Cell Phone Secrets Die Hard 146
duplo1 writes "According to an article on CNN, "Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile[s] up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think." It seems that corporate security policies need to extend their disposal standards to mobile devices; but what is there to educate consumers regarding such a potential breach of privacy?"
factory reset? (Score:3, Interesting)
Conflicting reports (Score:2, Interesting)
As posted to the internet just last month:
"A police digital forensics expert has admitted that some mobile phones are impenetrable to software used by police in forensic examinations. The revelation follows a paper by a Cambridge researcher which originally made the claim."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/07/mobile_ph
Re:Common Sense? (Score:3, Interesting)
They need to be FUDed into action by articles just like this one, or by their IT departments - that *really* deleting sensitive data, be it browser history, email, pr0n or cellphone texts, requires that certain magical steps be taken.
Once aware that some sort of magical wiping procedure is required, they will naturally bother to discover the appropriate procedures by asking their IT department/some expert if they deem the information sufficiently sensitive.
magic == dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/treoflashdevicething
once erased, it can also come back.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea what any of the xrays were trying to show me, but he seemed pretty concerned about some spots in a couple of them. I thought it was cool I could zoom in on them with my phone. Man I hope copies are being kept on the server...
Funny story... (Score:3, Interesting)
I always wondered what would have happened if I had called those people in the phone's memory to try to find out who's phone I had.
Re:In my company... (Score:3, Interesting)
4033 Industrial Shredder
The Ultimate in Central Shredding Systems. Designed to be versatile to work as a stand alone destruction unit or in combination with a disintegrator for maximum size reduction. The Model 4033 shredder is capable of destroying bulk product from roll stock to whole computer towers into pieces 2" wide at random lengths. Add a disintegrator to achieve particle sizes to meet DoD requirements.
Disintigrator description:
Waste material is fed into the machine through a safety feed hopper. The cutting mechanism consists of 2 to 5 knives mounted on a steel rotor that pass 2 stationary bed knives (0.005 inch gap) at 500-600 rotations per minute (RPM) for up to 6,000 cuts per minute.
Waste is cut until small enough to fall through a perforated steel screen beneath the cutting rotor. The screens are interchangeable so that the degree of destruction can be varied from 3/32 to 3 inches. Thick, tough materials such as diskettes and CD-ROMs can be destroyed with less power and less chance of jams due to the high mass of the rotor and thickness of the knives.
http://www.semshred.com/content603.html [semshred.com]
No home should be without one.
Although personally, the only times I've bought a new mobile phone were to replace the old ones I'd lost or broken. If someone wants to try to repair a phone that's taken a saltwater bath in order to steal my contact numbers, more power to them.
Re:What's the point (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, $20 is $20. If it works, you'll get at least that much on eBay. heck, I've sold no-frills phones that were 3-4 years old for $50 on ebay.
Smartphones, the ones most likley to carry sensitive data, cost hundreds of dollars new, so selling one that is several years old can still get you $100-300 depending on popularity of the model -- particularly since service providers frequently update models with useless features (or cripple them more, as any Verizon customer has experienced) and raise the price, so people looking for replacements often turn to the used market just to get a decent phone that works.
No trust for the Bells, that's for sure. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you take preventive measures to erase sensitive data from devices, you still have mega-corporations who accidentally release sensitive data like a good smelly fart.
Even when they don't release it publically, they lack both the competence or will to keep it to themselves. I remember, ten years ago, an acquaintance who taunted a friend with private medical information. She had been a clerk for a debt collection agency and used her access to look up all of her friends. The big dumb companies share things they should not and don't keep tabs on it. Imagine what clerks at ChoicePoint could do, then think of how owned their little windoze terminals are. There's not much real privacy left anymore.
Cell phones are not free platforms and the owners are some of the most notorious abusers of personal privacy. Almost all of the Baby Bells were too happy to comply when the Bush administration asked them to break the law and tap their customers. Just to get a Cigular phone six years ago, I had to give the creeps monthly access to my credit record! You have to remember that the parent company at one time refused to allow people to plug modems into their network. The babies continue to stonewall broadband to this day. They will do anything and everything to get some crummy little franchises over their users. Your "secrets" are the last of their concerns, except where it can be used for their own marketing purposes.
My answer kind of sucks, but it works. My cell phone is nothing more. I put names into it because the phone company already knows who I'm talking to. Nothing else goes in. I don't SMS, I will never use their calenders. I resent GPS tracking. I'll never trust their cameras and I'll keep it in a box if I'm ever talking about something sensitive. The damn thing is like a bug in my pocket that can be abused by anyone with the technical wherewithal to pull the wool over the Baby Bells. These days, that's about anyone.
I thought we were supposed to be nerds (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:factory reset? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why even try to sell a phone that is so last years model?
If you're on a plan, you get free phones and if you're on a pre-pay, those phones are only good for that plan.
Resetting Palm? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Palm Inc., which makes the popular Treo phones, puts directions deep within its Web site for what it calls a "zero out reset." It involves holding down three buttons simultaneously while pressing a fourth tiny button on the back of the phone.
But it's so awkward to do that even Palm says it may take two people. A Palm executive, Joe Fabris, said the company made the process deliberately clumsy because it doesn't want customers accidentally erasing their information."
They haven't seen kungfoo of emacs users 5 keys to a command
2c
Re:factory reset? (Score:5, Interesting)