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.
I tried to call you but the string had gone slack. You OK?
Write me a letter. I don’t answer the land line much either.
Do you sic your dogs on the mailman or shoot at him? Both work well.
There they go again. LE folks just love to brag to the bad guys how they catch them. Just STFU.
Geo tags can be prevented by changing the setting at:
Settings | General | Location Services
$45? You’re kidding right?
I carry the account for my family. I pay $30 extra but we also have the texting package. Weird paying a cellphone bill that is more than half of my house monthly note.
I wish I didn't have a cell phone. Hate the things but have to have it for work.
Note that this is essentially using “iPhone” as a generic for a modern smartphone. Most of these are features used to sell phones. I expect geotagging photos in a smartphone these days. I also expect browser history, and I definitely expect autocorrect spelling. And, yes, by now the autocorrect on my Android knows the names of towns and places I’ve typed in.
The cops must first prove the suspect was in possession of the phone at the time.
These are all features of modern smartphones.
I think that usually works by ignoring words beginning with a capital letter. The way they work they basically look like a learning spell checker with suggestions, kind of like MS Word.
The lesson here is that if you want your phone to customize itself to YOU in order to make things easier and faster for YOU then you have to expect it to learn some things about YOU. I consider that to be an obvious "Duh!" self-evident truth. If HiTech RedNeck doesn't want that customized experience, then he can get a dumb phone.
It's like bitching about your GPS. Of course it remembers where you've been. That's how it pops up a list of last locations so you can quickly bring up a route to them. How the hell else do you expect it to do things like that? Read your mind?
Possible to do in context, with emails, messages, chats, voice notes or photos obviously made by the suspect. Conversely, the phone should be an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card as an alibi. Sure GPS tagged it downtown while a house was robbed uptown. So you didn't bring your phone with you to the robbery.
Android saves screenshots of browser sessions. http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/17/droid-incredible-saves-browser-screenshots-to-secret-hiding-plac/
The features and performance of smart phones comes at a price, appearently. The market has spoken and millions are willing to pay that price.
Sorry, that’s “should not be an alibi”
All digital cameras record metadata in a picture's files. If the camera has GPS built in, then it records the location. It's not just the iPhone that does this.
If your camera does not have GPS, you can take the photo into iPhoto on the Mac and record a location. I haven't tried this, but I would guess that you can change the location if you want, or perhaps even delete it.
Like you I don't have a fundamental problem with this. But from the article, "even a full reset to factory settings failed to eviscerate the indiscreet imagery." Most people who desire to keep their privacy when selling the phone or turning it in for service would logically think a full reset to factory settings (a.k.a., wiping your phone) would erase such personal information. That it doesn't is a legitimate privacy issue and needs to be addressed.
Any sufficiently well-featured image metadata editor will allow you to alter or remove the GPS location. Metadata may also include your camera type, the exposure, resolution, date, time, a photo thumbnail, copyright info and much more. Try ExifTool, but don’t use Windows XP’s built-in ability or you may corrupt your data.
Many systems that take photos as part of the larger system (company ID card, DMV drivers license, portrait studio, etc.) insert other, often quite personal, metadata into the photo. Your photo might have your name, home address, or even your SSN in the metadata. Even if the photo is legally releasable to a third-party, it might accidentally come with your metadata.
Damn Straight Yo!
I am sure, that, someone has or soon will have, a jailbroken app that DOES nuke it all or any parts you wish to nuke.
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