I have been recently trying to get the update for the new iOS 7.1 and it keeps coming up as too much data for update. It says to check your storage and or usage and edit it them, but when I go check I have over 7.8GB of messages "saved" on my phone. why?

Question

I went to my data after this message kept coming up and unlike the rest of the usage data you cannot delete your "saved" message data. I tried deleting some photos (which I don't have a lot to begin with; now I only have 40) still nothing. I then went to to my local apple store in the mall and the two guys I talked to didn't help. They said to delete the threads which I did, then delete the pictures which I also did and that should help. They were wrong they I'd say however to reset your phone if all else fails and that will deffinelty do it. But I don't want to lose all of my data so I am trying to save my things on iCloud and it won't let me do to my storage. There have been similar situations like mine on here but the backup bot isn't working on my computer. At this point I am just so lost and confused I don't know what to do. Someone please help

Answer 1

Snowden has already commented on this. Messages are stored on Apple devices until they are uploaded for screening to the NSA. Apple holds these messages on your device and on the cloud service. Once the information has been uploaded to NSA, the messages then delete off your device. In order to not arouse suspecion, the device will always show you some amount to data as space being occupied on your device. Theorecically this data could be over written and not protected if they were on hidden sectors of your memory. The information stored on this "messages" partition is actually more than messages, thats why this space commitment can easily reach 3 gigs. Any computer science specialist will tell you that ASCII characters only use minimal kilobytes of data. Apple complies with this request to upload your personal data as outlined in the Patriot Act. The only way to delete this "messages" data hold is by doing a complete wipe of your device and not conducting a restore. It will clear the space off your device, but NSA actually has the information from the cloud service regardless.