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When you sell your iPhone, can someone recover all your data even if you restore before selling it?
- Thread starter Hieveryone
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If the "someone" is big brother, anything is possible. If its a regular schmuck, then no.
Indeed, the CIA and military intelligence could extract some meaningful data from the 'erased' memory chips, heck they could even go to Apple and demand a copy of your iCloud backup.
They could. But they'd have to do the hard work of breaking the encryption themselves. It is encrypted (anything on Apple's servers is) and is one of the issues the NSA has with Apple - because apparently they either have a hard time breaking it or can't - and Apple put the keys on the user's device so Apple can't help even if they wanted to.…heck they could even go to Apple and demand a copy of your iCloud backup.
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A bit off topic, but I just sold an iPhone 5 on swappa for about $250. Should I put a throwaway iCloud account on it to make sure I don't get scammed by the buyer (give the password once they confirm they received the phone), or is swappa generally safe?
Sold 2 phones and 1 iPad and purchased one iPhone on Swappa. Be honest, read phone descriptions and you shouldn't have any problems. Swappa checks IMEIs for active iCloud accounts and will deny your listing if there's an account still linked.
No, they cannot.
The data is completely erased (SSDs aren't like HDs). Apple's latest encryption involves Apple not having access to the private key that's used to encrypt/decrypt data. Even if there were a court order to decrypt a user's account, Apple wouldn't be able to do it (this is what the FBI and NSA have a problem with).
Your'e thinking of the NSA, they are chartered to spy on us domestically.Indeed, the CIA and military intelligence could extract some meaningful data from the 'erased' memory chips, heck they could even go to Apple and demand a copy of your iCloud backup.
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*Let's see who gets that.
I'm not sure if SSD's are completely erased, however due to the nature of how information is stored on an SSD, it's statistically almost impossible to recover information from it without knowing whats where (unlike the case of a HDD - where data is stored in a less random pattern).
Practically speaking, it's impossible to recover information from a reset iPhone unless Apple has taken special measures to recover the information from your iPhone. If that's the case, if there are any ways to do it, it will be so complicated that unless you're a very high profile individual (e.g. head of state) it's not interesting at all from an economical perspective.
It's just much easier to get it without having physical access (eg 'wiretapping').
I've always sold my old phones on eBay, but I sold my 6 on swappa last week and it was a really smooth transaction.
Don't see any need to do this. Swappa checks IMEI's before you list so it's safe on both sides. You ship with tracking...insure it, and send with signature confirmation. Take video of yourself packing it up if you feel you must.