2. There are a lot of programs currently available which claim to do this clean-up for you. I have not yet found one which does the job properly! Sure they will empty your browser's cache and your Temporary Internet Files folder - BUT THIS IS NOT ENOUGH! Understand from the beginning that doing a clean-up which will defeat the LEA's latest technologies is nearly impossible! But you can go a fair way towards it.

3. Let's work from a simple example. You visit a web site and download an image. Later you use your picture viewing program to look at that image. You decide you don't want to keep it, so you delete it. Now, where is that incriminating evidence? Take a look at this list. Your browser logs/cache will store information on the site you visited. Your swap file/paging file (depending on Windows' version) will probably contain a copy of the image you looked at. Your viewing software will record the last file you looked at. Your Registry will log the software you used and the name of the file you looked at. Your hard-drive will still contain the file - Windows deletion DOES NOT ERASE a file! Your Recent Files list will show the name of the file.

This list is not complete - there are other danger areas as well!

4. Now let's see how we can deal with all this mass of data. First of all, you might as well use one of the clean-up programs to deal with the obvious browser records. Acronis PrivacyExpert is good, as is Clean Disk Security, or the cleaner which comes with the Steganos Security Suite.

5. Now we need to get at all those logs, temp files, back-ups, gid files and other debris your software creates without your knowledge. To do this properly, you need to run some kind of customized script which securely erases the lot. There are several ways of doing this. One is to use a utility such as BCWipe (free) which can run a batch file you create yourself to clean up all the traces. There are easier ways. A good one is to use the Disk Clean utility which comes as part of the KMCS Deluxe System Suite. This will actually search your hard disk for logs and temporary files and create a script for you.

6. Your swap file and file slacks (the bits of an old file which are not overwritten by a new file) are another source of danger. BCWipe will take care of these for you as will Clean Disk Security. Whatever program you use, make sure you overwrite the files and slacks several times - each overwrite makes it harder to recover data. While you are at it, you should also wipe the unused portion of your hard disk - this can contain old files which have not been overwritten.

7. Now the Registry - the trickiest and most dangerous area of all.Before you do anything else, use Regedit to back up your complete Registry. Then, if you make a fatal error, you can restore your old Registry and all will be well. Do not forget to wipe this back-up once you are sure everything is still working properly.(For Windows XP, you will also need to deal with the System Restore points.

8. If you are wise, you will store all your incriminating programs and files on a virtual disk or rewritable CDRom. Close the disk or remove the CDRW and all the Registry entries which point to those locations become invalid and will be found by a good Registry checker (try Registry FirstAid, Registry Medic or RegScrub Better yet, get all three and run them one after another).

9. Alternatively, you could check your Registry for all entries which point to your "dangerous" software. If your picture viewer is called "PixView", for example, you could search the registry for that and delete all references to it. An excellent program for doing this is Registry Crawler. One of the best systems of all is to do a clean reinstall of your system and vital software. Take a copy of the registry at this point. Go on about your business and afterwards return your registry to its clean state.