
Devices being remotely wiped in police custody - msantos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29464889
======
furyg3
> "We have cases where phones get seized, and they are not necessarily taken
> from an arrested person - but we don't know the details of these cases as
> there is not a reason to keep records of this," she added.

Christ, this is the real story. Police seize items that don't belong to a
suspect, apparently aren't important to an investigation, don't give them back
to the owner, and don't keep records about these items.

~~~
sbierwagen
Well, they're English cops. No bill of rights.

~~~
gcb0
heh. quaint comment. america is actually the most liberal (ie less protection
from the gov to common people) of the developed countries.

no matter how much your politicians and hollywood tries to sell it as freedom
paradise

~~~
01Michael10
"less protection from the gov to common people" is a liberal ideal?

~~~
gcb0
all those "less laws" and don't "tell me what to do" has its consequences.

you will find out it works both ways.

~~~
ende
No, and in fact I think you are severely confused.

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Someone1234
As the article makes clear, they're just incompetent. However police-types
seem to be very conservative by nature which can lead to a very technophobic
workforce.

It is pretty surprising how slowly police are changing with the times. You'd
expect every major police force to have a "computer crimes" division, but they
don't. Only really the MET (London's police force) has a decent computer
crimes division.

You often read about digital crimes (e.g. harassment, theft, fraud, etc) going
completely uninvestigated because of how few "digital police" they have (e.g.
1/1000th the size of the officers investigating physical crimes).

As a specific example, for almost a year when you Googled "UK passport renew"
the first Google adword result was an obviously fraudulent one, yet nothing
was done even though they had to have known about it.

PS - I bet you could use Tasker (or a similar app) to wipe your phone if it
didn't regain data access for a long period of time (e.g. 6-12 hours). So if
they took your phone and shoved it into a bag, the phone still auto-wipes if
they fail to turn it off.

PPS - Although realistically you're best not storing the data on your phone at
all. The UK police can force you to give up your encryption keys, however they
would struggle to get your data off of a foreign owned-operated website.

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paulornothing
In the US, I think the main issue has to do with most Police Departments only
requiring a High School Diploma as an education requirement. I've had
internships with Gov't agencies and volunteered at local PDs and it's a very
common thread that a large portion of the workforce is computer illiterate.
Sure higher education doesn't necessarily mean people will be proficient with
computers but at least they will have exposure and familiarity. Also the
people who make the decisions (higher ranking officials) are usually older and
also phobic of technology.

~~~
mark-r
It's worse than that: some police departments will actively reject you if
you're too smart. There are lots of stories about this which you can find with
a quick search, including this one where someone was dismissed and lost their
court case: [http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-
cops/sto...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-
cops/story?id=95836)

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richardlblair
The comment about putting devices into a microwave is false.

If the microwave is from the 70's it will work, otherwise it will not.

Don't believe me/want to downvote me? Put your cell phone in the microwave and
call it from a land line...

~~~
balabaster
I've tried this over the past few months with a number of different microwaves
because we wanted to know if the microwave would function as a Faraday cage...
we tried it with every cell phone in the house, we also tried it with the
cordless land phone. It didn't work. My conclusion is that a modern microwave
will not function as a Faraday cage [Edit for clarity: for communications
equipment (WiFi, Cellular, Home Phone etc.)] - I realize that may be painting
with a broad brush, perhaps some of them will, but those I tried did not.

If someone has tried this successfully with a modern microwave, it would be
useful to know what cellular/radio devices they tested and what
make/model/year of microwave they used for their tests.

~~~
kec
Microwave ovens most definitely function as faraday cages, however they are
specifically designed to attenuate 2.4GHz signals. Anything higher or lower
which isn't a harmonic (integer multiple) of 2.4GHz is going to experience
much less attenuation.

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cwmma
My takeaway was that somebody is selling a hard drive that will wipe itself if
you go through a tunnel.

~~~
sbierwagen
You'd figure the timeout would be pretty long, 4 hours or so.

~~~
antjanus
Right. Whenever evidence is collected, it's not going to be thoroughly
analyzed/saved/etc right away. Especially not in a thoroughly sealed
environment.

Just an hour - 2 hour long timeout would be sufficient.

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dzhiurgis
> pop it in a microwave oven

Just popped my phone in the microwave oven. Was able to receive a call on 2G
as well as 3G.

~~~
sbierwagen
Huh.

I seemed to recall that Snowden made guests put their phones in the
refrigerator, which is the same principle. So I went and tested my phone in on
the work fridge, and you could still make calls to it.

Filing cabinet, ditto. Mylar antistatic bag, (which has a conductive layer,
though not very conductive) ditto.

Tried some conductive fabric, which we sell for e-textiles stuff, and which
the manufacturer's datasheet advertises as providing some 85dB of RF
attenuation, and sure enough I couldn't call my phone anymore.

~~~
Scorponok
I assumed the fridge was more about "make sure the microphone can't pick up
anything from outside" than blocking radio signals.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah I think Snowden said that himself. It was about microphones mostly.

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jackgavigan
Interesting article. I didn't realise "romance fraud" was a thing.

~~~
pjc50
It's an odd term, but I think what they mean is contracting non-romantic
marriages in order to immigrate into the UK.

~~~
wcummings
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam)

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troymc
From the article: "A spokeswoman for Dorset police told the BBC: "There were
six incidents, but we don't know how people wiped them."

You'd think the police would know that some smartphones have a remote-wipe or
kill-switch feature: it's something they'd tell people who report their
smartphone stolen.

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rikkus
Article provided courtesy of SecureDrives

~~~
01Michael10
No...

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androidb
This reminds me of a movie scene in Breaking Bad where they remotely "wiped" a
laptop's content. Guess that's plausible now.

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taybin
"The hard drive is constantly looking for GSM [Global System for Mobile
Communications] signals, if it is starved of them it it would destroy itself.
It would see such a bag as a threat," said James Little, head of sales at
SecureDrives"

Don't take your laptop on the subway!

~~~
polemic
Yeah, have fun shipping it, or since there are for the military, in a bunker,
airplane, submarine, desert base...

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rdudek
Maybe slightly off topic, is there a program that would allow me to remote
wipe a system if one gets stolen? Or automatically wipe out a system if it has
not communicated with a central server for a set amount of time?

~~~
gambiting
Hmmmmm neither Windows nor Mac OS allow for this, mostly because neither
system can ensure a complete destruction of the partition its located on.
However, there are plenty of laptops on the market(high-end Dells, Lenovos,
HPs) which have built in GSM modems which can be issued a command remotely to
wipe the hard drive.

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prof_hobart
>If we can't get to the scene within an hour, we tell the client to pop it in
a microwave oven

Doesn't just switching it off achieve the same thing?

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Rylinks
switching it off might activate drive encryption

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leni536
Is it even possible with the battery taken out?

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pjc50
iPhone batteries are not easily removable.

