Mobile 'Remote Wipe' Thwarts Secret Service

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."

Comments

Not enough

[pavon]

Some phones never truly turn off, and have the ability to be turned on remotely. The government was pushing for this feature, and now it has turned around and bit them. The only way to be certain that the black box you are carrying cannot communicate with the outside world is to remove the battery or stick it in a Faraday cage. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages.

Who cares?

[olddotter]

Really, your telling me there are plans for the Death Star on the phone and you can't get them any other way if it gets wiped?

Call history will be with the phone company, get a warrant. So you loose self incriminating video they took of themselves committing the crime, probably to post on youtube later...

Re:Aww..

[Em Emalb]

Secret Service did this?

Interesting.

(FTR, I can keep trolling you guys if you'd like, the responses have been pretty interesting thus far.)