When Is Deleted Not Really Deleted; Ask Yahoo
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 07/27/2016 10:31 AM
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When you delete an email, is it really gone? Yahoo is being ordered by a judge to explain how it produced "deleted" emails in a drug case.
The court case centers around Russell Knaggs, from Yorkshire, UK, whose account was set up to discuss and set up a deal to import 5 tons of cocaine from Colombia in 2009.
Yahoo delivered six months of emails that the prosecution said was vital to the case.
The FBI and the UK police requested that Yahoo take a snapshot of the email account in September 2009 and April 2010. The snapshots revealed the emails.
For its part, Yahoo has explained to the court that there’s deleted, and then there’s deleted. Yahoo saves copies of email drafts – autosaved to the “draft” folder on Yahoo’s email server “at periodic intervals”. They do remain on Yahoo’s email server, albeit invisible to a user, for an unknown period of time.
So when you hit delete, it may not be really gone for all time.
Source: Naked Security
The court case centers around Russell Knaggs, from Yorkshire, UK, whose account was set up to discuss and set up a deal to import 5 tons of cocaine from Colombia in 2009. Yahoo delivered six months of emails that the prosecution said was vital to the case.
The FBI and the UK police requested that Yahoo take a snapshot of the email account in September 2009 and April 2010. The snapshots revealed the emails.
For its part, Yahoo has explained to the court that there’s deleted, and then there’s deleted. Yahoo saves copies of email drafts – autosaved to the “draft” folder on Yahoo’s email server “at periodic intervals”. They do remain on Yahoo’s email server, albeit invisible to a user, for an unknown period of time.
So when you hit delete, it may not be really gone for all time.
Source: Naked Security
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