It has emerged that Michigan State Police have been using a high-tech mobile forensics device that can extract information from over 3,000 models of mobile phone, potentially grabbing all media content from your iPhone in under two minutes.
The CelleBrite UFED is a handheld device that Michigan officers have been using since August 2008 to copy information from mobile phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The device can circumvent password restrictions and extract existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags.
In short, it can copy everything on your smartphone in a matter of minutes.
Learning that the police had been using mobile forensic devices, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has issued freedom of information requests which demand that state officials open up the data collected, to better assess if penalised motorists warrant having their data copied.
Michigan State Police were more than happy to provide the information – as long as the ACLU paid $544,680. Obviously not pocket change.
“Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide,” ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. “No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure.”
Once the data is obtained, the device’s “Physical Analyzer” can map both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth, porting location data and image geotags on Google Maps.
The ACLU’s main worry is that the handheld is quietly being used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches:
“With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity.
A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched.”
The next time you are Michigan, be sure drive carefully!
Obviously, these "smartphones" are designed to spy on you and purposely have no real security.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness I dont have a cell phone, an ipad, or an ipod or a blackberry. Noone can steal any private details from me. Thats the best way to stay safe.
ReplyDeleteNow, about that computer and internet connection you're using....
DeleteProbable cause can simply be an officer's hunch that you are under the influence of drugs, transporting drugs or any illegal contraband. It is well within the legal rights of the officer to download your phone content during a traffic stop as he is technically investigating you for a crime at the time. This type of intrusion has already been ruled on in the Supreme Court and been found valid.
ReplyDeleteTurn it off when you get stopped.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you had anything significant to hide (that is worth more than $400 to you) and got pulled up, you could simply drop the smartphone as you roll to a stop, and run over it with the back wheels a few times.
ReplyDeleteOr...if you are that nefarious that you have secrets that would get you prosecuted on your smartphone, why not buy a connector cable, chop it, and connect the business end of a disposable camera flash (450 volt pulse at high current) or personal taser (thousands of volts) and put that signal up the phone's data lines on a pushbutton.
Zap. No more phone interface. I doubt Michigan police would go to the trouble of de-soldering your NAND flash memory and popping it into a separate logic circuit just to fish for evidence on the off-chance they might find something.
And perhaps the easiest and least destructive alternative is to use only smartphones with micro SD-cards, have the phone put the relevant stuff on the card, and if it's incriminating, leave it somewhere else, like inside your leather belt, or at home.
Just think, it was once taught in elementary classes across the nation that at one time the increase of the tax on tea was enough to incite revolt from the masses.
ReplyDeleteNow we get braindead responses such as "If you've got nothing to hide ....", completely ignoring the nefarious ways this can be abused.
Go back to sleep now. Obey and consume is your role you subserviant prole.