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Wipe iOS device?
#52407 09/07/19 08:00 AM
Joined: Aug 2009
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The subject of how to deal with a SSD when you're disposing of the device it's been used in has come up numerous times, and the bottom line has always been that overwriting the data is deleterious to the drive and doesn't accomplish its intended purpose anyhow, and other than encrypting the drive from the get-go, the best approach is to do nothing, because of the difficulty involved in resurrecting the data after the SSD's data storage map has been erased.

I've now run across Data Shredder for iOS which, its developer claims,
Quote:
...surpasses international standards used by state and military organizations in secure deletion, making it the perfect choice if you're planning to sell or give away your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

Questions:
  1. Does the flash storage in an iOS device differ from the SSD in a computer in such a way that secure deletion is possible with the former, but not the latter?
  2. Under any circumstances, is the developer's claimed
    Quote:
    Deletion without trace
    possible?


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Wipe iOS device?
artie505 #52410 09/07/19 03:04 PM
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The data on an iOS device is wall to wall encrypted by default (there is no way to disable that encryption if you wanted to) and as the feds can attest that encryption is no small barrier to accessing the data. For another thing the data on SSDs, and that includes iOS storage, is not written in carefully curated tracks and sectors (those are necessary on HDs to speed access and proper physical positioning of the read/write heads, rather it is written anywhere there is available space as there is no difference in time to access every given location on the SSD. The result is the data is scattered all over the SSD and would be consecutively readable only by pure happenstance. Given all this it would require an enormous amount of resources to recover the data from an iOS device — apparently more than the Feds could put together. (The hack they used to break into the one iPhone was patched long ago.)

My point is I have to question the necessity for Data Shredder. By the way when I searched the App Store for "Data Shredder" I found five apps that purport to perform file shredding, or secure file deletion ranging in price from $3 to $10 and I don't believe any of them were the app you mentioned.

However if someone had access to your lock code, fingerprint, or face then no amount of encryption or data scattering would protect the data.

Last edited by joemikeb; 09/07/19 03:13 PM.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Wipe iOS device?
joemikeb #52411 09/08/19 07:54 AM
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Originally Posted By: joemikeb
My point is I have to question the necessity for Data Shredder. By the way when I searched the App Store for "Data Shredder" I found five apps that purport to perform file shredding, or secure file deletion ranging in price from $3 to $10 and I don't believe any of them were the app you mentioned.

Your point confirms my reasoning in having asked the question in the first place.

Data Shredder for iOS costs $30 and is not in the App Store. You missed High Secure Shredder, which is, and costs $50, but at least doesn't purport to be SSD specific.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

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