Just wondering

[Maria 60]

I took some pics during the week and yesterday I was putting them on a memory stick, my wife made a comment about why do I need those pictures and it's not like me to leave a paper trail. I told her as much as I don't look at them often I have pics from back in the nineteen eighties and it's just nice to see the advancement.
I have a little bit of a phobia over my pics getting into the wrong hands and I don't know much about technology to over protect myself, in my sons words "delete isn't always delete.
I was just wondering what everyone here does with there pictures and how they protect them from escaping our closest habit.
You may think I'm a little over protective but I still use a camara with a SIM card and then download the pics to a old laptop I have that has no internet and download to a password memory stick and even then I don't know enough if I'm protected.
I believe if I was out of the closet more I wouldn't be so phobia but I do enjoy seeing the older pics, just want to keep them to myself.

[Philippa Jane]

Maria, I used to keep them on a spare camera. After I deleted everything and loaned it to a friend who is computer savvy who then told me there was still images on it.
Now I don't know if he was telling tall tales but I never id that again.
From then on I burnt images to a CD and formatted the camera disc. A forensic scan possibly could reveal images but not many people have the tech to do that.
A 256 bit encryption key is super safe on a USB.

[kimdl93]

I may be in the minority, but I seldom take pictures of myself never retain any. Its not so much out of paranoia as the fact that I just don’t like the way I look.

[Karren H]

Yeah! I understand that. My photos are spread all over the net plus a number of external drives, old PCs and flash drives. I think I have it under control but every so often I find a Karren photo or something fem in a place I did not expect to find it (like an old backup of an old work laptop). With 10 plus external hard drives, 5 or 6 computers, a couple tablets, I doubt I will ever be able to fully clean them all, but then again no one really looks at them but me (at home). So it is what it is, but side by side I doubt anyone would recognize Karrens photo from him.

[bridget thronton]

It is hard to hide everything with the Internet and smart phones being every where. Maria you are taking reasonable precautions in protecting your pictures from being discovered accidentally by your family and friends, but no process is perfect.

[Bea_]

I built up hundreds of photos over about a ten year period and I kept them all on one SD card which I spray painted pink to make sure i couldn't mistake it. I had another thumb drive, also painted pink, that i kept a few edits on. Unfortunately, in a moment when I felt particularly disrespected by my wife, I took a torch to them both. I have a new SD card that I've got a couple dozen photos and edits. I'm missing the old pics.

I don't take any cd pics with my phone and I don't post any online. I don't save any cd pics or edits to my hard drive or anyplace other than the original SD card in a folder set up for edited pics. It's not foolproof, but it is workable.

[Steph_CD_62]

I have a few pictures on my phone in a "hidden" album in my gallery, but the bad thing is that I can still access them without unhiding the album, from google photos. My phone needs to be unlocked to even get on it, so even though it isn't fully safe it is unless you have my password which my wife and daughter both do.

I also have more pictures on my laptop, which I realize is actually the "cloud" and that is more accessible, but probably about 1/2 of them don't show my face.

I'm not sure why I leave such a trail of evidence of my dressing, but I do look at the pictures occasionally.

[Jenn A116]

I've only recently started taking pictures of my femme self. Recently, as in the past 2-3 years. I just keep them in my Apple photo's app in a hidden folder. That requires a passcode, face scan or fingerprint to access it. That's safe enough for me.

[rachelatshop]

I think you are protected as long as you don't post the pictures on a site like this or others. I would feel it is safe to keep them on a stick, or in the laptop that has not connection.

[Cheryl T]

Delete definitely does not mean delete.
Years ago I dabbled in different programming languages and so forth. When a computer deletes a file it simply changes the first letter of the file name to a character. The data remains there unless the computer needs the space and writes another file over it. Some programs have the ability to "wipe" the storage, be it a memory stick, hard drive or whatever and you can set it to do so multiple times. The other way is to destroy the storage medium and I do mean Destroy. Open a hard drive and break all the discs (there are multiple there), break a memory stick or CD. You get the idea.
I love it when I watch a move and someone breaks a phone's screen and thinks that destroys it.

Anyway, my pictures from the last 20 years of being open to my wife are on a hard drive and SD card. She knows where they are and if something happens to me she knows to destroy them. If she goes first and then me and someone finds them, OH Well! I've been trash talked before so no big deal. Besides, I believe that if someone finds then and reacts that way then they really didn't know me. If my actions and words while alive don't mean more than a few pictures while dead then ...

[Stephanie47]

Maria, probably the only way to be "safe" is to do what you do; nothing posted to any site on the internet; nor put onto a computer that someone may someday obtain. One also has to remember printers have memory that should be destroyed before tossing. The only pictures I ever took were on an old film disk camera. I had them developed; kept them for awhile along with the disk, then destroyed everything. Sure, I'd be able to see the progression over the years; young woman to elderly lady...yikes! Male mode is bad enough!

[sweetdreams]

I use a product called VeraCrypt. It's free. It will encrypt you data. No one can see anything without the password.

[docrobbysherry]

I used to dress and no one, including my immediate family knew. Since me young children and I used the same computer, I never placed RECOGNIZABLE photos of myself on it. Plus, I had no need to because no one else on the planet knew about Sherry. Back then I developed some photos and kept them in a secret place.

Three ideas for u. Place all your dressed photos on a separate card(s).

And, don't place photos of u dressed with other photos of u. Then, if anyone does happen to view them they'll wonder who that odd looking woman is but may not realize she's u!

The same with photos u post online, including here. If your real name is NOT connected to your girl photos the chances of being found out r a million to 1! I've been featured in several TV documentaries and specials over the last 8 years and only one person that knows me recognized me there!
Get a FaceBook Profile in your fem name and use it for everything involved with your fem side!

[DianeT]

There are two reasons why your erased data may stick around. One is the way filesystems work. Filesystems are the logical organization of storage media that enables storing files and folders on what is initially just a raw series of blocks of data. The example given by CherylT applies to the old FAT12/16/32 file system, that is still used a lot on removable drives. More modern filesystems such as APFS on Macs (but not the older NTFS used on Windows) use also copy on write, a technology that brings a lot of advantages (instant duplication, resilience to damage, better SSD endurance, ...) but because it avoids overwriting a file in place and always uses new blocks if possible, leaves a lot of traces of old data all around.
The other reason is the prevalence of SSD disks in computers today over the older mechanical disks. SSD disks' integrated controllers also tend to avoid rewriting the same blocks of data in place. This is to limit the wear of SSD storage cells by leveling out the write count over all storage cells (SSD cells can typically be rewritten only a few thousand times).

Whether you are using a mechanical or electronic (SSD) disk, the method for a secure data erase is the same, you need to overwrite the whole disk with arbitrary data such as zeroes. This is done by writing arbitrary data in every block of the disk. Because the write is done at block level, this will generally remove the filesystem structures as well, and your disk will appear unformatted after the operation. You can simply format it again with your preferred filesystem (NTFS for Windows, APFS for Macs, FAT or exFAT for USB drives).
There are many utilities out there to do this wipe, see for exemplar method 4 here: https://www.ubackup.com/windows-10/s...ws-10.amp.html
(Just use the simple method: writing zeroes, with just one pass. The so-called DOD methods and alike that are supposed to be safer with multiple passes and complicated, varying patterns written on disk, make absolutely no difference to a single pass with zeroes according to forensics experts, they just take much longer).

Note that in the case of an SSD or USB key, especially if they were nearing their maximum storage capacity, there is a possibility that some traces will still be there. This is due to spare storage cells being reserved to replace failing ones. When a cell has been replaced, the original one still contains data (even if in an unreliable state), and since it's flagged as dead, will never be overwritten again (and can be accessed using special firmwares). Another mechanism called overprovisioning (a way of reserving spare storage cells for SSDs) can also leave traces of old data depending on how the SSD controller chip manages it.

My one and only recommendation: always encrypt your USB key or hard drive or SSD BEFORE putting any sensitive data on it (using Bitlocker on Windows, FileVault on Mac). If you encrypted your data from the beginning, it will NEVER be readable by a third party without the passphrase. Even on a USB key or SSD, even on cells that got replaced. Because, you see, everywhere something is still readable, it will be an encrypted block of data, indecipherable without the proper passphrase. Although my cautious nature would dictate me to secure erase it first, you could theoretically send it to the trash or give it to a third party without any second thought.

But if you didn't encrypt from the start, a secure data erase will provide a total cleanup on a mechanical disk and a secure enough one on USB drives and SSD disks, since accessing the few data leftovers, although not impossible, would require technological efforts beyond the average ill-intended individual. Which would require your data to be well above average market value, which it won't generally be, even for the exceptional beings that crossdressers are.

[chrissy111]

The only pictures I have are all taken with a Polaroid camera. Nothing on our phones or computers.

[@tammileetilliso]

Always be careful.