The title reminded me of a program that the State Department of Taxation created for its field auditors.  Since they were not in the office, they decided it would be a good idea to have a "recovery" CD so that the system could be restored to its original state.  They also set up the computers to boot from CD first (since the users did not have the BIOS password) and to make it "fool proof", they set it up not to ask any questions (Like do you really want to do this? Y/N).

I do not know about you, but that sounds like a virus to me!  Needless to say, several Auditors lost everything by mistakenly leaving the CD in the drive on boot.

But as for the "secure" part, I guess they are still in the 20th century.  Same state government, this time some clown loses a memory stick that had the names and SSNs of every student in a particular program in the state!  Toshiba's safeguards just do not protect against negligence and stupidity.

Not for me. With my luck I'll forget this, that or worse yet the other thing and POOF! all gone.

Seem that our Data don't like win14 x128bit and his new self erasing Toshiba hard drive...

Is it a bug somewhere or maybe some virus/trojan ...

Result is that you loose control over your Data... forever...

Best. gif. ever.

Hmmm.   Well I got a deal on a basic refurbished dual core system which happens to be an HP.  It came with Windows 7 and was cheaper than the operating system and had a free LED stereo monitor thrown in with it so I grabbed it.  Normally I "sanitize" all the OEM proprietary programs they put in but the "HP Advisor" seemed pretty stable and fairly safe so I left it in.  I always "download but don't install" option my Windows updates and figured I'd be ok as HP also requires confirmation before it does anything.

I already had made windows and system recovery disks onto dvd so after transferring 12 older IDE hard drives of archived graphics projects and work portfolios over to my new terrabyte disk I had added for storage in the HP machine, I figured I'd get some sleep and then copy that back-up drive too in the morning as an EXTRA back-up (gives you an idea how paranoid I am).

So after going to bed at a reasonable hour, I get up about 1130am on Sunday do a little graphics tweak and realize I need a file on my storage drive.  I use the handy little quick search feature Win 7 provides and since I can't remember the exact name of the image I want, I type in the file type of the file since I know I organized them and can find it with the others.

Strangely, Windows comes back with no files AT ALL of that type.  Now I had several thousand of those files and I am thinking, "What the heck?".  So I explore my extra drive and find that ALL my files aren't there--serials, reg keys, installation software...all gone.  In it's place are some things that look like a windows backup.

Now I had specifically opted to NOT have windows backup onto my system or to continue with incremental backups either.  So I go snooping through logs and the like and discover that early in the morning, a Microsoft major update came through.  Despite being set to manual install it installed automatically.  After this update finished my machine "decided" it was time for a backup of my comp and "decided" the large roomy drive I had half filled was the space to save it--once those pesky files already on it were overwritten of course.

So now I have a cool backup of my 177mb OS drive that is safely archived on my now erased one terrabyte drive.  It needed that space darn it!

So I trust this new drive concept like I trusted Sony's root kit installing DRM, iTunes rummaging through my files to make sure they were legit and Microsoft and HP to safeguard their processes so they are really user controlled.

Bwahahahahahahahah!

Can't wait until someone's motherboard pops a cap and they take it to the shop to be replaced whereupon their drive erases itself.  Genius!

Of course when you call tech support the answer will be, "That can't happen".

^ All too true. There are ways to do the instruction and sign off on it. Also, hopeless stupidity will always remain. Nothing can be done about that.

Laziness in enforcing computer security is criminal. To have "lost" the data of people is just inexcusable because of the havoc it wreaks on their lives. If Corporations are legally recognized as people, then why not the Government? Because the Government makes the law and says so.

Well, no politics. Just definite need to tighten things up. Really. 

Thanks, Dr Guy. To quote a friend (and someone whose opinions I value a good deal), "Control, control, control."

Wait 'til you see tomorrow's article.... (yes, I tease). 

I wouldn't touch that with a 40-foot pole.  What if you need to replace the mobo?  Oops, HDD thinks it's a new system and kills itself.  Stick of RAM fails?  *BLAM*  I don't know how sensitive it is, but even in a business environment never being able to transfer that HDD seems like a serious drawback.

Bla.. if they update this as often as they update their laptop drivers.. it will stop working properly within 4 months of purchase. Still cant get my Vcard updated to the latest driver {released 2 years ago}., or  the internal web cam to work anymore. Never again..