Search for “high score” told them who stole the PC

By / / security, technology / clever, crime, search, security

From Robert Alberti’s “more on Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicago” (Interesting People mailing list: 3 June 2006):

It would be interesting to analyze that drive to see if anyone else was using it during the period between when it went to Best Buy, and when it turned up at the garage sale. We once discovered who stole, and then returned, a Macintosh from a department at the University of Minnesota with its drive erased. We did a hex search of the drive surface for the words “high score”. There was the name of the thief, one of the janitors, who confessed when presented with evidence.