What ' s the 20 th month ? <| sep |> Why would I sell them as opposed to give them away ? That would severely limit the demand from those most in need ? Sure I could sell them for $ 250400 , but that is a lot of money for some people . Deleting all user files and keeping the OS is often easier if the laptop is otherwise working , i . e . not damaged too much from viruses . Going through files on a found pc is no different than listening to a scanner overhearing people ' s private conversations or googling for open network cams or dcim folders on open servers . Possible creepy but not illegal . However keeping other people ' s files or distributing would certainly be . I watch no more private stuff than the typical pc repair shop would do on a cleanup . Why do you presume in the first place that people would throw out a broken PC full of personal stuff if they cared ? What my suppliers also don ' t know is that they should be grateful for me deleting their home banking key codes , professional VPN accessed company folders , bank statements and mail and temp folder . Once I was donated two slick sub notebooks from a dubious source . However there were newborn baby pictures on one of them , so I ' d imagined it was stolen . Digging further I found his Hotmail and send him a message . He was very grateful and told me it was stolen with his car 4 months earlier . I think my effort is doing good in this world ! ! N . B got my latest batch of 14 lenovos from an accounting firm as a donation . They trusted me in removing what they might have forgotten of sensitive stuff . Not a single one of then had any cleanup done before they were given to me . I could basically reconstruct their entire business 5 years back , client accounts and all if that had been my intent !