You’re being hunted by the FBI and you have only 5 minutes to wipe/delete everything...?

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You're being hunted by the FBI and you have only 5 minutes to wipe/delete everything on your computer. Without destroying any hardware, what OS are you using, and how do you do it?

Franklin Veaux, Decidedly non-hypothetical.

Written Nov 1, 2017

5 minutes? Piece of cake!

All my computers and external hard drives are using full-disk encryption with very long passwords.

0:00 to 0:30: I connect and mount my external hard drives.

...

Why is the Philippines still richer and look a lot more modern than Vietnam?

Mon Querubin, lives in The Philippines

Updated Jun 20

The Philippines has huge wealth gap as compared to Vietnam. So the wealthy in the Philippines are really rich while the poor are really really dirt poor. So in areas where ...

Are grades decisively important in a Ph.D. application? E.g., if a school asks for 3.6/4.0, while my GPA is 3.1, should I continue applying to it?

Vlad Krotov, Associate Professor at Murray State University (2015-present)

Updated Jun 25

I'm assuming you have an R1 PhD program in mind. I think you can still get in with a GPA below the required minimum if one or more of the following is true:

you are a very e...

Why did Microsoft abandon scandisk but still have CHKDSK?

Michael Finney

Written Mar 24

scandisk searched a hard disk for unreadable sectors. If found, it would attempt to read them and once as much data as possible was extracted, to write the data to another ...

Why does Spain offer Filipinos an easier path to citizenship but the Netherlands and France do not do the same with Indonesia and Vietnam?

Josh Avinante, former Research Specialist II, International Relations at Department of Energy -...

Updated Dec 21, 2019

Such enlightening answers from the first question. Why does Spain make it easier for Filipinos to become citizens. Best answered by the Spaniards themselves.

But the second ...

Can a student with a good undergraduate research background but a low GPA have a chance for a PhD in top ranking universities?

Barry Rountree, Computer Scientist, LLNL

Written Aug 24, 2015

No. No chance. Sorry. Should you apply anyway, despite what some random guy on the internet said? It'll cost, what, a couple hundred bucks? And the upside is you get t... Read More »

What will happen if you took out a CPU while an operating system is running?

Garry Taylor, Been programming since 8 bit computers

Updated May 4

Depends on the computer.

A typical PC or Mac, it'll stop working right away, and there is a pretty decent chance you've broken the computer.

For high end servers like Oracle ...

If President Trump goes out to a restaurant, how does the Secret Service know if someone put something in his food or not that could harm him?

Ronald Hokanson, Executive Chef, Estate Chef

Written Aug 15, 2019

I've cooked for multiple sitting Presidents in my career as a hotel chef. I have many, many Secret Service stories I can share!

Anyway we don't know who we're cooking for. T...

How long do MacBook Pros typically last?

Victor Panlilio, former IT Consultant at Berti Group (2017-2018)

Written May 22

Until this May (2020), my wife was still able to use her Late 2006 MacBook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo) for music notation editing and GarageBand. Unfortunately, the solder joint...