In fact this is so well known that many of the charities that accept donated cell phones provide tools for secure deletion of data prior to shipping the phone.

http://wirelessrecycling.com/home/data_eraser/

It would be interesting to test the hard reset (factory reset) feature of some current phones and see what data, if any, is recoverable.

----------
---Matthew
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 5/16/2007 at 9:16 PM 3APA3A wrote:

>Dear Davide Del Vecchio,
>
> It's also possible to recover deleted photos from almost any flash card
> in almost any device (camera, mobile, etc) - it's a way general purpose
> file systems work. Requirement to delete information securely is
> enforced in devices certified to e.g. process US military secretes. In
> this case, device must follow DoD 5220-22-M recommendations and you can
> expect secure erase. In general purpose operation systems and devices,
> to delete information securely (wipe it) some additional
> actions/utilities are usually required.
>
>--Tuesday, May 15, 2007, 9:09:19 PM, you wrote to
>full-disclosure (at) lists.grok.org (dot) uk [email concealed]:
>
>DDV> Hello list,
>
>DDV> During some research, I found an intersting "feature"
>DDV> on my Nokia mobile phone; I was able to retrieve any
>DDV> apparently deleted sms/mms.
>
>
>--
>~/ZARAZA http://securityvulns.com/

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