Hillary Clinton’s private server is currently in the possession of the FBI. And while it has been reported that the server was “wiped,” what actually happened remains unclear, but not because the term is so hard to understand from a technical standpoint.
In fact, wiping is a straightforward process. It’s very different from hitting the delete button. And if it happened, experts say, it’ll hamper the FBI investigation. The FBI really wants to know if there was any data breach on the email server, and in order to find that information they need the following.
The FBI’s ability to investigate depends on how the data was removed.
- Option 1: Email was just deleted. No problem, investigators can still find traces of intrusions that may have happened
- Option 2: Email was wiped. Still, traces could linger deep inside the hard drive.
- Option 3: The entire hard drive got wiped. That information is lost and they may never find it.