Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions • Hacker News Board

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#131

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

mikeiz404 wrote: post #130

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #22

The app I'm writing does this very well. That's because Apple requires it. They won't approve my app, unless there's a "full-fat delete" option. If a user of the app deletes, it completely nukes their entire account, down to the last byte.

> If a user of the app deletes, it completely nukes their entire account, down to the last byte. Edit: This comment is in response to the suggestion that all apple apps delete all local data which after rereading the parent they were only suggesting for their app. Are you sure about that? I'm not an iOS developer but as a user I noticed a few years ago that deleting google apps, even all google apps, off my phone and…

I don’t have control over MItM attacks, but Apple enforces TLS (and insists on it being robust).

I wrote every line of code in the server that manages users’ PID (which is held under conditions that would drive most HNers into fits). I use a modified variant of my BAOBAB server[0]. It’s pretty tightly bolted down. The security of the system is enforced on the server[1].

I also wrote every line of the native Swift frontend app. I use the keychain for some stuff, and persistent prefs[2] for other stuff. The keychain can live between installs, so I have to explicitly delete that, as well as the persistent prefs. Since it only holds login info for a deleted account, it’s not an enormous risk (unless the user is one of those folks that reuses passwords).

So, yeah. I’m sure.

[0] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/open-source-projects/#ba...

[1] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/BAOBAB/PDFs/Security.pdf (downloads a PDF).

[2] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/open-source-projects/#RV...

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#132

Post by mikeiz404 » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 2:06 AM UTC

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #131

mikeiz404 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a user of the app deletes, it completely nukes their entire account, down to the last byte. Edit: This comment is in response to the suggestion that all apple apps delete all local data which after rereading the parent they were only suggesting for their app. Are you sure about that? I'm not an iOS developer but as a user I noticed a few years ago that deleting google apps, even all google apps, off my phone and…

I don’t have control over MItM attacks, but Apple enforces TLS (and insists on it being robust). I wrote every line of code in the server that manages users’ PID (which is held under conditions that would drive most HNers into fits). I use a modified variant of my BAOBAB server[0]. It’s pretty tightly bolted down. The security of the system is enforced on the server[1]. I also wrote every line of the native Swift fro…

Ah I misinterpreted that you were talking just about your app, my apologies. I didn't mean to call you out on that. I'll update my comment to reflect that.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#133

Post by hvidgaard » Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 8:01 AM UTC

warmwaffles wrote: post #128

hvidgaard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only need to state to what extend and period the information is stored in backups, and have a process in place to purge it again in case of a restore.

I never realized that was the rule. I thought you had to go in and wipe the backups regularly.

That would be infeasible for cold storage.