an | AT (not ATX) machine. | | It turned out to be a pentium with ISA ports. I cleaned it, upon | booting, i noticed the CMOS battery needed replacement. The CMOS | was part of the dreaded Dallas 1287 RTC. Cutting it open and | attaching another story, but i did it. Reading the required disk | geometry from the label, i was able to configure the CMOS | correctly for the disk to boot. | | The yield: It boots into a windows 95 desktop, with a naked women | with spread legs as a desktop background. I guess i recovered | someones porn collection. | ChuckMcM wrote: | It isn't uncommon and it does raise generally ethical questions. | I rescued a VAX 4000/600 and found that it still had the original | drives in the main chassis (they aren't obviously in there and | the system had an external drive chassis that had been | destroyed.) The disks contained the OS and a shipping ledger (it | came from a logistics company) of shipments that had come and | gone from SFO during it's lifetime. Just from, to, short | description of the contents and a tag of 'customs duty' or not. | | Given that it was clear the company thought they had destroyed | all of the data on the system I went ahead and deleted all of the | non-system related files, leaving just the OS and layered | products that they had originally installed. | neilv wrote: | I used to salvage a lot of discarded PCs (use the parts, | refurbish, etc.). | | I quickly decided on a rule to immediately wipe any hard drive, | and destroy any drive that couldn't be wiped. | | One reason is that I'd been involved in some early online privacy | discussions, so I had an awareness that snooping might be | invasive. | | But if curiosity might tempt me to rationalize away the nagging | sense of possible invasiveness, there was a second reason... | | I never wanted to technically be in possession of, say, a private | photo that a 17.9 year-old took. Nor ever see anything worse than | that. Thus, immediately pull and DBAN/destroy any hard drive. | | Given that I eventually salvaged around 100 PCs, the private | photos scenario didn't seem too unlikely. | beauzero wrote: | Old computers are the new "old farmer's barn". You open it up and | find some interesting stuff inside. | agumonkey wrote: | people still leave unwiped hard drives into machines, sometimes | because old and forgotten but sometimes because the usb bridge | died but the actual hdd is working fine | | beware | yardie wrote: | I bought an old Sparcstation at university auction. After gaining | access found one of my professor's account. It was his | workstation. Had a chuckle, wiped it, and installed FreeBSD. | kps wrote: | Some years ago I got a workstation (either a VAXstation or MIPS | DECstation) that originally belonged to a university group | where my then-boss had studied. Since the OS was old enough to | have used the original weak crypt(3) for /etc/passwd, I | checked... and yes, he did still use the same password. | | (I wiped it and installed NetBSD.) | Lammy wrote: | This happened to me once nearly a decade ago when I copped a | Powerbook Duo 270c from a flea market in San Francisco and ended | up with all the defense attorney's files for this dude: | http://www.murderpedia.org/male.R/r1/rich-darrell-keith.htm :S | classichasclass wrote: | My personal experience with this: finding an old test NNTP server | from Netscape. http://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2021/10/shiner-esb- | apple-network-... | sneak wrote: | I think all of us old unix admins have variously been | fascinated by the Apple Network Server boxes, and this one is a | prototype even! | ghaff wrote: | I have a big "hard disk museum." Partly because it's sort of a | cool collection going back to old 5 1/4" platter days. But also | because, at a minimum, I'd want to give the drives a few whacks | with a sledgehammer before I tossed them. I'd also want to at | least look through my floppies to make sure there's no "personal | info backup" one. | handrous wrote: | Teenage-me once found a DOS porn text adventure on a used 286 I | bought from someone up the street, at a garage sale. This was | shortly before dual-core processors hit the market as a common | item, so the 286 was already ancient by then. Never found it | anywhere else, but I later scrapped the thing without thinking to | preserve any of the stuff on the disk, in part because I didn't | yet realize this was rare software, and just assumed it existed | other places. It was really simple even by the standards of that | kind of thing, just a single encounter that started with | specifying some physical stats for your, ah, partner, which | affected some of the in-game descriptions. For all I know the | previous owner wrote it themselves in BASIC or something, and | that was the only copy in existence. | SavantIdiot wrote: | I bought a MacSE at an estate sale and found a bunch of half | written stories [novels?] (they weren't very good). | | I'm so glad everything is password protected & encrypted on my | machines now. Wouldn't want some rando to buy my funeral estate | and find personal stuff on my hardware. My next of kin are my | parents so I don't think they'd be very savvy about destroying | drives. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-29 23:00 UTC)