Hear hear.
I guess I should take the "villain" as a compliment. ?
Being not the "sole" one is a good thing however. wink
More seriously, but not much, have you considered "internet noise"?
As I see it a thread where a member asks for help on a technical board should provide ideally
- a good question or details about a problem
- some good answers (and it is rare that a good answer can exist for a bad or vague question)
- a report about what happened by following the suggestions given (and asked for) and hopefully the confirmation that one or more of the given suggestions worked and fully answered the question or solved the problem (or the report that whatever was suggested failed and no solution was found for the original issue)
- to have him/her re-think about what was posted in a critical way (and hopefully add the missing info or reconsider the procedure he/she described)
- to check whether the OP is actually after looking for a solution or is just posting some "vague" question having not anything better to do
[/listo]
Any thread that does not provide the three above is what I call "internet noise", you happen to have the same or a similar problem and you find tens of places where that thing (or a very similar one) is discussed and either absurd answers (often to too vague questions) or no answers at all are given, and there is no report about what happened eventually.
Sometimes I try to provoke a reaction from the OP mainly for two reasons
It is not my intention to ever "intimidate" anyone, really ) , and I believe that particularly in a "professional" forum people should be grown up enough to stand being confronted and be capable of discussing matters. (this happens a lot in real life and particularly someone that is going to be expert witness in a court or however be responsible for the findings in a civil lawsuit or a criminal case should be prepared to it)
IMHO even the newcomer or the student is or should be either interested in the field or want to become an investigator, searching, looking for information, finding ways to get information from other people, are or should be part of their "natural" attitude.
And I guess that with this the topic is derailed for good, maybe Jamie would want to split the irrelevant to the OP question posts to another thread ….
jaclaz
I swear there were more pages to this topic and the title was different?
@jaclaz - While the accusation of you being “unhelpful” can be debated. I believe it is unfair to single out any one person of that behaviour on here indeed many seem guilty of it. I’m glad you took it as it was intended.
With regards to asking questions I agree, if someone is asking a question they *should* ask it correctly providing the items you have listed. I’m sure you would appreciate that there are plenty of things that we should all do, that can be forgotten in a moment of absent mindedness, while feeling stressed while trying to solve a problem that potentially has serious consequences or simply don’t know any better.
Startlingly some people will struggle to answer their emails, may have never heard of a hard drive image or know what magical hex is. They may be doing research for a newspaper, trying to work out what is happening during a technical case while sat on a jury or any other number of imaginable scenarios. They may even ask a question as part of their enquiries to a whole forum of experts just waiting to answer and help them.
Some people are dealing with sensitive information and do not feel comfortable saying “hey guys I’m doing this job where <details> and ….” for fear that they may jeopardise their work. Call it paranoid – but it’s a legitimate reason to not want to spill the beans on every detail.
Some people like myself just come here because it is one of the best resources out there for this field – there are not that many out there.
It is frustrating to read an innocent question replied to repeatedly with “google it” or sarcasm when it would take just as much effort to say “have you tried X?” or “what have you got so far”.
I agree anyone in this field should be hardy and have investigative and logical skills. If a colleague asks me a question I would not encourage everyone to mock them – it’s unprofessional. Being inflammatory on this public board makes us all look unprofessional.
We are here to share knowledge and learn hopefully prompting discussion and having fun while doing it, not battle out who has the best forensic skills by being the first to over analyse a post, dissect it and stomp on it and the person – who perhaps could have added more detail, but didn't and is having a tough time with a problem already.
I would encourage everyone who does post here to keep doing so, it keeps everyone coming here, but please think about how it makes yourself look, and more broadly the field looks. No one wants to be *that* guy. It’s a fairly small field; you don’t know who is on the other end of that snarky reply or how karma has a way of biting you in the b**t. Some people have a tough time asking technical questions this might be out of their understanding or control, but I would hope everyone finds it within their control to remain respectful to their peers in a very public environment.
Startlingly some people will struggle to answer their emails, may have never heard of a hard drive image or know what magical hex is. They may be doing research for a newspaper, trying to work out what is happening during a technical case while sat on a jury or any other number of imaginable scenarios. They may even ask a question as part of their enquiries to a whole forum of experts just waiting to answer and help them.
Some people are dealing with sensitive information and do not feel comfortable saying “hey guys I’m doing this job where <details> and ….” for fear that they may jeopardise their work. Call it paranoid – but it’s a legitimate reason to not want to spill the beans on every detail.
Yes and no.
The whole point of trying to help people on a public forum is not (at least as I see it) about helping just the specific user on the specific issue, what is publicly asked (and hopefully answered to) is essentially public and "well asked" questions and "properly answered" replies may help a whole lot of other people accessing the Forum.
It is perfectly possible to give enough details without forfeiting one's privacy or divulgating sensible data, but one MUST provide some sensible info (if he/she wants a proper answer).
Providing some background is often useful as the same question coming from different people may be replied to in different ways.
Let's take the exact same question, asked by four different people in four different manners and replied "correctly" (but not necessarily politically correctly) by the "same" me
Q1. How can I wipe a disk?
A1. You initiate an ATA Safe erase process (if the disk is ATA compliant).
Q2. Hi, I am about to get a bachelor degree in Computer Science and Computer Forensics and I have a question that I need an answer to for my final paper How can I wipe a disk?
A2. You have a broken google or what? 😯 If you had spent 10 minutes searching for the topic, you would have found several threads about this particular topic, mostly referring to the ATA Safe erase command, go and look for it!
Q3. Hi, I am a journalist, not strictly a technical one and I am writing an article about the ways that are suggested to protect privacy of users when selling their old hardware. I have read elsewhere how it is possible to securely wipe a disk in such a way that no info is retrievable, according to various military and intelligence standards, but most of them imply destruction of the actual hard disk, I presume that there are safe enough ways without needing physical destruction of the devices, so my question is How can I wipe a disk?
A3. There is no evidence, academical papers or reports that anything has been ever retrieved from any "recent" disk drive (let's say manufactured after 2001) after a single pass of 00's on the whole disk.
There are several freeware programs capable of doing so, a couple examples
Dariks' Boot and Nuke http//
Eraser http//eraser.heidi.ie/
Both of them allow the use of "several passes" "random passes" and a whole lot of perfectly unneeded more complex overwriting.
There are a lot of misconceptions on this topic, started by a known paper by Mr. Gutmann published in 1996 that has been widely mis-read and/or mis-interpreted over the years, creating more urban legends than actual useful research
http//
All that is needed is a single pass and at least for ATA compliant disk drives (please read as "all drives" an user is likely to have) there is a provision for an internal Safe Erase command, which can be initiated mainly in two ways, by using a dedicated DOS based bootdisk developed by the University of San Diego
http//
or from *any* Linux bootdisk by using the commmand hdparm
https://
both the above are faster than any other software solution (because they use internal commands of the drive) but they require some technical abilities (not suitable for the complete n00b).
If you search on the board, for keywords such as "erase", "wipe" or "Gutmann" you will find a few threads giving more examples/insights.
Q4. Hello, my grandson gave to me as Christmas present a new Asus laptop. It is really fast and has a great screen, with the help of my grandson I managed to copy all the data from the Compaq PC I inherited from my beloved husband when he passed away (may he RIP in peace) three years ago. My grandson told me that I should throw the old one, but I want to give it to our local charity. He then suggested me to destroy the hard disk to avoid people (and particularly Mrs. Pinkerton) to go looking at the data (and particulary to my recipe for the apple pie). I have looked on the Internet (thanks to my new Asus laptop) and read that is possible to delete all data from a hard disk without needing to destroy it (it would make little sense to donate something that is not fully working, wouldn't it?) So my question is How can I wipe a disk?
A4. It is not an easy thing to do, but if you want I can guide you through it, you will need some time and patience.
Easier would be if you could download a program and record it on a CD, I presume that your old PC does have a working CD reader or maybe it has a floppy disk drive? (I am assuming the former) You may want to ask for assistance to your grandson, but basically you get the program from here
http//
http//
http//
record it on a CD then use the CD to boot the PC, then follow the instructions on screen.
If you have any doubts in the above procedure or need additional help, please ask. ….
Comments
A1. correct answer, "vague", not actually helping the user to reach the declared goal, only a highly knowledgeable user would make anything out of it, in which case he/she would have had NO need whatsoever to ask the question in first instance.
A2. correct answer (though not "politically correct"), helping the user by both giving some good keywords to search and by making him/her understand how to proceed (search before asking otiose questions)
A3. correct answer, politically correct, explaining some of the background besides providing some of the possible answers, providing matter for thought and to continue the search for meaningful info.
A4. correct answer, politically correct, actually helping to solve the issue
Please note how the question in all cases was a "correct" one, in the form of "How do I do *something*?" and NOT the typical Yes/No one
http//homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html
such as (example)
- Does anyone know how to wipe a disk?
- Anyone has wiped a disk?
- Can someone help me with wiping a disk?
- Anyone can share their experience at wiping disks?
which are however acceptable in case #4 above (as I personally like old ladies that make apple pies and that try to keep up to date with modern technology)
jaclaz
Good grief, where do you find the time?
Look, waging a crusade against people who don't post the types of questions you'd like to see asked is like trying to hold back the tide. I already take steps to encourage people to formulate useful questions but there's only so much which can be done. Responding to poorly formulated questions with sarcasm or berating them for not having searched elsewhere simply makes the OP b****r off and other people think twice before posting. The correct response in such cases is, I would suggest, either polite encouragement to share more information or simply no response at all.
I'm in full agreement with Widgit on this issue (for some reason it seems to flare up now and again) and I'm starting to think that taking a harder line may be necessary.
Jamie
Look, waging a crusade against people who don't post the types of questions you'd like to see asked is like trying to hold back the tide.
I am not waging anything, and definitely not any crusade, as said I'll do my best to reply - as asked - in a more "neutral" way in the future, to prevent this kind of "perceived intimidation".
Here I was just replying to Widgit, trying to explain him my thoughts on the matter.
jaclaz
Good grief, where do you find the time?
I've often wondered that but, for the most part, I'm pleased jaclaz does.
waging a crusade
That can also be perceived as quite emotive language by some. As far as I'm concerned, sometimes, "waging a crusade" may be an appropriate technique to assist others to do something better by being completely un-accepting of whatever behaviour you have chosen to address. Of course, best used against serial offenders. An example would be a lecturer attempting to shift students to use more credible sources for research by marking down content from non-credible sources.
Yes, some members can have a certain tone about them sometimes but I find it difficult to believe they are doing it for the purposes of intimidation. For example, I have found myself responding along the lines of "what have you discovered yourself" when I strongly perceive a student is simply trying to leech off of others to get to the bar on Tuesday instead of Friday.
I recall other members that have been subjected to the moderator's ticking off publicly and, I presume, an amount of the same privately as considered by Jamie to be appropriate. I particularly recall a renowned member avoiding the forum for some time after the same occurred to, in my opinion, the significant detriment of the community at large. I recall reacting to a response that this member made to me and learned that it was simply his technique to get me think critically about my own problem.
A key skill of our discipline is to communicate complex matters in writing and verbally to laypersons. We must be able to communicate effectively, with sufficient detail to our peer group otherwise this endeavour is a pipe dream.
I am not condoning the tone of some posts by any means, unless they are made to serial offenders (of asking questions with utterly no context) or those who are simply leeching in substitution of research….perhaps the latter is my crusade, as I seem to be coming back to this wink
We should all strive to use an appropriate tone, but it can often be entirely appropriate to respond "what have you done?", "what's the context?", "is this homework?" wink , "what are you trying to achieve?" or similar.
But I also think people should stop being so damn sensitive. Firstly think that, notwithstanding matters of tone, it's likely that assistance is lurking in the response. It's more preferable to harden up and consider how you best communicate complex matters on this forum than learn it while the other party's Counsel is tearing you a new backside. lol
But I also think people should stop being so damn sensitive. Firstly think that, notwithstanding matters of tone, it's likely that assistance is lurking in the response. It's more preferable to harden up and consider how you best communicate complex matters on this forum than learn it while the other party's Counsel is tearing you a new backside. lol
Well said.