Accidental dumpster driving and HDD wiping

I was so happy when I came into work this morning to find a case with a wine bottle standing on my desk. I reckoned it was well deserved. Alas, it turned out to be a 16-port router/switch previously gone missing:)

Walking to work this morning I found an abandoned stationary PC and accessories standing in the street. I didn’t have my screwdriver on me so I just checked out some of the boxes. One was for a modem and another was unrecognizable. I took the thing and headed to work. Micronet SP5001/SIt turned out to be a Micronet SP5001/S V2 VOIP gateway from 2004! Yay! I love dumpster driving.
It’s supposed to work with most (free) VOIP service providers, and I can see a Skype related hack coming up in the near future. A Windows XP driver is available here and it’s also reported to work with Callweaver formerly known as Asterisk. Ports:

  • 1 Port of FXS Interface SIP 
  • 4 LAN Ports of 10/100 Mbps Ethernet 
  • 1 Console Port 

I didn’t stop to check whether there was any hard disk drive(s) left in the chassis, but someone had tried to rip out the optical drive. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had however, data intact for everyone to read. If you are among those who just dispose of old hardware (instead of donating it, giving it away or even selling it) remember to nuke it using either wiping software (available on Ultimate Boot CD) or very strong magnets.. Back to work!

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