Even Factory Reset Doesn't Fully Protect You

[Greg C]

Even performing a factory reset of your device doesn't fully protect your personal information. This article has been floating around for a couple days:

Does wiping your old phone’s data truly protect your privacy?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5

 

[bbmjack]

Even wiping computers same thing

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Greg C]

Even wiping computers same thing

Posted via Android Central App

Yeah.. you're right. I just never gave it any thought for mobile devices

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5

 

[Eclipse2K]

Thanks for sharing this information.

Samsung Galaxy S5 (Verizon)

 

[AZgl1500]

Most reformats only involve the index to partitions, they do NOT wipe the data.

That takes special programming to actually over write every memory location on the device.

Once will make it unreadable to normal stuff, but not to Forensic software.

Deeper subject than I usually have to worry about.

A sledge hammer takes care of all of my old hard drives.

 

[rando991]

I downloaded and ran ishredder on a level pass 3 on both my old phones. Also put the app on my backup, my wife's, and my current phone, for just in case.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S5

 

[bIOforger]

Overkill, unless you sell your phone to a forensic scientist.

 

[bembol]

Too paranoid.

 

[TOTtomdora]

I'm curious; given how flash memory works, if you had a program that somehow set every floating gate in a cell to 1, would that do anything about this? Not that I'm worried. I'm simply curious.

 

[Suntan]

I give my old devices to my kids... They make them unreadable.

-Suntan

 

[theonlybuster]

These studies always bother me. You're talking about pulling up information using hardware and software that really only an overpaid highly funded scientist is going to have access to, let alone knowing how to actually use it.
Yes in many cases wiping a drive is not actually wiping a drive but putting whiteout over it (Analogy), but the best method of wiping your device (computer or phone) has been to erase the data, replace it with something else, THEN wipe/factory reset. After that, add more general pointless data, then do another wipe/factory reset.

You don't really need much more than that. You just simply don't.

Also keep in mind, they didn't mention whether these found files were complete or just 1 or 2 bits (not bytes but bits) of information. Finding a full image and finding 90bits of an image are 2 TOTALLY different things.

This article is simply someone trying to scare the general ignorant public... Totally disregard it.

 

[PsychDoc]

OT - Can someone tell me the difference between a "post" and a "global post?"

 

[Harry_Yambag]

I'm pretty sure a "post" is on this forum and a "global post" is on one of the sister forums.

My "global posts" are from my time on Crackberry.