At work, this past week, I noticed an issue of Business Week that highlighted some online law enforcement issues. The articles were ok, but it sounds like interesting work. The articles are currently still available online: Hacker Hunters and Meet Cyberspace’s Head Fed.
I came across a good, free utility to securely (for my purposes) erase a hard drive. It’s called “Darik’s Boot and Nuke” and is available at http://dban.sourceforge.net/.
UPDATE: Perhaps a better solution is to use something I already have. A bootable linux CD with the “shred” utility. The knoppix live CD has this program. For instructions on how to do this, click HERE.