Dumpster diving is the concept of sifting through trash.
This food is generally still perfectly edible, and some people choose to take it from the bins.
Furthermore, often people throw away functional goods that they no longer want or need.
A dumpster diver may identify these items and resell them.
But where does the tech come in?
Well, sometimes people and companies throw away tech items or data.
A dumpster diver may be able to make remarkable use of this.
One of the early forms of hacking didnt directly involve computers.
Instead, phone systems were the targets.
From the 1950s to the 1970s telephone systems in the US were automatically switched through the use of tones.
Making use of this knowledge was called phreaking the person doing so was called a phreak.
The term phreak is a sensational spelling of freak, using the first two letters from phone.
Many such figures are highly respected in the computer hacking culture.
To be able to make proper use of the system a fair amount of knowledge was needed.
Some of this could be scrounged together by just listening to the tones.
But many phreaks learned what they needed to by dumpster diving.
In this way, they could be incredibly effective at gaining access by exploiting vulnerabilities.
Often the vulnerabilities exploited werent anything massively complicated.
In many cases, these early hackers didnt particularly use their knowledge maliciously.
Dumpster diving leakers
Generally, if you dont need something anymore you just throw it away.
In some cases, dumpster divers have come across sensitive data on discarded paper records.
Data can also be accessed from discarded hard drives, in or out of computers.
Its also why there are policies on hard drive wiping and even destruction.
The contents of the bin belong to the owner of the bin and taking them is stealing.
Generally though, this is extremely rarely enforced.
Ethically, it makes sense to allow this.
If someone throws something away, clearly they have no further use for it.
The problem comes when whats thrown away can be misused.
Realistically though, this could and probably should be covered by other laws rather than theft.
Dumpster diving is also very much not recommended.
You have no idea whats in a dumpster.
There could be toxic chemicals, biohazardous waste, or sharp metal or glass.
Conclusion
Dumpster diving is the act of rummaging through trash.
It doesnt necessarily mean explicitly diving into a dumpster.
Generally, its done looking for food or items that can be resold.
Historically though, hackers and phreaks used it as a method to gain access to product manuals and documentation.
This gave them a significant amount of knowledge of the system and made it easier to manipulate.
Spies, private eyes, and police may also dumpster dive as part of an investigation.
This mitigates the potential threat of dumpster diving.
