Updated discussion on deleting your files on the iphone

[Cmw9555]

ladies and germs,

I literally spent all day checking this out. I ran into dozens of spam websites and a ton of articles that dated back to 2009-2011 and focused on the older iphones. I am selling two iphone 4S'. I restored them via itunes twice and changed my apple id. Is this sufficient for wiping out all the data? What I have read is that apple encrypts all data on the iphone and merely wipes out the encryption key to "delete" all the goodies. How secure is this? While I dont have state secrets I do have two years of my life on these bad boys. I mean is there any one out there open source that has broken the apple encryption? These smart guys with CS degrees break this stuff all the time, but I do have faith in Apple. Whats the LATEST word on this?

Once again I am talking about selling an iphone, where the new user would have no access to the previous backups on my computer. What can they access with just a restored Iphone. Thanks for you help!

 

[Ryan Burgess]

ladies and germs,

I literally spent all day checking this out. I ran into dozens of spam websites and a ton of articles that dated back to 2009-2011 and focused on the older iphones. I am selling two iphone 4S'. I restored them via itunes twice and changed my apple id. Is this sufficient for wiping out all the data? What I have read is that apple encrypts all data on the iphone and merely wipes out the encryption key to "delete" all the goodies. How secure is this? While I dont have state secrets I do have two years of my life on these bad boys. I mean is there any one out there open source that has broken the apple encryption? These smart guys with CS degrees break this stuff all the time, but I do have faith in Apple. Whats the LATEST word on this?

Once again I am talking about selling an iphone, where the new user would have no access to the previous backups on my computer. What can they access with just a restored Iphone. Thanks for you help!

I can't answer your questions about people cracking apples encryption (although I HIGHLY doubt anyone would ever be able too) there is an app on the App Store (for $1) that will write over all the data on your phone and then erase it, providing a clean restore where the data is actually gone.

Check it out here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iclean-remove-clean-all-deleted/id661800424?mt=8

 

[scaredpoet]

I am selling two iphone 4S'. I restored them via itunes twice and changed my apple id. Is this sufficient for wiping out all the data?

Yes, it is.

If you have an iCloud ID associated with he account, make sure that "Find My iPhone" is turned OFF prior to selling, or else the buyer will be unable to activate the phones they bought.

What I have read is that apple encrypts all data on the iphone and merely wipes out the encryption key to "delete" all the goodies. How secure is this?

Secure enough that any entity with the capability of decrypting the contents of those phones without the key (read: NSA, probably) most likely already has the data about you that they care about, and don't need to be cracking the encryption on your wiped iPhones to get any of it.

While I dont have state secrets I do have two years of my life on these bad boys.

The common snoop or identity thief would be way out of their league in attempting to crack the encryption and obtaining any data. Even major corporations, and the spy agencies of most countries would be out of their league in trying it.

I mean is there any one out there open source that has broken the apple encryption?

No. All open source and even commercial data extraction tools can only retrieve iPhone content if the phone is NOT wiped, AND passcode-unlocked.

This is not to say that this could change in 10, 20, 30 years from now. But by then, not only would your iPhones' new owners have long overwritten the data, but the batteries would be dead and there'd probably be some component failure or accidental damage rendering the phones useless by that time. And at that point, then-current iPhones would likely be on a much more secure encryption standard (likely 1,024 or 2,048 bit RSA, or even something newer).

Once again I am talking about selling an iphone, where the new user would have no access to the previous backups on my computer. What can they access with just a restored Iphone.

They could access stock iOS apps and the ability to purchase apps with their own iTunes account, or add their own data to an effectively blank iPhone. Nothing more.