Hello, I’ve searched extensively and the info out there is overwhelming and just want to make sure I am correct in my assumptions; Any ios after 2.1 is a secure and complete data erase on the iphone simply by settings/erase all data from within the phone.
For the record: iphone 3G software 4-2.1 regular apple and att service, no jailbreak or unlock ever, I’m selling it after contract ended and upgraded to iphone 4.
Thank you and I am new to mac in general and have found your videos great for learning all things mac, great job.
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Daniel
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iPhone security (updated and definitive answers???)
Comments: 6 Responses to “iPhone security (updated and definitive answers???)”
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Yes, the erase is relatively secure. Unless you're a spy or something.
Also, you may want to remove the SIM card from the phone before selling.
Roger on the sim card, "relatively secure" is a bit concerning though. Foolishly enough I typed all/any passwords in my notes so it's a lot of updating to do to change them all but I probably will anyway to err on the side of caution.
Thanks for the quick response
Always good to change password periodically. Especially for email.
By relatively secure, I can see two holes. The first is that you forget to erase the phone or don't do it quite right. Just a matter of not rushing when you do it. But given 100 people with 100 phones, I'll bet one or two forget something.
The second is using really high tech spy-like stuff to infer the weak ghost bits that may or may not be left in Flash memory. Not something you'd worry about for normal folks, but I'd imagine government intelligence agencies think about it.
Here's how I have attacked it:
1.Took the phone offline 3G and wifi so it couldn't fetch new mail, deleted every single mail in inbox, sent, drafts, spam for all five email accounts
2. Changed passwords to nothing on all email accounts on the phone and saved, obviously got error messages as it tried to validate then deleted accounts from the phone
3. deleted each note by backspacing from the end until the note was empty and disappeared because it was empty
4. deleted each photo
5. deleted every app that uses a password from phone, of course I still have the app in itunes and the new phone
6. cleared network setting and saved wifi password incorrectly then cleared all settings again
7.used reset all settings (not data)
8 cleared cache and cookies on safari
9. finally used reset all content and settings
10. And as stated I'm going to change about 60 passwords on 60 different websites before it sells to be dead certain
11. removed sim
Maybe overkill but as you said it can never hurt to change passwords and it was literally every account I own on there, banking, email, military accounts, along with usual FB/Twitter stuff, etc.
I guess this would be a good place to ask your recommendation on the various password keeper apps available but I'm already leaning towards the old pen and paper securely hidden (too many passwords to remember in the digital world)
Use 1Password. Pen and paper is bad because #1 it encourages you to use simple passwords so you can type them quicker and #2 it doesn't protect you against phishing attacks (where you mistake the URL you are on for something else).
Thanks I'll look into that one, I'm used to the complex passwords though as they are required on the DOD sites for login, Letters, numbers, symbols and upper and lower case inclusive.