Investigators pulled video from ‘residual data’ in Google’s systems — here’s how that was possible and what it means for your privacy.
Investigators pulled video from ‘residual data’ in Google’s systems — here’s how that was possible and what it means for your privacy.
Flipping the bits on a magnetic medium back and forth doesn’t always flip them entirely. Using more sensitive equipment to read back the bits can see the faint hints of what the bits used to be, which is why multiple overwrites with random information is the only way to be sure (and even then, there are advanced techniques that try to see past all that noise. The more you overwrite, the less sure any of these techniques are to work.