Monday, June 19, 2006

Parannoying

I'm paranoid about some things.

I hate it how when you pay for something with your credit card, they give you a receipt with the numbers ALL on it, including the expiry date. That is just dumb.
So I bought a small, cheap shredder a couple of years ago and I shred all that stuff.
I mean, think about. If you picked up some random credit card receipt with that info on it, you could go online and start buying stuff. 2 seconds of research on the web might give you a billing address and you're in 'business'. If it was in the trash with a bank statement, wow, hello PRADA.
So, I'm paranoid about that stuff.
What about digital data? Throwing out a back up CD or DVD that didn't burn correctly or it's out of date? Well, best you destroy that mutha first. I use a huge box cutter and cut the crap out of the surface, and break it up. Old hard drive? Drilling practice.
I see some shredders now have CD/DVD shredding to crunch it up into bits...that's cool.

Anyway, check out this story. It's quite funny, but it goes to show what can happen if an old hard drive gets into the wrong hands, and more importantly that a little privacy paranoia is not a bad thing.