Thinking of having someone upgrade my computer.

Ok I'm thinking of having someone upgrade my HD and other stuff on my computer. They want to look at my computer to see how much stuff I would need ( not going to get into that here). What kind of privacy measure should I take. I'm concerned about them reading my passwords to my email accounts and other stuff. I also have other docs and pics that i can't lose or for them to be looked at (work related). I don't want to reformat my HD yet until I get it updated. How would I protect my privacy?

 

I don´t see why you would give them access to your computer. A description of what you´ve got and what it is you want to improve, should provide enough information for any hardware specialist. Just my opinion offcourse.
Before they are going to make changes, it wouldn´t hurt to have read: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=3677 though.

Regards,

Pieter

 

You could use Cryptext to secure your really critical files. It free and it is a great tool.

Cryptext is a public domain Windows shell extension that performs strong file encryption and runs on Windows 95 or later and NT4 or later. It is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Hungarian, Danish, and Finnish language versions. You just right-click on any file system object to encrypt or decrypt it. It uses a combination of SHA-1 and RC4 to encrypt files using a 160-bit key, and generates a salt value for each file to ensure that no two files are encrypted with the same keystream.

Can be found here.

If you use it, please write down your password and nail it to your computer for future use. Trust me on this one.

 

Notageek, buy a new harddisk and fit it yourself. It's soooo easy, just requires a screwdriver.

Failing that, backup your disk to CD(s) and then wipe it.

It's really going to cost you nothing more than a few $$$ and a few hours. We can give you all the guidance you need right here.

 

How would I protect my privacy?

By finding a company you trust to do this upgrade. Even Locksmiths, to do their work, could break into many places if they had the desire. But they would soon be out of business.

If this is really all about important financial data then if you do not trust anyone else. Just go out and buy yourself a harddrive or have a tech only install it for you physically...then you do all the change over..destroy the old drive yourself..or keep it as a backup still installed in your tower.

You should be backing up that kind of data in the first place..physically off board of a system if it is that important..for if you had a physical failure of a harddrive..you would be in a real fix and it would cost you plenty to reconstruct the data.

Never store a duplicate of data on the same drive.


I certainly also agree with Pieter_Arntz..and can not figure out what is really happening..except you are concerned to have your system out of your sight and someone else working on it.

 

It's an IT guy at my wifes work. I don't know him but she does and I live by the rule of DTA. LOL. Maybe I sould do it myself like checkout said. The guy said he wanted to look at it and see if it was able to be upgraded. Thanks for all the info guys.