Wiping Data from your Device

[jmagid51]

Caution: Wiping data from your Android phone may not work

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[SpookDroid]

Interesting read, but as usual, blown out of proportion. This would happen with an iPhone too, if that's where this article wants to go.

Unless your device has been encrypted, all data stored on it is still there after a device wipe, it's just not easily accessible. Think about a book page you cover with a sheet of paper; the text is still there, you just can't see it. If you really want to delete the text, you would have to print something else on top of it. Same thing with data. After a wipe, the only way to get rid of it is to write something else on top of it.

It's the same on a computer hard drive. And yes, even encrypted data can be recovered, with the difference being that said data is harder to translate into usable information than 'regular' data.

Also note that they did use data forensics tools, even if 'easily' available ones. It's not something your average petty thief will have on hand.

 

[jmagid51]

110% correct. What gets wiped are the pointers not the actual data. Your even more correct about getting your hands on the tools to read the data.

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[Indoler]

Caution: Wiping data from your Android phone may not work

A 'factory reset' is not the same as a wipe!
A 'factory reset' is the lightest level of device-wide data trashing you can perform. It does NOT overwrite the 'old' data. It only removes the 'old' data files' headers and releases their locations in storage so that new data can overwrite those locations in future. But as long as those locations have not been overwritten with new data the 'old' data, which are still there, can easily be resurrected. If you know how.

So 'factory resetting' has never really destroyed old data (it never pretended to either, btw). It has just made them invisible to the unaided eye. It's all still there IRL.

In order to really destroy old data and make it unreadable/unretrievable it must be 'wiped' in the proper sense. Like with AndroidLost's wipe function. Or – better – the entire storage must be reformatted. Or – best of all – by physically and thoroughly destroying the storage volume. For instance under a steam hammer... (not kidding!).

 

[jmagid51]

Reformatting certainly would do the trick.

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