Welcome to ask Jerry, where we are talking about all the questions you may have about the smart things of your life. I am Jerry and I spent the best part of my life working with technology. I have training in engineering and R&D and I have been covering Android and Google for 15 years.
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Ask Jerry a column where we answer your Android / Tech in fire questions using the longtime editor of Android Central Jerry Hildenbrand.
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Destroy all data stored inside a phone
T asks:
Each year, I receive a new phone for work and IT service says that they “suffer safely” my old data before putting it back to the purchasing service. Are they serious? If you can do this, can you tell me?
THANKS
Hey, cool question!
Whenever there is a clear answer, I like to give it just in advance because I know that many people do not want to read the entire article, so yes. You can do it in different ways, although some of them destroy the phone. I will assume that they do it without extinguishing everything because they turn it over when they have finished.
Another thing to think is the reason why someone would need to do it, and that’s where we will start.
What is a “secure wiping” and why would you need to do it?
You probably have the impression that once you delete something of any kind of electronic storage, it has disappeared forever. It is not.
For ordinary people like us, yes. Once you delete it and empty all kinds of trash folder that grabs everything, you can say goodbye. But for people with the right hardware, good software and know-how to use everything, many things can be recovered.
This is because when you delete something, you generally do not delete it. You simply delete the bits that tell the system that it is there and where it was. For example, if I take a photo of my dog and delete it after its backup, the information that makes the image remain. Only the information that said what it was is deleted, and the system thinks that the space is now free.
Finally, the data to create the image of my dog will be crushed by new data, then it disappeared forever. Until then, you can sometimes recover it – if you have the means.
It is quite universal, that you are talking about a phone, a computer, a tablet or even one of these digital image frames. Encryption makes you very difficult to get useful data, and your phone is encrypted unless you talk to it, so it’s really not worth worrying unless you keep important things on secret.
For people who feel that they must care about it, they should make a secure paper towel of all data.
How to safely wipe a phone
There are several ways to do so, but in this case, they almost certainly do it without destroying storage supports. This means that they connect to something that will fully fulfill storage with new but completely absurd data; Really just a bunch of 1 and 0 in a random pattern. This will ensure that all the storage is crushed and that everything that is old will be really destroyed.
Although it’s a long process, you can do it on your phone yourself. Reset the factory on the phone, go through the configuration without Enter all the accounts, join a computer and start copying tons of small text files which are only one page of “111111111111111” again and again. This will not erase the storage of the system, but nothing should ever be written there, so it’s a lot of overpowerness if you think you need the overpower. Once the phone storage is full, the factory resets it again.
The easy way is with a hammer or a few pairs of pliers. Dividing it into small bits will never get the data from the device. It is also a little fun. Just make sure you break all small silicon rectangles to make sure you get the storage media.
This is how some government agencies “delete” the data from the old hard disks of the computer, and there is a person who is paid to crush them. Once finished, throw everything in a bag to fall into an online trash can, and you are ready to leave.
Although some people really need to live with this level of paranoia, you don’t, I don’t, and 99.9% of the people who read it. It is almost impossible to obtain old -fashioned deleted deleted data from a encrypted device that has been wiped.
If you want something to worry, look at what the company provides your telephone service does instead with your data. The next time someone calls you about an prolonged guarantee, it is not because he got something from your old phone – it is because your operator sold him your name and your phone number.
