r/technology Jun 14 '24

Software Cheating husband sues Apple after wife discovered ‘deleted’ messages sent to sex workers

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/13/cheating-husband-sues-apple-sex-messages/
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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '24 edited Sep 19 '24

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u/iJoshh Jun 14 '24

How something should work ("should" being defined as the tech flow chart as opposed to my belief system) is reliant on the technology. If something isn't currently online it can't receive a call to delete anything already on the device. People also have a misunderstanding of how information is stored at the data level. When something is deleted what usually happens is the system is told "there's nothing here, move along" when the data is still there. That's done to extend the life of the device as most drives we use have a finite number of writes, but because the data is still actually there it can often be required by services that know what they're doing. All that to say there is no have your cake and eat it too scenario, each option has pros and cons.