Your iPhone Records All Your Actions

A hacker and author has revealed that the iPhone records screenshots of activity that can be recovered with forensic techniques.

Jonathan Zdziarski is a man who knows iPhones. He’s written the catchily-titled iPhone Forensics: Recovering Evidence, Personal Data, and Corporate Assets. And he’s worried by the fact the the iPhone caches screenshots of all activity that can be retrieved with the proper techniques – much the way data deleted from a computer’s waste basket can be reconstructed.

In a webcast he even managed to break into a password-protected phone to show the screenshot caching. As he told Wired.com:

"There’s no way to prevent it. I’m kind of divided on it. I hope Apple fixes it because it’s a significant privacy leak but, at the same time, it’s been useful for investigating criminals."

So why is data cached? It’s quite simple. When you use an application on the iPhone and hit the Home button, to create the shrinking effect, the device is actually taking a screenshot. It’s security that can be broken by anyone with the right skills.