When you save or send photos, videos, text messages, and other digital messages on your device, that data is extremely difficult to erase, even if you delete it from your phone or computer.
Nicolas Tucat / AFP via Getty Images
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Nicolas Tucat / AFP via Getty Images
When you save or send photos, videos, text messages, and other digital messages on your device, that data is extremely difficult to erase, even if you delete it from your phone or computer.
Nicolas Tucat / AFP via Getty Images
Text messages and other electronic messages from the US Secret Service became a point of contention after the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general told Congress that those records have been deleted after his office asked them. But can a text or other digital message really be erased from existence?
People delete text messages and other electronic messages for many reasons: to free up space on their devices; cut off contact after a sour conversation; and sometimes, wipe a conversation, for one reason or another.
But deleting a digital message is not as easy as you think. For starters, depending on the program you’re using, the recipient still has a copy of the message you sent them. And that data can live in cloud storage.
Alfred Demirjian, founder and CEO of TechFusion, has spent the past 35 years in digital forensics and data recovery in Boston. He says that once you hit send, that information is likely to last forever, especially if the government wants whatever you’ve sent.
“My theory – and I believe I’m right – that everything digital is recorded; whatever you text, it gets recorded somewhere,” Demirjian said. “If it’s for national security, they’ll open it, if they want it, they’ll find it.”
When you erase a piece of data from your device – photos, videos, text or documents – it doesn’t go away. Instead, your device labels the available space to be overwritten with new information.
Digital investigators trained to detect deleted data use a method called jailbreaking to get information from computers, iPhones, Androids, and other devices.
When the memory on that device is completely full, new information will be saved on the deleted items. This can be good for people who take a lot of innocent photos and videos. Those larger files will overwrite old documents, photos, etc.
“When you delete something, it doesn’t delete it, it basically creates it so the system copies on top of it,” Demirjian said.
But today, phones, computers, and tablets have increasingly large storage capacities. That means you’re less likely to refill that device before you have to clean the house, improving the investigator’s ability to recover that data.
Even if an individual has used up their memory time and time again, investigators can still retrieve deleted items.
“Even if it’s overwritten, it’s still recoverable, but not all,” Demirjian said. “It takes a very long time and is very expensive, but some things are recoverable.”
If a person wants to erase their device, they can have it professionally erased, Demirjian says, but it can be very expensive. That may be why some use extreme measures to destroy digital evidence.
People have tried smashing their phones with hammers and throwing laptops into the sea, but even then, a skilled digital forensics expert can still recover what they need. However, burning a device into a pile of molten plastic tends to do the trick.
Demirjian has worked for NASA, IBM, Harvard and MIT, police organizations, the Department of Transportation and more. And while he claims to be an expert in digital forensics, he says some government agencies have access to data recovery tools that even he doesn’t have.
In that case, Demirjian says it’s best to practice “political correctness,” if submitting something questionable.
“Don’t write something you’ll regret later if someone mentions you,” he says.
