August 13, 2010

Catching the Bad Guys by the Phone

Filed under: Main — admin @ 12:01 am

As mankind moves to the cell phone as our ultimate digital tool, so follows the crooks. Right on their tail are the Good Guys using digital forensics on smartphones to catch them.

Unbeknownst to the bad guys, but now beknownst to law enforcement, is that cell phones keep lots of information.

No, not your contacts or that video you grabbed in Safeway of some obese mother in stretch pants berating her kids who want candy.

I’m speaking about information stored in your phone that the average cell phone user doesn’t know is stored in a phone. Information like your location or a screenshot of the last app you just closed.

What? You didn’t know that the iPhone did that? Yes, it’s true: Whenever you close an app, the iPhone takes a screenshot and stores it internally. You can’t find the screenshot, but forensic detectives can do so — and are doing so more frequently in their fight against the Bad Guys.

From an article in the Chicago Sun-Times:

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.

That’s pretty cool. And I bet the criminal, who is usually an idiot anyway, is completely unaware that the nifty phone he loves is helping the Good Guys keep track of where he goes, whom he texts, the email he sends, and perhaps even the stuff he types on the onscreen keyboard.

Because I don’t break the law, knowing that such information is in my phone doesn’t bother me. In fact, I’m kind of pleased that Bad Guys are getting caught.

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