Security of personal, private information is becoming increasingly important in our world today. When it is time to sell or recycle an old computer, securely removing that personal information should be part of your plan.  When discarding or selling an old computer, users need to be certain that their personal identifying information will not be compromised as a result of the sale or disposal.

For quite some time, the US Department of Defense has maintained a policy of overwriting the data on magnetic media three separate times prior to physical destruction of the discarded media. The government is sufficiently concerned with security and privacy in this matter that they never sell the used magnetic media. They delete and repeatedly overwrite the data and then physically destroy the media.