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submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/12670977

iPhone owners say the latest iOS update is resurfacing deleted nudes

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[-] [email protected] 196 points 2 months ago

I appreciate this thread's nuanced discussion of how file deletion works from a technical standpoint depending on storage medium. But as a user, when I delete something, it should go away forever. I don't care how.

[-] [email protected] 104 points 2 months ago

I don't care how

grabs your phone, throws it on the ground and blasts it with a shotgun

There you go! =)

[-] [email protected] 85 points 2 months ago

Cloud's deleted folder enters the chat.

[-] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago

Objective updated: shoot cloud server

[-] [email protected] 45 points 2 months ago

Many years ago, we had a troubled employee leave work very mad. He was quite furious with his computer and went home for his revolver unbeknownst to us. He came back to work with it and unloaded all six rounds into the system. Each round went through the case and each one missed the drive/motherboard/videocard. So, the system was still working despite the abrupt extra cooling holes. This further incensed him and he went away even madder, but this time in cuffs.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea 20 points 2 months ago

Wow, how do you suck that bad at aiming?

[-] gravitas_deficiency 14 points 2 months ago

It’s pretty easy if you don’t know where the computer’s vital organs are

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[-] [email protected] 70 points 2 months ago

But as a user, when I delete something, it should go away forever.

Years of working tech support in my past tells me that this is a lie. "OMG restore this!"

[-] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

I think tech would be a better place if it did actually go away when you deleted things. If something's not explicitly backed up people really should have no hope of bringing it back.

[-] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

If every time an OS had to delete something it had to fill the space with zeros or garbage data multiple times just to make extra sure it's gone, we'd all be trashing our flash chips very fast, and performance would be heavily degraded. There really isn't a way around this.

The solution to keep private files private is to put them into an encrypted container of some sort where you control the keys.

[-] [email protected] 64 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Step away from hardware constraints for a moment, and consider the OS:

If the OS says a file is deleted, under no circumstances should the OS be able to recover it. Sure, certain tools may exist to pull it back; but it should be unavailable to the OS after that. And yet, apparently a software update was enough to recover these files. Thus, the concerns about data safety in an environment where the OS cannot be trusted to remove data when it says it has been removed.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

So let's stop calling it "deleted" then, and call it what it is. "Forgetting".

I'm not sure what you actually want the OS to do about it other than as I said, fill it with random data.

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[-] [email protected] 139 points 2 months ago

Nothing sinister, we just don't delete what we say we delete. Instead we keep it in your profile to feed the algorithms and set the "deleted" flag to make you think it's gone.

[-] [email protected] 68 points 2 months ago

I mean, to be completely fair, that's how data storage works.

We cannot really just make data disappear, so we let it get overwritten instead

[-] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

But clearly the data is not overwritten and this was intentional. How do I know? Because that would amount to a massive amount of data, if it was de to a bug in Apple software or underlying filesystems, it would be detected in monitoring systems "Hey, we're using 10x the data we should be, maybe we should look into it".

The mistake was in the flag code that was supposed to fool us.

[-] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago

no when I say "overwritten" I mean that the area is set as deleted in the filesystem and the next time something writes to that area the data that was there before is disregarded.

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[-] lurch 13 points 2 months ago

the shred command in Linux tries to do this, but it may not work if the hardware moves rewritten data blocks around to mitigate wear.

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea 18 points 2 months ago

That's how a lot of people handle deleted data in database, it's literally just a flag. That's why there's a recommendation to edit Reddit posts before deleting them, to ensure they're actually overwritten so they can't just be restored.

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[-] [email protected] 93 points 2 months ago

If you never had any nudes in the first place, and update, is there a chance to get some?

Asking for a friend.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago

You should check out the federated backup of Apple Cloud. You can reach it at lemmynsfw.com. I mean your friend.

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[-] [email protected] 91 points 2 months ago

Just the nudes. Nothing else.

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[-] [email protected] 78 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Cool

Next up, it starts showing other peoples nudes

[-] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago

There's a post on reddit about some dude who gave his phone to a friend (wiped it, new iCloud, everything), and the undeleted photos are from when OP owned the phone.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

With a factory reset the phones encryption keys will be destroyed and nothing should be retrievable from that device. Even if the data isn't overwritten, without the encryption key no one could read it.

At least that's my understanding of the modern safety- and encryption features of recent phone models/mobile OS's.

The worst part: Apple's iCloud is end-to-end encrypted and even Apple can't see the users files, at least that is what they say.

If what the dude on Reddit states is true, then this is bad, really really bad! 😮

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[-] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

"I know it's not your nude, but it's a nude and that's what you were looking for, right?"

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[-] [email protected] 72 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Computer data is never actually “deleted” until it’s overwritten with new 1s and 0s — operating systems simply cut off references to it.

That's not entirely correct, and I would expect a tech news site to know but ig not.

It's true with spinny's since they store data magnetically on the platter with 1s and 0s, but SSDs store data on the NAND as a held charge. If there's a charge in the block it's a 1 if there's no charge it's a 0.

With spinny's, when a file gets marked as "deleted" the residual magnetic 1s and 0s will remain on the platter until eventually overwritten like they say

But with SSDs, when a file gets marked "deleted" then within no more than a few minutes TRIM comes along and ensures the charge on the NAND is released (Which means that data is gone, permanently) for that data, there's no residuals to worry about like with spinny's and is in fact necessary to ensure decent lifespans.

ETA: Link to a study from last year on this

[-] [email protected] 30 points 2 months ago

This is dependent on the TRIM schedule. It could be size based (execute a TRIM when 50% of the blocks are used).

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[-] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago

Good thing I already knew Iphone wasn't private.

I mean, they make you sign in with an Icloud ID

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[-] [email protected] 44 points 2 months ago
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[-] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago

Is it just nudes or is it all old photos?

[-] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago

The former would be hilarious, it would mean that iOS explicitly classified those images as nudes.

[-] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago

The article is being disingenuous about data not being deleted unless it's overwritten with 1's and 0's. Technically that's true, but:

Most data being deleted is equivalent to a piece of paper being placed in a trashcan, and it's "permanently" deleted when that trash gets hauled away to a landfill (or supposedly recycling but that's another topic). Technically it's still forensically accessible, but it isn't accessible by any normal means. That piece of paper may not have been incinerated, but for the majority of practical purposes, it's gone.

Apple never hauled the trash away, even though they claimed they did. There should be no way for them to accidentally restore those photos, just like there's no way for you to accidentally get a piece of paper back in your trash bin after it's been sent to a landfill.

Focusing on the 1s and 0s skips past the fact they failed to complete the first, obvious, essential step. If they didn't delete it the simple way, they would never have gotten to the 1s and 0s step. This isn't just a simple oversight, and those pictures were still very easily accessible, just not to the people who should have been in control of them.

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[-] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I dont trust that client side scanning or other system components arent going through these half deleted files

[-] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

can't wait for my personally hosted, and managed hardware server to start serving me shit i never put up in the first place.

Oh wait that won't happen, because i host it, and it's mine, and i own it.

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[-] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Are they not happy when they got back what they thought was lost? :-)

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this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
514 points (97.4% liked)

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