Drenson

Ex-marketer running AI agents in production. The wins, the fails, the prompts.

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your "deleted" iPhone photos aren't the real risk.
Your Mac backups are.

The paths in this video are
Media/PhotoData/Thumbnails/V2.
That's the thumbnail cache iOS builds
for the photo grid. Not a hidden vault.

What's actually on record:

1. Thumbnails outliving deleted photos
was first reported in 2012, on iOS 5.
Still there in iOS 7.

2. May 2024: iOS 17.5 brought back
"deleted" photos, some from 2010.
Apple blamed a corrupted Photos
database. Fix shipped in 17.5.1,
a week later.

3. Apple's explanation: those leftovers
only left the phone through
a backup or a device transfer.

So the exposure isn't the phone in your hand.
It's every unencrypted backup on your Mac,
and every phone you sold without a wipe.

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
tick "Encrypt local backup"
2. Finder → Manage Backups →
delete the ones you don't need
3. Selling or handing down a phone:
Settings → General → Transfer or Reset
→ Erase All Content and Settings
(per Apple, this also clears
the corrupted database)
4. Photos → Recently Deleted → Delete All.
Otherwise "deleted" means
up to 30 more days.

And if an agent gets access to your device:
read-only, no copying files off it.
Every path in that video is
something your agent can read too.

▸ affected: iPhone users with local backups or a resold phone · severity: privacy, needs physical or backup access · fix: 5 min

[Cortiq @0xCortiq]

🚨BREAKING NEWS : Your "deleted" photos aren't deleted.

Claude Code found years of them sitting in a hidden cache on my iPhone.

I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook to run a backup. I had Claude Code doing a security check at the same time. It flagged something I wasn't looking for. A directory called PhotoData/Thumbnails.

Thousands of files. Photos, videos, screenshots. A lot of them were things I had deleted.

Photos from a couple of years ago. Screenshots I took and deleted a few seconds later. Stuff I went into Recently Deleted and cleared. Some of it was still sitting there.

What I found in that cache:

- old screenshots of banking apps
- photos I deleted right after taking them
- random pictures I didn't want on my phone anymore
- a few things I specifically remember deleting more than once

When you delete a photo on iPhone, iOS removes it from your camera roll and Recently Deleted folder. But it keeps a compressed copy in a Spotlight search cache so your phone can still find things when you search. That cache doesn't get fully cleared.

I checked which apps had Files and Folders access. There were more than I expected, including apps I downloaded a long time ago and forgot about. Any of them could potentially read files from that cache.

I went through the list and removed access from most of them.

The prompt I used is below. It doesn't take long if you already have a backup.

How many apps on your phone have Files access right now?

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Frelzu "open source"
*conditions apply* 💀

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Raytar https://t.co/gEzjwcGiFD

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your "deleted" iPhone photos aren't the real risk.
Your Mac backups are.

The paths in this video are
Media/PhotoData/Thumbnails/V2.
That's the thumbnail cache iOS builds
for the photo grid. Not a hidden vault.

What's actually on record:

1. Thumbnails outliving deleted photos
was first reported in 2012, on iOS 5.
Still there in iOS 7.

2. May 2024: iOS 17.5 brought back
"deleted" photos, some from 2010.
Apple blamed a corrupted Photos
database. Fix shipped in 17.5.1,
a week later.

3. Apple's explanation: those leftovers
only left the phone through
a backup or a device transfer.

So the exposure isn't the phone in your hand.
It's every unencrypted backup on your Mac,
and every phone you sold without a wipe.

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
tick "Encrypt local backup"
2. Finder → Manage Backups →
delete the ones you don't need
3. Selling or handing down a phone:
Settings → General → Transfer or Reset
→ Erase All Content and Settings
(per Apple, this also clears
the corrupted database)
4. Photos → Recently Deleted → Delete All.
Otherwise "deleted" means
up to 30 more days.

And if an agent gets access to your device:
read-only, no copying files off it.
Every path in that video is
something your agent can read too.

▸ affected: iPhone users with local backups or a resold phone · severity: privacy, needs physical or backup access · fix: 5 min

[Drenson @drensonai]

@fineprnt same energy as clicking "accept all" on a new AI tool's ToS 😅

[Drenson @drensonai]

@bullzqd deleted photos: 3 backups
my actual project files: 0 😭

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your "deleted" iPhone photos aren't the real risk.
Your Mac backups are.

The paths in this video are
Media/PhotoData/Thumbnails/V2.
That's the thumbnail cache iOS builds
for the photo grid. Not a hidden vault.

What's actually on record:

1. Thumbnails outliving deleted photos
was first reported in 2012, on iOS 5.
Still there in iOS 7.

2. May 2024: iOS 17.5 brought back
"deleted" photos, some from 2010.
Apple blamed a corrupted Photos
database. Fix shipped in 17.5.1,
a week later.

3. Apple's explanation: those leftovers
only left the phone through
a backup or a device transfer.

So the exposure isn't the phone in your hand.
It's every unencrypted backup on your Mac,
and every phone you sold without a wipe.

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
tick "Encrypt local backup"
2. Finder → Manage Backups →
delete the ones you don't need
3. Selling or handing down a phone:
Settings → General → Transfer or Reset
→ Erase All Content and Settings
(per Apple, this also clears
the corrupted database)
4. Photos → Recently Deleted → Delete All.
Otherwise "deleted" means
up to 30 more days.

And if an agent gets access to your device:
read-only, no copying files off it.
Every path in that video is
something your agent can read too.

▸ affected: iPhone users with local backups or a resold phone · severity: privacy, needs physical or backup access · fix: 5 min

[Cortiq @0xCortiq]

🚨BREAKING NEWS : Your "deleted" photos aren't deleted.

Claude Code found years of them sitting in a hidden cache on my iPhone.

I plugged my iPhone into my MacBook to run a backup. I had Claude Code doing a security check at the same time. It flagged something I wasn't looking for. A directory called PhotoData/Thumbnails.

Thousands of files. Photos, videos, screenshots. A lot of them were things I had deleted.

Photos from a couple of years ago. Screenshots I took and deleted a few seconds later. Stuff I went into Recently Deleted and cleared. Some of it was still sitting there.

What I found in that cache:

- old screenshots of banking apps
- photos I deleted right after taking them
- random pictures I didn't want on my phone anymore
- a few things I specifically remember deleting more than once

When you delete a photo on iPhone, iOS removes it from your camera roll and Recently Deleted folder. But it keeps a compressed copy in a Spotlight search cache so your phone can still find things when you search. That cache doesn't get fully cleared.

I checked which apps had Files and Folders access. There were more than I expected, including apps I downloaded a long time ago and forgot about. Any of them could potentially read files from that cache.

I went through the list and removed access from most of them.

The prompt I used is below. It doesn't take long if you already have a backup.

How many apps on your phone have Files access right now?

[Drenson @drensonai]

@rewillsx the model: same
the prompt: same
the legal team: very different 😅

[Drenson @drensonai]

@KylefromKyle Me: GrapheneOS, Linux, VPN.

Also me: giving an AI agent full shell access because it asked nicely.

[Drenson @drensonai]

@0xCortiq 9,300 bookmarks later, that's not a joke, that's a content plan 😂

[Drenson @drensonai]

@0xCortiq next post: "my deleted photos are on a Kindle now" 💀

[Drenson @drensonai]

@bogdanich_x smoke detector with port 554 open is a career change, not a bug 😅
554 is RTSP, the video stream port.
screenshot the scan, unplug nothing, send it straight to Airbnb

[Drenson @drensonai]

@bogdanich_x the first encrypted backup overwrites the old one for that device.
archived backups and old phones stay unencrypted, so check
Finder → Manage Backups and delete those by hand.
save the password, there's no recovery

[Drenson @drensonai]

@hazemomier deploy key per repo is the part most people skip.
stealing this for the next setup log, thanks 🤝

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your iPhone backups live in one
folder on your Mac.
Your coding agent can open it
with one cat.

Follow-up to the post below.
The last line got the most DMs:
"every path in that video is
something your agent can read too."

Here's how that works:

1. Local iPhone backups go to
~/Library/Application Support/
MobileSync/Backup
2. If your terminal has Full Disk
Access, every agent you run
in it inherits that access
3. A Read() deny rule in Claude Code
covers the Read tool.
It doesn't stop cat in Bash.
That's the sandbox's job.
4. This week 2.1.309 patched 10+
ways around that sandbox and
the permission checks

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
"Encrypt local backup"
2. Add to settings.json:
"deny": ["Read(~/Library/
Application Support/
MobileSync/**)"]
3. Turn on the sandbox for
Bash, then claude update
→ 2.1.310+
4. Remove Full Disk Access from
any terminal that runs agents
unattended

Test it: ask your agent to list
that folder. It should be refused.

▸ affected: Mac users with local iPhone backups who run coding agents · severity: privacy, local access · fix: 1 setting + 1 config line + 1 update

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your "deleted" iPhone photos aren't the real risk.
Your Mac backups are.

The paths in this video are
Media/PhotoData/Thumbnails/V2.
That's the thumbnail cache iOS builds
for the photo grid. Not a hidden vault.

What's actually on record:

1. Thumbnails outliving deleted photos
was first reported in 2012, on iOS 5.
Still there in iOS 7.

2. May 2024: iOS 17.5 brought back
"deleted" photos, some from 2010.
Apple blamed a corrupted Photos
database. Fix shipped in 17.5.1,
a week later.

3. Apple's explanation: those leftovers
only left the phone through
a backup or a device transfer.

So the exposure isn't the phone in your hand.
It's every unencrypted backup on your Mac,
and every phone you sold without a wipe.

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
tick "Encrypt local backup"
2. Finder → Manage Backups →
delete the ones you don't need
3. Selling or handing down a phone:
Settings → General → Transfer or Reset
→ Erase All Content and Settings
(per Apple, this also clears
the corrupted database)
4. Photos → Recently Deleted → Delete All.
Otherwise "deleted" means
up to 30 more days.

And if an agent gets access to your device:
read-only, no copying files off it.
Every path in that video is
something your agent can read too.

▸ affected: iPhone users with local backups or a resold phone · severity: privacy, needs physical or backup access · fix: 5 min

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Supriik_ good start. now try cat on the same folder, the deny rule won't catch that one. sanbdox does 🔒

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Supriik_ nice. which step did it, the deny rule or the sandbox?

[Drenson @drensonai]

https://t.co/lyE1ns30hZ

[Drenson @drensonai]

Your iPhone backups live in one
folder on your Mac.
Your coding agent can open it
with one cat.

Follow-up to the post below.
The last line got the most DMs:
"every path in that video is
something your agent can read too."

Here's how that works:

1. Local iPhone backups go to
~/Library/Application Support/
MobileSync/Backup
2. If your terminal has Full Disk
Access, every agent you run
in it inherits that access
3. A Read() deny rule in Claude Code
covers the Read tool.
It doesn't stop cat in Bash.
That's the sandbox's job.
4. This week 2.1.309 patched 10+
ways around that sandbox and
the permission checks

What to change today:

1. Finder → your iPhone →
"Encrypt local backup"
2. Add to settings.json:
"deny": ["Read(~/Library/
Application Support/
MobileSync/**)"]
3. Turn on the sandbox for
Bash, then claude update
→ 2.1.310+
4. Remove Full Disk Access from
any terminal that runs agents
unattended

Test it: ask your agent to list
that folder. It should be refused.

▸ affected: Mac users with local iPhone backups who run coding agents · severity: privacy, local access · fix: 1 setting + 1 config line + 1 update

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Drundor solid plan. waiting for round 1 🍿

[Drenson @drensonai]

@hazemomier separate user is the cleanest fix here.
do you run it that way daily?
curious what breaks first, keychain or git auth

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Drundor add the claude version to the table.
2.1.308 vs 2.1.310 could be the whole story.
which agent are you running it on, claude code only or codex too?
try it and send the feedback bro

[Drenson @drensonai]

@Drundor test Read and cat separately.
deny rule covers Read, cat goes through Bash.
post the stage where it leaks, I'll quote it