Discarded/erased cellphones have info on owners

[n2doc]

Phones Spill Secrets of Previous Users
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 30, 2006
Filed at 7:07 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Don't tell your cell phone any secrets. It might not keep them.

Secondhand phones purchased over the Internet surrendered credit card numbers, banking passwords, business secrets and even evidence of adultery. One married man's girlfriend sent a text message to his cell phone: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days. ''So,'' she wrote, ''I'll talk to u next week.'' ''You want a break from me? Then fine,'' he wrote back. Later, the married man bought a new phone. He sold his old one on eBay Inc. for $290 The guys who bought it now know his secret. The married man had followed the directions in his phone's manual to erase all his information, including lurid exchanges with his lover. But it wasn't enough.

Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think. A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet.

A company, Trust Digital of McLean, Va., bought 10 phones on eBay this summer to test phone-security tools it sells for businesses. The phones all were fairly sophisticated models capable of working with corporate e-mail systems. Curious software experts at Trust Digital resurrected information on nearly all the used phones, including the racy exchanges between guarded lovers. The other phones contained:

--One company's plans to win a multimillion-dollar federal transportation contract.

--E-mails about another firm's $50,000 payment for a software license.

--Bank accounts and passwords.

--Details of prescriptions and receipts for one worker's utility payments.

The recovered information was equal to 27,000 pages -- a stack of printouts 8 feet high.

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Betrayed-by-a-Cell-Phone.html

[mcscajun]

1. That's why I dismantled my old analog phone when I finally

gave it up.

I mean DIS-MANT-LED...down to its smallest components. Wasn't any "phone" left. It was fun! Okay, so I'm bizarre. You got a problem wit' dat? :crazy:

[n2doc]

2. We did the same with our last computer

It was 12 years old, and power supply was shot, so we ended up dissasembling it, including the hard drive. The Kids learned alot about how it was constructed...

[EFerrari]

3. A charity called here today to ask if I had an old cell phone to

donate.

:shrug:

[silverweb]

4. Would removing the SIM chip eliminate that problem?

It's easy to remove and is really a small component, easily destroyed. Is the personal information stored anywhere in the phone besides in the SIM?

:shrug:

[CatholicEdHead]

5. Not all phones have the SIM chip

T-Mobile and Cingular phones do, but many other companies have to be programmed at the dealer, which you cannot easily get at.

[silverweb]

7. Good to know, thanks!

Not that I use my cell phone much anyway, but that's another good reason to stick with my Cingular account.

:)

[ContraBass Black]

6. Grind your old devices to powder

And then you'll be safe.

[Catherine Vincent]

8. Is this a scheme from cell phone companies?

They want you to buy cell phones new every time and forget about the refurbished ones at a lower cost. More money for them.