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Comment on iPhone owners say the latest iOS update is resurfacing deleted nudes

tal@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Which means that data is gone, permanently) for that data, there’s no residuals to worry about like with spinny’s and is in fact necessary to ensure decent lifespans.

I doubt that the firmware is doing an overwrite of TRIMmed data. Rather, I expect it’s marking it as having been TRIMmed, and so can report that it’s zeroed to higher layers. But if you can modify the firmware or otherwise bypass it, you may be able to get at the underlying media.

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cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

I doubt that the firmware is doing an overwrite of TRIMmed data. Rather, I expect it’s marking it as having been TRIMmed, and so can report that it’s zeroed to higher layers. If a higher layer queries the firmware for its content, sure, they might get zeroes returned. But if you can modify the firmware or otherwise bypass it, you may be able to get at the underlying media.

TRIM is garbage collection and is a part of the wear leveling system. The whole point of TRIM is to have the SSD only hold the charge it needs too for still in use (i.e. not deleted) data. It’s the charge that damages blocks over time, so to extend lifespans it clears everything not needed. It’s not overwriting data for security or anything per se, but rather just a result of its longevity processes

Now, I’m sure there are cheap no name SSD controllers out there with ineffective TRIM operations that just lie about the operation, but any controller worth its salt is gonna have proper TRIM.

There is also the “bad block” issue, where storage media can take blocks – which may contain readable data – out of use, so that higher layers cannot access them. That applies to rotational drives and it looks like SSDs do the same thing. Again, might require bypassing or modifying the firmware to get direct access. But there can be data leaked there.

Part of that process is to move the data to another block and release the charge to prevent further damage, it’s possible the block is damaged in such a way that it won’t even release the charge, but if that’s the case it’s incredibly unlikely to be readable.

I also wouldn’t be terribly surprised if there is lingering information even after zeros are written to an SSD that might be recoverable if you could directly access the media, though I’m not familiar with the situation there. That is the case for rotational drives – the drive platter itself is “analog”, doesn’t just store a discrete string of ones and zeroes at the physical level. I once knew a cryptographer who was working on quantifying that leakage for rotational drives.

Yea it’s possible, but now you’re in the needing x-ray machines, powerful microscopes, full clean room labs and people with extensive, specific skill sets which means $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ or in other words, state level budgets range. 99.99999% of people will be fine

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- tal@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  TRIM is garbage collection and is a part of the wear leveling system. The whole point of TRIM is to have the SSD only hold the charge it needs too for still in use (i.e. not deleted) data. It’s the charge that damages blocks over time,
  
  I’m pretty sure that that is not correct.
  
  The limiting factor is the number of writes. The reason that TRIM enhances life by facilitating wear leveling is that it lets the firmware know that the block no longer has useful data, so it can be returned to the pool used for wear-leveling. Without that, the firmware doesn’t know whether or not it can switch the physical block used to represent a given logical location and safely overwrite the existing contents of that block.
  
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  - cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    The reason that TRIM enhances life by facilitating wear leveling is that it lets the firmware know that the block no longer has useful data
    
    Ah I see the disconnect, TRIM doesn’t live in the OS outside of the firmware, TRIM is part of the controller firmware and is exposed as an ATA command for the OS to utilize
    
    The study I have linked in my original comment goes more in-depth
    
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    tal@lemmy.today ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Ah I see the disconnect, TRIM doesn’t live in the OS outside of the firmware, TRIM is part of the controller firmware and is exposed as an ATA command for the OS to utilize
    
    Yes, I know.
    
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