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Apple iPhone and the police Ping!
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Posted on 08/11/2010 11:52:30 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
Detective Josh Fazio of the Will County Sheriff's Department loves it when an iPhone turns up as evidence in a criminal case.
The sophisticated cell phone and mobile computer is becoming as popular with police as it is with consumers because it can provide investigators with so much information that can help in solving crimes.
"When someone tells me they have an iPhone in a case, I say, 'Yeah!' I can do tons with an iPhone," said Fazio, who works in the sheriff's department high-tech crimes unit.
The iPhones generally store more data than other high-end phones -- and investigators such as Fazio frequently can tap in to that information for evidence.
And while some phone users routinely delete information from their devices, that step is seldom as final as it seems.
"When you hit the delete button, it's never really deleted," Fazio said.
The devices can help police learn where you've been, what you were doing there and whether you've got something to hide.
Former hacker Jonathan Zdziarski, author of iPhone Forensics (O'Reilly Media) for law enforcement, said the devices "are people's companions today. They organize people's lives."
And if you're doing something criminal, something about it is probably going to go through that phone:
• Every time an iPhone user closes out of the built-in mapping application, the phone snaps a screenshot and stores it. Savvy law-enforcement agents armed with search warrants can use those snapshots to see if a suspect is lying about whereabouts during a crime.
• iPhone photos are embedded with GEO tags and identifying information, meaning that photos posted online might not only include GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken, but also the serial number of the phone that took it.
• Even more information is stored by the applications themselves, including the user's browser history. That data is meant in part to direct custom-tailored advertisements to the user, but experts said some of it could be useful to police.
Clearing out user histories isn't enough to clean the device of that data, said John B. Minor, a member of the International Society of Forensic Computer Examiners.
Just as users can take and store a picture of their iPhone's screen, the phone itself automatically shoots and stores hundreds of such images as people close out one application to use another.
"Those screen snapshots can contain images of e-mails or proof of activities that might be inculpatory or exculpatory," Minor said.
• The keyboard cache logs everything that you type in to learn autocorrect so that it can correct a user's typing mistakes. Apple doesn't store that cache very securely, Zdziarski contended, so someone with know-how could recover months of typing in the order in which it was typed, even if the e-mail or text it was part of has long since been deleted.
Sometimes, the phones can help even if the case isn't a matter of life or death.
In Kane County, the sheriff's department used GPS information from one of the phones to help reunite a worried father with his runaway daughter, who was staying at a friend's house.
"His daughter felt comfortable at the house because she did not think her parents knew where she was, and she actually answered the door. She was a bit surprised as to the fact that [her] dad found her," said Lt. Pat Gengler, a spokesman for the sheriff's department.
Ping
Scary. I can’t wait to dump mine. The amount of money I pay a month is soul withering.
I live on mine and my iPad, I travel all the time and they just come in handy... but I’m not up to no good until Obama declares such places as Free Republic as subversive and locks us all up...
I’ve been an iPhone user for a couple of years now and just yesterday, I was looking at some of my pictures and noticed there’s a map icon which shows where the pictures were taken. I had no idea that was even there.
What about the two kids?
On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be a married lawyer engaged in anything the little lady might get upset about.
Works both ways. I expect defense lawyers and divorce lawyers will be requesting records from cops and prosecutors. Goose/gander thing. Only fair.
/johnny
I don’t have one.Don’t have a cell phone either. Don’t want either.
keyboard cache...
not good!
Not more than $45 hopefully.
The keyboard cache is nothing more than an alphabetic list of words that have been typed into the keyboard... It is useless without context. It does not contain numbers.
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One would think iPhone users would clamor for spyproofed versions. There is little or no use to the user for most of this stuff.
OK, so let’s talk Linux... is the Android more secure?
If it’s peppered with place names, it is serving as spyware.
Uh, No?
BS. Place names are generally already in the dictionary. Even common surnames and Christian names are already in the dictionary. The cache only retains words not found in the dictionary. Unless you can tell me how your claimed system cache associated with the predictive typing of the iPhone is "spyware" that can be mined by a hacker, you are just trolling. If a hacker can get access to mine that data, then there is a far greater problem than just mining the alphabetic non-contextual words of a cache.
If even most of the oodles of street and municipal names that exist in this land are in the built-in keyboard helper dictionary, there might be a point to your blither.
"Blither"????
Can you be any more insulting???? or dismissive???
You are the one spouting FUD in this thread... and you call me calling you on it "blither"???? The truth is "blither?":
It matters NOT whether they are or are not in there... (I have not found many that are not) ... YOU ARE SPOUTING FUD without any point or purpose except to make noise... and spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. FUD.
It is still not SPYWARE. Nor is it "acting as SPYWARE." Your claim that it is, is absurd. I called you on it.
Hey Joe - take this here iPhone and take some pictures of my family at the beach while I rob this bank on the other side of town.....
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