Deleted content from Tony's mobile encrypted

THE Task Force officers who questioned the drugs accused, Tony, forthe second day in a row on Sunday were shocked when they found that the data on his two mobile phones was encrypted.

An officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said, "In most drug-related cases wherein we have arrested other persons earlier we were able to retrieve their history based on their content on mobile phones, but in the case of Tony his two mobile phones content was completely encrypted, as if he knew that he would get caught someday".

"There could be two main reasons for him to encrypt the data, first one being, he really wanted to hide the content and second, he could be protecting some highly influential names, as it is generally believed in the drugs world that if someone gets caught they just confess to commit the crime by themselves in order to protect their bosses."

Though the mobile phones were sent for forensic analysis, it is not really sure whether the encrypted data can be decrypted or not and for this reason we have also decided to write to the concerned mobile manufacturers to help us with the case.

A tech expert, Abhinandan, said, "Mobile phones utilise a file system technique optimised for flash memory. It does not lend itself to recovering the deleted files. When a file

is deleted, the blocks in flash memory are added to a free list, but at the backend, so that such blocks are not reused immediately.

Generally, it is a perception that if a user has deleted any information or content from his/her mobile phones, they think that the data is deleted, but the deleted information will not be overwritten for a longer time and it stays in the backend."

"Whether it be contacts, images, videos, messages, chat history, it all can be retrieved even if a user does factory reset because the data itself is not being deleted

as it still remains in the areas of the flash chip called 'solid state memory'.

Factory reset only destroys the paths to the data and this will definitely allow the forensic analysers to re-establish their own pathways and retrieve the data," added the techie.