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From: Tom.Jennings@f111.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Tom Jennings)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Prodigy charged with invading users' privacy
Message-ID: <14191.281F576D@fidogate.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 1 May 91 17:42:41 GMT
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Organization: FidoNet node 1:125/111 - Fido Software, San Francisco CA
Lines: 21

Quoting Jerry J. Anderson's msg of 01 May: 

>>                                                            He
>>installed and ran Prodigy on a freshly formatted 3.5 inch 1.44 meg

The standard DOS FORMAT.COM program actually writes E5's to all data sectors. A 
disk so formatted is completely and thoroughly blank. Aftermarket formatters 
such as NORTON et al have schemes to simply erase or move directories to help 
"unformat" later.

        FORMAT A:

Will completely and thoroughly blank a diskette irretrievably assuming it's 
MSDOS or DOS FORMAT.COM.
 


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Tom Jennings - via FidoNet node 1:125/777
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