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Comment by paulgdp | Hacker News Reader

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paulgdp

To be fair, when sending a Pixel for reparations, Google very clearly and explicitly asks to factory_reset the phone.

I personally didn't reset it when I sent my Pixel 3 to fix the charging port because my Pixel was fully encrypted.

All Pixels are encrypted by default as long as you have any kind of lock method enabled (PIN, password, shape...).

I don't really understand how this person got his files in cleartext and accessible.

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Another comment quotes:

  > About a month ago my wife broke her pixel phone. It couldn't be turned on so
  > we couldn't wipe it. We contact Google and used the device care to get an RMA.

In this case, the phone would not turn on prior to repair and could not be wiped.

How did the person conducting repair power it on and unlock it then?

Edit: I mean how did they bypass the lock screen?

Sometimes letting the battery drain completely will clear a hung phone (which is like the old "take the battery out for 5 minutes, then try it again" trick). Or the service center knew the magic buttons to press to get it to boot. Or the battery was bad. Or one of a million other reasons that a phone can fail in a way that makes it appear dead, but a service tech knows how to get it running.

by repairing it

maybe no password?

They probably fixed it first

>All Pixels are encrypted by default as long as you have any kind of lock method enabled (PIN, password, shape...).

No lock method?

That's what I think. Either no lock method, they're lying, or there's an unknown exploit or backdoor. Either way I'd be interested to know the outcome of this. As a Pixel user it's concerning.

They repaired it, presumably.

That's the sort of confidence I get from the DMV, they require you to pay by check beacuse the person issuing IDs with all our personal information can't be trusted with nine dollars in cash.

My impression from the (now deleted) text is that the phone wasn't booting or in a state where it could be factory reset, at least not without considerable effort.

It is possible the victim made some bad choices. It does not make it fair for Google employees/contractors/whatever to violate their privacy and access their personal information, then post it online.

If the phone does not turn on, I guess I could "wipe" it by opening it up and drilling through every chip I can find. Google would have harder time repairing it then but that's their problem ;-)

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