

Met Police to extract mobile phone data; will be kept even if no charges - josscrowcroft
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18102793?1

======
ErrantX
> Under the new system, content will be extracted using purpose built
> terminals in police stations.

So the device in the screenshot is a Radio Tactics Aceso, there is one sat
across the room from my desk. It has been around for quite a while.

They are pretty good pieces of kit; but there is something of a limit in terms
of the information they can extract (i.e. because phones are so "proprietary"
it's only logical data they can easily recover).

> Until now, officers had to send mobiles off for forensic examination in
> order to gather and store data, a process which took several weeks.

Hilarious.

Anyway:

In a sense this is very old news (over the stuff HN is likely to be interested
in); before if your tech was seized and sent of for analysis the data would be
retained, no matter what the outcome. I can't remember the exact length of
time but it is measured in years.

This appears to be extending the technical ability to "acquire" mobile phones
down to the police station level. My thoughts:

* Despite how simplistic (and the Aceso is brain dead simple to use) they make it, there will still be mass confusion

* No one at police station level will understand how to secure digital evidence effectively (no matter how much training they hand out - it took me several years to get to grips with the minutae), I hope they have a plan to mitigate this.

* This is all part of the govt. plan to in-source as much of their forensics as possible. Which just ends up putting the technical stuff in the hands of people ill-trained to handle it, and risks more people being convicted

* It's not discussed, but I would be interested to see if this means they will be acquiring _more_ data than usual. i.e. does this mean every phone will be analysed, or will they only do it for phones they could (in the past) justify sending off for detailed examination.

* In the former case (acquiring everything) how, legally, are they justifying it.

As a forensic analyst this whole thing seems to verge on violating every
ethical and moral rule I would ascribe too. It increases the chances of abuse
by many factors and reduces the effectiveness of forensic mobile phone work.

> The cost of leasing the 16 terminals for 12 months and training the officers
> will be £50,000, the Met said.

They are being ridiculously fleeced. I am unsure of the exact volume of phones
they might process, but I suspect they could sub-contract it to actual experts
for much less. I could process 10's of phones a week, for example. Mostly this
is a Radio Tactics press release.

Even in the best case scenario they are reducing effectiveness, increasing
error rate and costing themselves more money. From my side of the fence this
is not the first idiotic thing I have seen the public forces do in recent
months - and it won't be the last. As a member of the public I don't feel
paranoia and insecurity, but I am certainly cautious about the way this is
going.

(disclaimer; this sort of thing is what is making my profession redundant)

p.s. put a PIN code on your SIM and phone. From a practical perspective that
basically renders Aceso useless (they can try and make you give up the PIN of
course).

~~~
DanBC
In theory it's only if they think the phone has been used in crime. In
practice that'll mean everytime someone is in a station.

~~~
ErrantX
Well, not really. Lots of people get detained.

I have to admit I was pretty drunk once and woke up in a police cell. Would
that count?

Many people are genuinely detained but later found not to have been involved.

What if you were arrested for killing someone whilst drunk driving, is your
phone of relevance?

 _At the moment_ "everytime someone is in a station" doesn't mean your phone
is of interest. I hope that won't change in the future, but there is no
clarification of this in the article.

~~~
DanBC
In theory, no. In practice, yes. Until it goes to court, and then they'll push
it for as long as they can. See also DNA retention; human body parts; etc etc.

~~~
ErrantX
I'm not entirely sure what exactly you are trying to say; are you saying that
now they have this easy method of extracting phone data they will push for the
requirements for extracting that data to be lowered (ala DNA)?

~~~
biafra
No. I think what he is saying is that they will extract the data anyway.
Whether they are allowed to or not. If it's that simple they will do it.
Better be safe than sorry.

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dstorrs
Jebus. Ok, I need to look into disk encryption (and maybe TrueCrypt) for my
phone. AFAIK, there is nothing incriminating on it, but the cops can _always_
find something if they really want to.

~~~
jahmed
Everyone has done/is doing/will do something illegal. The question is if we or
someone in charge cares.

As told to me by some friendly police officers I would chat with.

~~~
bigiain
You've seen the "Dont talk to police" video, right?

"An law school professor and former criminal defense attorney tells you why
you should never agree to be interviewed by the police."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc>

------
alan_cx
Same as a DNA samples then. We Brits let them get away with that one, why
would we be bothered by mere phone data? The battle is well and truly over.
Well, I say over, it never really started. I really don't know why we don't
just have random home searches, you know, just in case, and of course, what
have we got to hide?

What I would like to know is what will the tipping point be? When will the
general public say no, enough is enough?

~~~
yequalsx
I don't think there is a tipping point. People are already trained to give up
their data to Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. Governments will share this
data eventually and amass a great deal of its own curated data. People in
general don't care and I don't foresee a time where they will. The
surveillance era is here and it's not going away.

------
Nate75Sanders
How feasible would it be to have a device that looks like a smartphone and can
interface with this police device which would produce enough
current/power/voltage/whatever to fry the police device?

~~~
ErrantX
Hah! I like that idea :) It would have to be pretty convincing because you
have to boot the device up to acquire it with the Aceso (as phones are such
proprietary tech) so it would need to pass the "boots up and looks like a
mobile device".

In theory, I suppose, it would be possible to fry the thing when connected.
It's just a standard PC packaged in a special case (with touch screen) and you
connect the phone via USB.

~~~
Peaker
If that becomes common, putting a fuse or some defense against "frying" would
probably be an easy response.

------
Zak
I have to wonder why mobile phones aren't better protected against this kind
of attack. It doesn't seem like the default should be to allow an
unauthenticated device to plug in and read/image the phone.

~~~
dsl
Because consumers don't demand it. They want Facebook and pretty colors and
high megapixel cameras.

The people who do ask for it are obviously criminals.

~~~
dstorrs
> The people who do ask for it are obviously criminals.

You're being sarcastic, but we're moving in the direction of "police need
unlimited power to investigate, so let's make it illegal to ask for privacy".
And yes, we're a long way off from that scenario (at least in the USA) but I
can see it on the horizon.

The thing that really scares me is the UK system -- CCTV cameras on every
corner explicitly built for surveillance. We have a lot of cameras in the US
(traffic, ATM, etc) but they generally belong to different entities and there
is no comprehensive framework for getting (near)real-time footage from all of
them.

~~~
skymt
The police chief of my city (Newport News VA, USA) recently declared his
intention to set up surveillance cameras "from one end of this city to the
other" because "I can't put a police officer on every corner" but "I might be
able to put up a camera."

[http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-police-
cameras-2...](http://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-police-
cameras-20120519,0,1215351.story)

------
cmdkeen
It is worth pointing out this merely enables you to get your phone back
quicker in cases where the police could already seize your phone. It won't be
a case of everyone who gets arrested having it scanned. Firstly there isn't
any authority to do so, secondly it isn't worth it time wise. I used to be a
cop in Scotland and I never arrested anyone where there was a need to do
anything with their phone other than try and work out how to turn the damn
thing off...

------
anthonyu
John Singleton wrote HurtLocker for Android (available at
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.featurepro...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.featureproof.hurtlocker))
for this exact reason.

It allows you to surreptitiously wipe your phone when you are coerced or
intimidated into involuntarily unlocking it.

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user23409
With the amount of risqué pictures teens are sending each-other these days, I
bet this becomes the worlds largest kiddie porn database.

Oh, law enforcement. Gonna be a lot of pervy police officers getting exactly
what they want. Not dissimilar to the airport Body-Scanner pictures that TSA
agents were caught taking home.

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k-mcgrady
Are there any quick, easy ways to destroy all the data on your phone to
prevent this if you are arrested?

I currently have my passcode set the wipe the iPhone if it is entered
incorrectly 10 times. So, if I was arrested and I could erase all my data
quickly 'just' by tapping a number on the lock screen 40 times.

~~~
dsl
Wiping your device is justification enough for them to subpoena the iCloud
backups in most cases.

~~~
sneak
Thanks to the USA PATRIOT Act, they don't even need a judge or a subpoena
anymore. The FBI does this 50k+ times per year - no warrant, no oversight.

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ck2
Well this is probably become the standard in the USA within a few years.

Also I could imagine the rise of planted phones - take a drug dealer's prepaid
phone and plant it in your car if they want to frame you and make your life
hell even if a conviction is eventually overturned.

------
DanBC
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3988253>)

(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3990972>)

------
furyg3
How well do these devices work against encryption (like that on the iPhone)?

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Mordor
It's ironic that the Met Police, fresh out of a phone hacking scandal have
proposed making things easier.

------
jerlam
Looks like a great attack vector to get into a system that has other people's
personal information.

