Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Mobile 'Remote Wipe' Thwarts Secret Service

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the cry-them-a-river dept.

bennyboy64 writes "Smartphones that offer the ability to 'remote wipe' are great for when your device goes missing and you want to delete your data so that someone else can't look at it, but not so great for the United States Secret Service, ZDNet reports. The ability to 'remote wipe' some smartphones such as BlackBerry and iPhone was causing havoc for law enforcement agencies, according to USSS special agent Andy Kearns, speaking on mobile phone forensics at a security conference in Australia."

10 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Aww.. by Jaysyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My heart bleeds for these guys. Really, it does.

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
    1. Re:Aww.. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Umm... Because it suggests that the phones (though not the networks) aren't backdoored?

      The fact that the Secret Service, who ought to be a bit sharper than Joe Beat Cop, haven't mastered the art of "turning the phone off before it gets wiped" doesn't strike me as a good thing. However, the fact that "wipe" means "wipe" not "Wipe, unless the state says otherwise" does.

    2. Re:Aww.. by daid303 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I might have been playing to much Commandos, The Saboteur, Wolvenstein and Day of Defeat. But when you say S.S. I think about a whole different kind of 'cop'.

      Scary enough, you see them the same way as the original S.S. was seen by the public many years ago.

    3. Re:Aww.. by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right, becasue everyone knows that mistakes are never made by law enforcement.

      I mean if you don't have anything to hide, why should anyone be worried?

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    4. Re:Aww.. by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      >>>Frankly, I give a shit if the S.S. can read the information on my phone if they detain me. First, in order for me to be detained by the S.S., I'd have to be in a pretty precarious situation in the first place.

      Yeah. After all the government never, never arrests innocent people and throws them in jail to rot. So you're right. Nothing to fear.

      /end sarcasm

      Here's an interesting case where government cops entered the wrong house (therefore an illegal warrantless search) to do a drug raid. Of course there were no drugs at the address (again: wrong house), but the man inside was scared to death so he ran to his bedroom and hid for fear of his life. When the intruders entered, he acted in self-defense of his life and killed the intruder. Then he was charged with murder and sentenced to life for murder.

      That man is completely innocent, but nobody seems to give two shits. He's already spent a decade in jail. It could have just as easily been you.

      http://reason.com/archives/2006/10/01/the-case-of-cory-maye

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  2. Gist of the story by thesaurus · · Score: 5, Insightful
    If officers don't follow evidence procedures correctly, evidence gets screwed up. And it doesn't happen very often.

    "Sometimes you'll get a cellphone that comes in that is wiped, [but] it's not all that common," he said. Agents were trained to incapacitate devices, but Kearns cautioned that not all enforcement agencies had the same knowledge.

    1. Re:Gist of the story by oldspewey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So basically, this is crime scene preservation training 101. If an officer stumbles around a physical murder scene, eating hot chicken wings, randomly picking up pieces of evidence, and leaving delicious buffalo sauce all over everything, he will destroy the physical evidence before it can be expertly analyzed. But hopefully with adequate training, he learns how to take adequate precautions.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
  3. from the cry-them-a-river dept. by syrinx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So the Slashdot groupthink's anti-law enforcement stance has extended to the Secret Service now? Which part are we in favor of: counterfeiting money or assassinating the president? Personally I'll go ahead and take a bold anti-counterfeiting/anti-assassination position and say that this is a bad thing.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
    1. Re:from the cry-them-a-river dept. by bzzfzz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think most Slashdotters will agree that the Service is well within their rights to perform forensic analysis on any device that they obtain during a lawful search, whether conducted under a warrant, incidental to an arrest, or based on probable cause. I do not believe that the Service suffers a poor track record regarding extralegal searches as does INS and some other agencies.

      On the other hand, the availability of an effective "remote wipe" of a personal device is a rightful means of exercising freedom.

      It's about balance.

  4. Re:Hm by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No it doesn't. It requires a simple, mindless process: supply all agents with shielded bags for mobile phones, instruct them that the process for mobile phone evidence is it goes in the special bag and does not come out before it gets to the lab.

    And if there's one thing most law enforcement agencies worldwide are extremely good at, it's simple mindless processes.