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A popular method for giving new life to old
cellphones–and one that also benefits a charitable cause–is to donate them
to battered women’s shelters. But we have a warning to those
of you wanting to help others when upgrading your phone, that’s why our
resident un-common sense expert and Dallas Morning News columnist Benjamin
Dover is here to tell us more.
Question 1:
Your column in this morning’s paper was quite an eye-opener. Tell
us why we need to be careful when disposing of our old cellphones.
Answer 1: One of my
readers was told when they donated his wife’s old cellphone to a local women’s
shelter that the phones were refurbished to dial "911 only" calls, and that the
memory–containing all of your private names and phone numbers–would be deleted.
Apparently but this wasn’t the case. He received
several calls from New York area codes; he and his wife figured out the woman
who received the phone had an "agent" that suspected her of "setting up
business" on the side. He tried to find out who they were by calling them one
night by using the personal numbers programmed into the old phone by his wife.
Question 2:
The woman had an "agent"?
Answer 2:
Yeah...I had to re-read his e-mail a couple of times
before I figured out what he meant by the term agent–he meant "pimp" for those
of you following along at home. I’ll sleep much better now, knowing that some of
our charitably-donated cell phones are ending up helping some working girls in
New York.
Question 3:
So what should consumers do to protect themselves from
having private phone numbers end up in the wrong hands?
Answer 3:
Assume nothing and trust no one! And it doesn’t matter
whether you’re donating to charities or giving something like a used computer to
a trusted family member, you’ve gotta cover your backside when it comes to
deleting all of your personal and sometime, very private or sensitive
information.
By the way: I’m not picking on charities–they do
the best they can with what they’ve got–but they’re usually under-staffed and
over-worked...and if anything can slip through the cracks, it will.
NEVER assume the
recipient of your charitable act will have the technical expertise to delete a
pre-existing directory of phone numbers, or erase a hard drive loaded with all
of your personal and confidential banking information or correspondence. If you
don’t know how to delete an entire directory from a soon-to-be-former cell
phone, stop by the retail storefront of the cell phone company that sold the
phone in the first place, and ask one of their customer service reps for an
assist.
Question 4:
You mentioned computers a moment ago, and with all of our
personal correspondence, e-mails and bank records, it’s really important to
delete the information from your computer whenever you upgrade to a newer,
faster model, isn’t it?
Answer 4:
No question! Computer hard drives are much harder to erase
or "wipe" that most people realize. My resident computer expert Ronnie
Neighbours of
Arlington-based Take It Home Computers tells me: "Most people
fail to properly delete all of their old information on their computers before
turning them loose. We charge $45 to do it right–it takes a couple of hours–and
there are programs that’ll do the same thing. Norton’s utility program includes
a "hard drive wiping" function and costs $30-$50. Or call the customer service
number for the manufacturer of your computer and ask them who made your hard
drive. Locate their website and download the free "wipe utility" all of them
offer."
Question 5: So your final warning to
anyone donating an old cell phone or disposing of an old computer?
Answer 5: You’d better make sure you
thoroughly delete all information from cell phones and laptops before you give
them away or sell them and they (inadvertently) end up in the hands of the bad
guys. And if you don’t know how to do it yourself, that means you’re probably
gonna do it wrong, so spend the time and a few bucks to get it done
right–especially in this day-and-age of rampant identity theft.
Close: For all of Ben’s
cellular-and-cyber-security related tips, check out his award-winning website at
www.benjamindover.com or you can always link over from our site:
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