I need some help...

W

Winkler

Registered
So, at school, we are each given laptops, and after using it for a year, they have decided that they are going to "check" it for anything that i shouldn't have downloaded, eg porn. After hearing this, i quickly deleted all of that stuff off my comp, but i didn't secure empty the trash, and apparently they can search your deleted items with some undeleter and terminal, my question now is, what can i do?

Also, what else should i do to stop them from finding it? are there any history folders or preference folders?

Simply put, what can i do not to get caught?

thanks
 
Welcome to the forum.

I am assuming that these powerbooks/iBooks were given to you as a loaner. You probably signed a paper stating that you would not use it for anything illegal and you would take proper care of it. That said...

Open Safari and go to the History Menu. Select Clear History.
Go to the Safari Menu and select Empty Cache. Click on the empty button when the alert box comes up.

Now go to the Safari Menu and select Preferences. Select the Security tab and click on the Show Cookies button. Click on the Remove all button.

If you saved any sites in bookmarks, make sure you delete those.

You can select Reset Safari (from the Safari Menu). This will not erase your bookmarks but will reset Safari to the default.

Also check the Keychain Access. Especially if you saved passwords to questionable sites.

Don't go to those sites again while using the school's machine. :)
 
If you have installed software that you have since deleted, prefs files might be left behind. You can find them in ~/Library/Preferences

Some can be identified by file name, but others may not (remember to 'secure empty trash' from here on out.) Allume's "Spring Cleaning" purports to find & remove "Orphan Prefs" - so that's one option. "Internet Cleanup" by the same vendor might also be worth while, depending on how thorough your school expects to be.

As for wiping your free space (i.e. secure deleting AFTER non-secure deleting) one way to greatly reduce the odds of those files being found is to optimize your hard disk. DiskWarrior is one choice for that.

The only "free" way I know to wipe your unused space is to completely (or at least nearly) fill the drive up with large but innocuous files, then secure-delete them. It's rather time consuming, but I think it'd work.
 
Hmm... I'm not really sure, but I guess the most important tip would be: "Stop downloading porn and other illegal stuff immediately. It's not worth it." ;)

And for the future: Please do give your threads better titles. Almost anyone who opens a thread here needs help in one or the other way...
 
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