While I still have physical possession of the phone, I can't access any data on it, and I'm surprised by the amount of stuff that was lost…and the amount that was not. All text messages prior to the drowning were lost. Same thing with some chats on third party messaging services that won't be specifically named for security purposes. Every file downloaded onto the device is gone.

What survived? Obviously emails live in the cloud, so they're fine. All stored browser stuff (auto-filled passwords, account info, etc.) is safe.

The one thing I was worried about was photos. I take lots (around 50% are of my cat, and the rest are unimportant). I do regularly back up my phone to a PC (since I'm Android), but I think my last backup was probably a year before the drowning.

To my surprise, I didn't lose a single photo. I found a folder on my PC that was part of some Samsung-related software. Without my knowledge, apparently every photo on my phone had been automatically synced with that folder on my PC….around 19,000 of them. Zero cat photos lost.

As for the police wiping this guy's phone….you can argue both sides, but this does seem like overkill. Cops often search large crime scenes. They gather evidence and remove contraband. Do they sometimes miss things? Obviously yes (don't ask me how I know).

Wiping this guy's phone seems like the digital equivalent of burning his house down just because a crime occurred there. It should have been a fairly trivial matter to delete inappropriate photos and texts, and leave the rest untouched.

In any case, isn't the bigger issue (and answer) a practical one — the guy was sent to prison for 15 years. Surely he isn't allowed a phone in prison, so it isn't clear how this decision was even ripe for discussion…and probably won't ever be. I'm confident that when he gets out in 15 years, his old phone will probably be as dead as the one I dropped in the hot tub.