Data Security in the Back of a Pickup Truck

Someone had tried to paint the automaker’s brand name over the gritty rust stains on the tailgate that barely hung to the frame of the pickup truck in front of me in the fast food drive-through lane. I smiled, reminded of an old pickup truck I used to drive many years ago in my youth, with which I would haul anything for friends and neighbors. Eventually it got to look like the truck I saw in front of me, worn down by lots of miles and many loads of mattresses, furniture and at least one giant inflatable pig. But that’s another story.

It was lunch time 20 years later and I’d made the mistake of hoping to quickly grab a salad from a restaurant just down the street. Unfortunately, about 100 other vehicularly challenged people had made the same bad decision, so we all sat in a line that wrapped itself around the building two or three times, giving us all ample opportunity to admire the greasy burger pictures pasted on the windows.

I lost interest in the advertising rather quickly after I spied in the bed of the truck in line before me a lot of rubbish that appeared to have been torn out of an office. Perhaps it was trash from an office reconstruction project or maybe Godzilla decided to wander through some office complex. Either possibility seemed logical, considering the condition of the pieces of broken metal desks, twisted cubicle walls, mangled chairs and similar debris that were balled up tightly like fingers in an angry fist punching the back of the truck.

What really caught my eye, however, were the three or four desktop computers stacked with equal negligence amid the trash, along with at least four computer monitors (and assorted pieces) and similar electronics that had apparently reached the end of their life cycles.

Having familiarly observed the condition of the old truck (dented fenders, mismatched tires, rusted pinholes pocking the metal frame and, of course, the hand-painted Ford logo that might’ve been administered by a chimpanzee with a tiny paintbrush) I wasn’t surprised to see the condition of the electronics equipment that had been thrown in the back. One of the monitors appeared about to leap to its death from the right fender, while a computer chassis appeared mashed so that internal organs were peeking out in wiry wonder. Nothing – no rope or bungee cord or even duct tape – had been used to secure the items. Apparently the driver was trusting gravity to do its job with little concern for other fundamental laws of physics.

I had to wonder if the people hauling the equipment were taking it to a landfill, which seemed the logical choice of venue considering the other debris precariously balanced in the truck. Then I wondered if the people who had used those computers knew that they had been bundled into an old truck and carted away, possibly with the hard drives intact and still containing personal or financial information.

Beyond that, I wondered if the materials I saw were just going to be dumped somewhere, despite the fact that the electronics contain toxic materials that can easily leech into the environment. I finally considered how many other similar trucks and cars might be out there, hauling electronics away to uncertain ends, instead of having them refurbished or even recycled; their data professionally sanitized; their parts treated with some care to the wounded global environment.

As I puzzled over my observations, the pickup reached the pick-up window and then lurched away, leaving me a sharp reminder to contemplate. At the mouth of the exit driveway, the truck bounced over a bump in the pavement. The suicidal monitor indeed made the plunge, crashing onto the curb in a shower of cathode ray tube glass and plastic, leaving behind a sad reminder that we need to help people better understand the hazards of electronics dumping.

Comments

[Rob]

Very good point, and brings up an important question: Will Redemtech ever beging "home user"-level service offering? Sure, large companies improperly disposing of equipment can be environmentally devastating as well as dangerous from a data security aspect, given the amount of equipment they roll over. But what about Joe Home-User? He has a computer, a television about to become obsolete due to the digital changeover, an iPod, a CRT monitor he's going to swap out for that flashy LCD... What about his family and friends who have computers and other electronic devices... and their families and friends with similar equipment... and so-on and so-forth ad nauseum... Add all that up, and you have an ecological nightmare waiting in the weeds, so to speak.

To continue to pioneer the TCM field, shouldn't Redemtech be looking towards ways to assist the home users of the world to safely, securely, and properly dispose of their own electronics?