"A CHILD sex pervert was discovered when he sold a second hand memory stick containing indecent images of boys for £3 on ebay."
--Source

It is disgusting to be reminded on a daily basis of how many sick people are out there in cyberspace. I am glad this guy was caught; but how many are still out there preying on the innocent like a wolf waiting for the stray lamb.

"The images of boys, aged 12 and 13, had been deleted, but were found still hidden on it...However, it was bought by a Mr Braithwaite in Lancashire, a computer security specialist. " --Source

The interesting point here is the way this man was caught...

If this person had not of sold his stick on ebay he would not have been caught. And if the stick were not sold to a computer security specialist the images would have just been written over with the new owner's data. Don't get me wrong; I am glad he was caught! This data could have been somebody's financial data.  A crook could get your personal information and steal your identity.

Now think about this when you replace your computer or usb flash drive or throw away old discs. Make sure there is no data on it you don't want prying eyes to see. So what’s wrong with just deleting a file or directory? Nothing--except for the fact that you haven’t actually removed if from your hard drive. The file is still there waiting to be written over with new data. When you delete a file the operating system knows it can use that space now. That's it! The file is still there. So what can you do about it? You can start with downloading a program like SDelete . Don't throw your data away--delete it away!