FBI Recovered Deleted Signal Messages. Here's How
The FBI recovered deleted Signal messages from an iPhone in a recent federal case. Signal's encryption was not broken. Here is what actually happened, and why the data was still on the phone.In a federal terrorism case in Texas, the FBI pulled incoming Signal messages off a defendant's iPhone after
The FBI recovered deleted Signal messages from an iPhone in a recent federal case. Signal's encryption was not broken. Here is what actually happened, and why the data was still on the phone.In a federal terrorism case in Texas, the FBI pulled incoming Signal messages off a defendant's iPhone after the app had been uninstalled and the messages had been set to disappear. Signal's encryption held the entire time. The data came from a copy iOS made when each notification was displayed on the lock screen, in storage Signal does not control and cannot reach.This video explains the mechanism in plain language: how an encrypted message becomes a notification, why iOS keeps its own copy, and why deleting the app does not delete what the operating system already wrote down. It also covers who can actually perform this kind of recovery, because the answer is not "anyone with a charging cable."I wrote a full breakdown of this case for Forbes, including the one setting every iPhone user should change tonight on Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, and any other messaging app that displays notification previews on the lock screen.
📰 Full Forbes article:
[Forbes article URL once published]📱 Original reporting on the case (404 Media):
📖 Related: How digital forensics experts read encrypted WhatsApp messages (Forbes):
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