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Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

wired.com

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Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#31

Post by saysjonathan »

kube-system wrote: post #25
internetter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I click "Permanently delete" in the Apple photos app, doing anything other than permanently deleting it is nothing short of a lie

The default delete behavior is not that, and it is explicitly documented as such. > When you delete photos and videos, they go to your Recently Deleted album for 30 days. After 30 days, they'll be permanently deleted. https://support.apple.com/en-us/104967

If you then delete from the Recently Deleted album it says that the photo “will deleted the selected photos from iCloud and all connected devices”.

Additionally, at least in iOS 17.5, the Recently Deleted album itself has a disclaimer at the bottom that says that “items will be permanently deleted. This may take up to 40 days.”

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#33

Post by disambiguation »

ado__dev wrote: post #4

I wouldn't assume anything "deleted" is ever truly deleted. Just a deleted_at property set and maybe the data eventually purged after many years.

this, i always tell my junior devs that rm -rf is just flipping a flag and not to worry so much.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#35

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

kube-system wrote: post #27
internetter wrote: post #5

So, it seems like this is legit now? Last I checked it was in the "probably legit but unconfirmed" realm. Apple needs to explain exactly what happened and how they plan to prevent it exactly now . They should be fined for storing photos after someone permanently deletes them. They should be forced to allow transparent access to the file system like on Android. This should be all over national TV. This is bad . Really…

An android phone running ext3/4 likely doesn't delete the file when you press delete either.

I mean doesn't the file system simply mark a sector as "writeable" until something gets marked on it?

I'm more impressed that these areas of flash didn't get copied over with other data.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#36

Post by kube-system »

HaZeust wrote: post #26
ezfe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "really bad" because they didn't store deleted photos, in general. A bug caused some not to be deleted properly.

That is still really bad, what?

It's fairly bad in terms of triaging a software bug. But it's not particularly bad in terms of newsworthiness.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#37

Post by kube-system »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #35
kube-system wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An android phone running ext3/4 likely doesn't delete the file when you press delete either.

I mean doesn't the file system simply mark a sector as "writeable" until something gets marked on it? I'm more impressed that these areas of flash didn't get copied over with other data.

It happens all of the time, which is how data recovery tools work on 'deleted' data. But I doubt this particular instance was a file system bug. Probably a bug in the 30-day delete scheduling that happens by default in the Recently Deleted album in Photos.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#38

Post by akr4s1a »

Kirby64 wrote: post #20
internetter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I click "Permanently delete" in the Apple photos app, doing anything other than permanently deleting it is nothing short of a lie

You’re in for a rude awakening then with most file systems then. Delete just means “unlink the pointer to it in the file system” for the vast majority of file systems. It might get deleted when it gets overwritten… sometime in the future maybe. I assume this is exactly what happened here.

Hasn't been that way in a decade. If you use nand flash there's a huge chance you're using trim which will periodically overwrite "not in use" blocks to avoid a write penalty later as writing to an empty page is much quicker.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#39

Post by kube-system »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #29
Aloisius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Em. The patch notes say that: > This update provides important bug fixes and addresses a rare issue where photos that experienced database corruption could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted.

Right but where were they resurrected from? A database (local or otherwise) that secretly keeps deleted photos forever? And if so why is it keeping them forever instead of actually deleting them?

Pressing 'delete' in Photos, by default, moves it to the Recently Deleted album, and uses a record in a database to schedule deletion for later.

Re: Apple's photo bug exposes the myth of 'deleted'

#40

Post by makeitdouble »

ezfe wrote: post #21
internetter wrote: post #5

So, it seems like this is legit now? Last I checked it was in the "probably legit but unconfirmed" realm. Apple needs to explain exactly what happened and how they plan to prevent it exactly now . They should be fined for storing photos after someone permanently deletes them. They should be forced to allow transparent access to the file system like on Android. This should be all over national TV. This is bad . Really…

It's not "really bad" because they didn't store deleted photos, in general. A bug caused some not to be deleted properly.

A compounding issue would be refurbished, handed down and resold devices.

None of the Apple devices have removable SSDs at this point, and many buyers rely on their resale value to shuffle devices every 2 or 3 years. That's a lot of devices in the wild with potentially resurfacing data.

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