 Stem BoltAka Smiling BobPremium
join:2002-11-08
Cleveland, OH
kudos:2 | Used Motorola Xooms resold with personal info on them »informationweek.com/news/securit···32600260
quote:
Motorola alerted customers on Friday that it shipped about 100 refurbished Xoom tablets that were not completely cleared of the original owner's data prior to resale. The tablets were sold between October and December of 2011 through Woot.com. Oops.
According to Motorola, some of the compromised data potentially includes user names and passwords for email and social media accounts, as well as other password-protected sites and applications, and possibly even photographs and documents.
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 Doctor OldsI Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
kudos:18 | WTH, People sent in RMA product (for warranty or other reasons) without wiping it first? Personal Responsibility for security starts at home, IMHO.
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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| said by Doctor Olds:WTH, People sent in RMA product (for warranty or other reasons) without wiping it first? Personal Responsibility for security starts at home, IMHO. How do you wipe a device that won't boot / power on?
/M |
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Doctor OldsI Need A Remedy For What's Ailing Me.Premium,VIP
join:2001-04-19
1970 442 W30
kudos:18 | said by mackey:said by Doctor Olds:WTH, People sent in RMA product (for warranty or other reasons) without wiping it first? Personal Responsibility for security starts at home, IMHO. How do you wipe a device that won't boot / power on? Those would be the exception, right?
You can degauss the tablet though, just like degaussing a HDD.
»www.404techsupport.com/2010/02/d···-drives/
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What’s the point of owning a supercar if you can’t scare yourself stupid from time to time? |
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| I'd imagine that would void the warranty. Besides, most tablets nowadays use SSDs (or just straight flash) and thus can't be degaussed.
Edit: Yeah, the tablet in question says "Up to 64GB storage" so it's flash based, not a hard drive.
/M |
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 vaxvmsferroequine fanPremium
join:2005-03-01
Wustah, MA
 ·Charter
| reply to Doctor Olds
said by Doctor Olds:Those would be the exception, right?
Why would you assume that?
Why would you assume anyone has access to a degausser? |
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 NetFixerFreedom is NOT freePremium
join:2004-06-24
The 'Boro
 ·Vonage
 ·Cingular Wireless
·Comcast
 ·AT&T Southeast
| said by vaxvms:Why would you assume anyone has access to a degausser?
I don't know how old Doctor Olds is, but if he is part of my generation, then many households with color TVs and tape recorders, would have both a degaussing coil for the CRT, and a lower powered degaussing wand for the magnetic tape heads. If you didn't, you either had crappy color, and crappy recordings and playback, or you frequently had to pay a tech to come and do it for you.
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History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
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TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:1 Reviews:
·TekSavvy DSL
| reply to Doctor Olds
said by Doctor Olds:WTH, People sent in RMA product (for warranty or other reasons) without wiping it first? Personal Responsibility for security starts at home, IMHO.
These tablets use solid state flash memory chips, soldered directly to the mainboard of the device.
Unless the tablet is in a mostly-functional state, wiping the data is not possible, at least not without disassembling the tablet and accessing the onboard flash using specialized equipment. Either that, or physically destroying the device.
These are not like laptops where you can remove the drive, pop it into another machine and wipe it, or magnetically wipe the mechanical hard drive.
Therefore, anyone who owns one of these tablets should ALWAYS make use of the encryption feature which is available in the Android OS. |
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 siljalineI'm lovin' that double widePremium
join:2002-10-12
Montreal, QC
kudos:17
·Bell Sympatico
1 edit | reply to Stem Bolt
fix link
Moto won't fess up to reselling tablets with previous owner data 
quote:
Motorola Mobility is warning people who bought but then returned Android-based Motorola Xoom tablets between March and October last year that the devices might have been resold by bargain-of-the-day website Woot with the ex-owners' sensitive data still on them.
Motorola said that about 100 out of a batch of 6,200 Xoom tablets that it refurbished "may not have been completely cleared of the original owner's data prior to resale." The tablets were resold by Woot between October and December 2011.
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 ashrc4Premium
join:2009-02-06
australia | reply to Stem Bolt
It's not always the Makers fault for re-selling either.
Hard drives can be re-sold from the original store purchased from, with warranty intact.
Mandatory wiping should be the norm.
»www.theage.com.au/digital-life/c···6eh.html
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Paradigm Shift beta test pilot. "Now is the not right time to stop folding." |
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 SparkChaserR.I.P. DocPremium
join:2000-06-06
Downingtown, PA
kudos:3
 ·Verizon FiOS
| reply to TheMG
said by TheMG:These tablets use solid state flash memory chips, soldered directly to the mainboard of the device.
Unless the tablet is in a mostly-functional state, wiping the data is not possible, at least not without disassembling the tablet and accessing the onboard flash using specialized equipment. Either that, or physically destroying the device.
These are not like laptops where you can remove the drive, pop it into another machine and wipe it, or magnetically wipe the mechanical hard drive.
+1
It's hard to degauss something that is non-magnetic.
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"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley
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