When I hit "delete" can someone still access that information or file?
In terms of deleting information off of your computer, there are a couple of steps and there are also a couple of fallacies. One is, by deleting something, you're not getting rid of it, you're simply moving it to the trash can. Trash can is simply a folder, but the trash can is a metaphor for getting rid of that item. You still have to empty the trash. That said, even upon emptying the trash, you have absolutely not removed the remnants of that information from the hard drive. Someone with a modicum of experience with hacking, or playing with computers, or restructuring drives can absolutely restructure or rebuild a hard drive where you've deleted and emptied the trash. For everything on that drive, someone could restructure that drive without too much trouble. There's only one guaranteed way to absolutely delete any traces of anything off a hard drive, and that is writing those drives back to zero. Writing those drives back to zero means, basically, you're taking them back to the state that they were when they came out of the factory, before they had any software put on them. It's a very, very long process, it takes a long time to do that because you have to go, the software has to go through and remove every single thing that was ever on there and create a clean slate. That is the only guaranteed way to remove any trail of anything.
