Silk Road forums

Discussion => Security => Topic started by: sunnybeach1911 on April 24, 2013, 12:47 am

Title: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: sunnybeach1911 on April 24, 2013, 12:47 am
Another friend of mine had his house raided today. I'm waiting for my door to get the knock soon. The only thing I have on me lately that is incriminating is my mobile. What can I do with it?  I can't afford to throw away ATM as its a iPhone on contract and would be too expensive to buyout
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: PBmolly on April 24, 2013, 12:52 am
Don't save your text messages, delete your call logs and hope your door don't get kicked in
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: drdroopy on April 24, 2013, 01:06 am
would suggest a factory restore, they can pull records from your service provider if they really wanted to tho, but if you are an average consumer i wouldn't get to worried. Word of advice, get a burner phone, I pick up a 20$ trac fone every few months and use it only for texts related to illegal activity
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: PBmolly on April 24, 2013, 01:18 am
would suggest a factory restore, they can pull records from your service provider if they really wanted to tho, but if you are an average consumer i wouldn't get to worried. Word of advice, get a burner phone, I pick up a 20$ trac fone every few months and use it only for texts related to illegal activity

This is very good advice, If you are big enough that they are interested in you (or they think you are bigger than you might be for any reason) get yourself a burner or two. Any walmart and even some gas stations can set you up with a working simple phone in no time. 
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: sourman on April 24, 2013, 02:20 am
At the very least, factory reset your phone and wipe (not delete, but overwrite) any unencrypted itunes backups on your PC.

After resetting the phone, download an app like ishredder and do a free space wipe of the iphone. I'm not 100% sure if a reset is necessary, but I'd do it just in case a simple free space wipe on iOS doesn't affect the databases storing your text messages.

At this point, I'd reset the phone again to get rid of the wiping app, although there will probably be a record of the app download thanks to itunes anyway.

If the boys contact you, politely decline to answer questions and hire a lawyer. It's not as easy to link texts to someone as a recorded voice call, because technically anyone could have sent them.
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: Skkky on April 24, 2013, 02:38 am
Another friend of mine had his house raided today. I'm waiting for my door to get the knock soon. The only thing I have on me lately that is incriminating is my mobile. What can I do with it?  I can't afford to throw away ATM as its a iPhone on contract and would be too expensive to buyout

From personal experience, if they really want that information from your phone they don't even need to have it. They will contact the service provider.  EVERYTHING is recorded with them, and they can subpena the provider to provide ALL text messages, phone number, dates and times of the calls, and IP address of all the servers (web pages etc)  you connect ..      They did it to me.  The question is, will this information  hold up in court.   Would of advise, if you factory reset, or have special software installed to erase data off your phone, you're giving them reason to contact the service provider. 

In the future, use a cheap pay as you go phone under a different name to use for anything illegal so you can break it and throw away.
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: sourman on April 24, 2013, 02:47 am
Different mobile providers store different data, and for different periods of time. I think there was a chart out there showing the data retention policy of Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, etc. as it applies to text messages. Those figures may be obsolete now, though either way it's safe to assume any messages sent within the last week or two are definitely retrievable.

The key is plausible deniability. If they can't prove you sent those messages, they won't matter. I would consult an attorney and see what they say about destroying the texts on your phone. In some jurisdictions, it may indeed be best to leave them as is.
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: Skkky on April 24, 2013, 06:38 am
Different mobile providers store different data, and for different periods of time. I think there was a chart out there showing the data retention policy of Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, etc. as it applies to text messages. Those figures may be obsolete now, though either way it's safe to assume any messages sent within the last week or two are definitely retrievable.

The key is plausible deniability. If they can't prove you sent those messages, they won't matter. I would consult an attorney and see what they say about destroying the texts on your phone. In some jurisdictions, it may indeed be best to leave them as is.

You're right, but most of the times when police or Government is doing a investigation they're collecting evidence with in the time period of the crime.  In my case it was years ago, and they still managed to get the data from my provider. My lawyer did say the Judge wont allow it to be used in court, but before I got a lawyer, they tried to scare me in to pleading guilty and taking short Jail time instead of going to trial.  Its basically the police saying "Look at all the evidence we have. Do you really want to take a chance in court and waste all that money on a lawyer?"   Its trick they play.
Title: Re: Question about mobiles and incriminating texts
Post by: sourman on April 24, 2013, 11:35 am
Yup, they'll try to scare you like that every time. Thankfully you had an attorney that knew what they were doing! I wonder what mobile provider you were using if they retained all your shit for over a year..