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Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

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Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#41

Post by rootusrootus »

We need to educate people on how to secure the data on their phones so that even the manufacturer cannot reach it. And if that is not possible for a particular device, that should be clearly understood so people can make an informed choice about what smartphone they use.

Can't just tell people 'do not put nudes on your phone' because while it's good advice, it misses the point.

And, of course, whoever does something like this should be strung up by their toenails in the public square.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#42

Post by otachack »

dandare wrote: post #12

How do you disable your old phones especially those those that do not work (due to shattered screen mostly) before giving them up for recycling or buyback? I am always worried someone will fix and misuse my old phone.

Here are a few options:

- keep it but mind the battery as it can expand over time

- fix it to the point where you can access then properly wipe the storage with given options on the OS

- if you're ultra paranoid, find software that'll write over the storage, like Dban (i don't have any in mind right now) but if you're already here you might as well destroy the storage physically (see below)

- look into tear down instructions and find where the storage is. Remove and destroy the storage.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#45

Post by crtasm »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #23
dandare wrote: post #12

How do you disable your old phones especially those those that do not work (due to shattered screen mostly) before giving them up for recycling or buyback? I am always worried someone will fix and misuse my old phone.

I wonder if there is a way to connect to it through usb in order to wipe it.

There is, it's called adb

https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb

My phone has a button combination to hold when powering on to get into a recovery mode, then you can wipe it with adb.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#46

Post by djbusby »

adrianN wrote: post #36
dandare wrote: post #12

How do you disable your old phones especially those those that do not work (due to shattered screen mostly) before giving them up for recycling or buyback? I am always worried someone will fix and misuse my old phone.

Microwaves are very good at killing electronics.

Not too long tho, can also damage the microwave.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#47

Post by criddell »

ARandomerDude wrote: post #13
mabbo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You're blaming the victim?

Somebody: "I can't believe it! I like to leave stacks of $100 bills on the seat in my car and my car keeps getting broken into. Outrageous!" Somebody else: "You should probably take or hide the cash when you get out of your car." Offering wisdom for how to avoid a bad situation twice is not the same thing as blaming the victim.

As far as wisdom goes, it's pretty weak and probably doesn't need to be said.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#48

Post by stinos »

VortexDream wrote: post #4

I'm sick of people, so I'm not going to read the inevitable comments that are going to come. Look, face it, some people like taking nude photos of themselves and they like sharing them with their partners. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's not their fault if something like this happens. People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information…

People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information with.

I can never tell whether I'm paranoid, or worried for good reasons, but cases like these + mass leaks which happen occasionally are basically the reason why I don't have this secure feeling at all for anything which isn't on an offline device which is in my hands or device-side encypted then put online (but to a lesser extent). And I'm afraid nothing is ever going to be able to fix that feeling anymore, it just seems to late for that, and I feel like people who do feel secure lost touch with reality somewhat.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#49

Post by dinkelberg »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #23
dandare wrote: post #12

How do you disable your old phones especially those those that do not work (due to shattered screen mostly) before giving them up for recycling or buyback? I am always worried someone will fix and misuse my old phone.

I wonder if there is a way to connect to it through usb in order to wipe it.

It might not be possible to wipe the data off the flash memory, due to how flash memory works. As you can only reset bits on the flash memory some amount of times, flash memory controllers try to avoid resetting bits and they try to distribute resets evenly on the memory (called wear leveling), so that it doesn't happen that parts of the memory are already worn out while other parts are healthy. So "deleting" and even "zeroing" flash memory might not do what you would expect. Instead of resetting the bits of the original content, it might put the zeros somewhere completely different.

And wipe commands that one can send to flash memory chips are sometimes broken too (they might be implemented as no-ops).

Edit: Also, even if you tell it to write zeros everywhere, it might not delete the content, because there is hidden extra memory on flash memory chips.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#50

Post by Bud »

throwaway81523 wrote: post #21
VortexDream wrote: post #4

I'm sick of people, so I'm not going to read the inevitable comments that are going to come. Look, face it, some people like taking nude photos of themselves and they like sharing them with their partners. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's not their fault if something like this happens. People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information…

Yeah this is yet another reason to want phones to have removable storage (micro sd card). So private photos can go onto the card instead of built-in storage, and you can remove the card if you have to send in the phone. I don't take nudes but I tend to use my phone as an impromptu photocopier for stuff like bills and receipts, so the photos are full of private info such as account numbers. I worry about that sometime…

No. We do NOT need fucking removable storage to fix this.

What we need, to fix this, is to enforce felony charges against the kind of fuckers who do this, and put them in prison for 20 years, and stop victim-blaming, and stop the insane medieval attitudes about nudity, and slap every single fucking person who espouses this kind of bullshit upside the head, daily, every single day, until society is finally purged of their bullshit, and we don't need anything. fucking. else.

This isn't a product design issue. It's a punish evil people issue.

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