Is there a way to bleach a phone safely?

crua9
7 years ago

0

Today it dawn on me that there is no reason why someone couldn’t find sensitive info from a used phone. And if I was a bad guy, that would be an easy way to commit ID theft (buy used phones, make a copy of all the deleted data, and sell the old phone to make back whatever it was bought for)

I was wondering if there is a way to bleach an Android phone/tablet before you sell it? (I know there is programs that can get per file. But I don’t know of any program that will wipe the entire phone but keep the OEM stuff on it as if it just came off the manufacture line.)

I know passwords and stuff like that should be secure. But as anyone around security should know, security isn’t about keeping people out. It’s about making it so resource intensive it isn’t worth it.

SIGKILL [r4v463]
7 years ago

1

You can’t be 100% sure to have delete your data in a way that cannot be reversed. If you want to avoid your data to be stolen, you can decide to don’t sell your old phones and destroy it.

crua9
7 years ago

0

I was actually trying to figure this out because many others sell their phone, and it would be interesting to figure out if there is an actual method to bleaching a phone.
Like I know you can encrypt the data, but there is problems with that. I think Apple was found with a copy of the key, and all current encryption will sooner or later be broken.

But even as a thought experiment, I’ve been trying to find a better way at making sure someone can’t get your info from a used phone.

SIGKILL [r4v463]
7 years ago

1

The security has a cost. You can mitigate a risk by using a tool that will erase your files with a 99% fiability, or with a guarantee that an attacker will need a huge computationnal power to get your informations. If you use this, you can sell your phone and get some money. Now, if you want to avoid a risk (which is not possible in all cases), you can simply destroy your device instead of selling it. You will not get any money from the device, but you will be sure that your informations won’t be stolen.

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