The fate of the smartphones in the second hand market: Removed to every detail, can restore data to steal information

In order to re-use components, Apple uses million-dollar robots to decompose the iPhone. In the old markets in rural areas or the suburbs of major cities in China, craftsmen who do that work by hand with detail and meticulousness are not inferior.

In the old marketplace, not only phones but everything can be refurbished or decomposed into small components for reuse. Let's see how artisans handle old electronics.

The first part removed for recycling is the plastic case. This is simple work, low labor cost so even though it takes time and effort, this is still profitable, even small.

Next is the circuit board. This part will be taken to the separation area. After melting welds on components on the board surface with a heat gun, tweezers are used to pick up parts and arrange them.

Most electronic components are reusable in 3-5 years so they are often sold to companies located at the bottom of the recycling industry.

To control the quality of electronic components and make sure every small part is working well, first sellers will check them with their eyes to see if there is any sharp distortion or chipping. is not. After that, they used specialized equipment for testing and testing. Of course, these devices are quite rudimentary, not comparable to factories or research centers.

To check the operation and stability, they will be reset as on the original device.

Each box contains a specific part of a phone, such as a processor, chip, camera, circuit board, monitor . Each shop sells different types of components.

Customers here are mainly mobile phone repair shops. They choose to buy parts here because they are of high quality but are much cheaper than buying from original distributors.

In these old markets, customers can also buy "gold" boxes, small parts containing lots of valuable metal materials, which can extract gold and silver from inside.

With old phones, which are not much damaged, they will be refurbished and resold.

In addition to components, the owner's personal information is also an 'item'. The dismantling experts can use some special technical means to recover some valuable data in mobile phones such as SMS, photos, bank card information . Therefore, if Owners have low personal security barriers, their properties may be threatened.

Some "experts" here have confirmed that software can be used to recover information on most old mobile phones, although it is relatively difficult and costly.

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