16th February 2006, 6:46 PM
You can put harmful macros in a .doc file.
And, you misunderstand the nature of files. The "recycle bin" actually is a special folder on the drive. When you "delete" a file in such a way as to send it to the recycle bin, it is actually moved to that folder and is NOT actually deleted. It is THERE. If the file disappears, it's not because it was overwritten, because it is in fact protected for a period of time while in that folder. It simply means you either emptied the folder, and deleted it's reference from the file system, or various settings like time and amount of space that has been assigned to that folder have expired and thus it was deleted then. That space the recycle bin has assigned to it won't just get overwritten, because it is assigned and the OS itself decides what to do with it. It's not Norton, it's just a special folder where "deleted" files go.
If you want to directly delete a file without it still taking up your hard disk space (which it DOES if it is in your recycle bin), then just hold shift while deleting a file. It skips the recycle bin completely and just removes it's entry from the file allocation table. That's how standard file deletion works. Even if it "vanishes" from that recycle bin of yours lazy, guess what? It's still ON your hard disk. NOW the rules you listed about how the information is still actually on your hard drive hold true. The OS now has no way to GET to this, not without some special program that lets you sort through all that junk data in the "unallocated" space. If you overwrite it, then it's "gone", but since those 1's and 0's are, in the real world, actually magnetism, they may be weakened but are still there and even an overwritten file can be recovered by a technician. What must be done is to overwrite the file over and over again until there is no magnetic trace left on the drive to be recovered. There are programs that can do this.
And, you misunderstand the nature of files. The "recycle bin" actually is a special folder on the drive. When you "delete" a file in such a way as to send it to the recycle bin, it is actually moved to that folder and is NOT actually deleted. It is THERE. If the file disappears, it's not because it was overwritten, because it is in fact protected for a period of time while in that folder. It simply means you either emptied the folder, and deleted it's reference from the file system, or various settings like time and amount of space that has been assigned to that folder have expired and thus it was deleted then. That space the recycle bin has assigned to it won't just get overwritten, because it is assigned and the OS itself decides what to do with it. It's not Norton, it's just a special folder where "deleted" files go.
If you want to directly delete a file without it still taking up your hard disk space (which it DOES if it is in your recycle bin), then just hold shift while deleting a file. It skips the recycle bin completely and just removes it's entry from the file allocation table. That's how standard file deletion works. Even if it "vanishes" from that recycle bin of yours lazy, guess what? It's still ON your hard disk. NOW the rules you listed about how the information is still actually on your hard drive hold true. The OS now has no way to GET to this, not without some special program that lets you sort through all that junk data in the "unallocated" space. If you overwrite it, then it's "gone", but since those 1's and 0's are, in the real world, actually magnetism, they may be weakened but are still there and even an overwritten file can be recovered by a technician. What must be done is to overwrite the file over and over again until there is no magnetic trace left on the drive to be recovered. There are programs that can do this.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)