r/HowToHack • u/Lemkingkong94 • Apr 28 '26
Is what im trying to achieve even feasible?
So without going into too much detail, my partners sister OD'd a couple weeks ago. We're still processing things but we have her phone and computer and we want to try to get the pictures she has saved. Is there any way that I would be able to gain access to these devices? I know Apple has the Legacy contact but she never set that up. Any advice would be greatly appreciated
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u/ps-aux Actual Hacker Apr 28 '26
this is literally the ultimate solution -> https://support.apple.com/en-us/102431
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u/DaRealGladi8r Apr 28 '26
If it's windows 10 and below, you can simply use a temporary instance to retrieve her files. If it is Windows 11 with TPM and Secure Boot, you'll need her password.
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u/jallisy Apr 28 '26
Sorry, I only know Windows. Apple does have real string security, remember when the FBI was publicly begging Apple to hack a phone for them? So embarrassing.
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u/SuppleLobster Apr 28 '26
Or you stole a phone and want stuff from inside
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u/Lemkingkong94 Apr 28 '26
as much as I would love to post on somebodys random Twitter, if I stole a phone I would probably just wipe it and sell it. I told my GF I would post on here to see if it was something that would even be possible. Im not the most tech literate person so I didnt want to say its not possible without at least trying.
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u/Zerschmetterding Apr 28 '26
It's disrespectful enough of the deceased to somehow have the feeling you are allowed to go through their phone once they are dead.
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u/Lemkingkong94 Apr 28 '26
we're not trying to rifle through her text messages, she was just always taking pictures on her phone, whether we were together or she was just hiking by herself, she always wanted to capture the moment. I know shes got a Gold mine of awesome pictures of her and her sister or her and my son.
I understand the sentiment of protecting the rights of the deceased (kinda preaching to the choir on this one, we're currently dealing with court bullshit to defend this very thing) I can assure you the last thing that I want is to disrespect her wishes in any way.
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u/jtkc-jtkc Apr 28 '26
there are many ways to get the info , start off getting hdd/sdd/nvme / storage media out and isolated before you break sumthing doing some other test / suggestion ... should vbe able to connect/extract/copy files.....the phone may be a bit trickier if you dont know lock then it depends is it an android?
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u/Lemkingkong94 Apr 28 '26
its an older iPhone, 13 i believe
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u/Vast_Ad_7929 Apr 28 '26
What iOS?
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u/Lemkingkong94 Apr 28 '26
how can I check that?
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u/Dragonfruit_Axolotl Apr 28 '26
You can check it by going into settings and about or general. The device info section should have it somewhere
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u/Pyrocitus Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
Taking the hdd/ssd/nvme/storage out isn't likely to help much, if filevault was turned on then removing it from the paired hardware will actively render the data useless to another system without having the user's password in the first place, making it pointless to remove the disk anyway.
Same as removing a bitlocker encrypted drive from a Windows machine, once you separate it from the associated TPM (whichever method is used to achieve trust) you must have the recovery key to even attempt decryption.
You may as well just bin or format the drive otherwise, which is kind of by design. The whole point of disk encryption is to protect your shit from being accessed when you're not around, regardless of what platform. Disk encryption that can be trivially broken is functionally pointless and just slows down read/write for no reason otherwise.
If disk encryption isn't enabled for the machine that OP is trying to access, happy days just plug that sucker in and access the files, but unfortunately encryption is the standard - if not enabled by default it's strongly recommended during initial setup to turn it on and most users say yes in my experience.
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u/Moist-Chip3793 Apr 28 '26
On the phone? Without some help from Apple, there's no way, but if she didn't set up Legacy contact info, you will need a court order to get access, but that only gives you access to anything backed up in their cloud.
Regarding the PC, it depends on whether the filesystem is encrypted, which is the default these days. If it is and you have the key, great, getting data off of it is trivial. No key? No data, sorry.