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Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

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Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#271

Post by Broken_Hippo »

xxpor wrote: post #135
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we tend to treat people like they’re asking for it when their nudes get compromised? Because nudity is akin to sex and sexual ways, which are taboo in many societies. Upstanding citizens do not have nudes, in general. Especially women or nudes hinting at same-sex romance. It isn't right, but it is . Edit: I'm not saying I agree with this. But it doesn't take much to see folks putting others down for nudity. YM…

Is the second paragraph about society's expectations or reality?

I'm merely saying that I don't agree with the assessment, but it is how societal expectations play out in reality.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#272

Post by kelnos »

qwertox wrote: post #230
bhawks wrote: post #26

The RMA instructions should include using android.com/find to lock and wipe an inoperable device if it ever gets turned on again. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6160491?hl=en

> About a month ago my wife broke her pixel phone. It couldn't be turned on so we couldn't wipe it. That says it all. You can't expect them to try 24/7 until they get a confirmation. In addition, I doubt that they would have included the SIM card in the RMA, which means that the device would not be online through mobile, and there's no reason for the repair shop to connect the device to the WiFi as the first step, so…

That's fine. Just put in one request to wipe it, and if/when the device comes online, it'll get wiped. If it doesn't come online, then the attacker is sophisticated enough to predict that, and used something else (USB) to pull files off the phone.

But since the old phone was still on OP's "Find My Phone" account, and was successfully pinging the service, clearly it had been connected to WiFi, so a queued remote wipe should have worked.

Sure, this won't catch all cases, but if you are unable to factory-reset a broken phone before sending it in, it would be useful to instruct the customer to queue a wipe online instead. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#273

Post by colpabar »

aulin wrote: post #240
VortexDream wrote: post #4

I'm sick of people, so I'm not going to read the inevitable comments that are going to come. Look, face it, some people like taking nude photos of themselves and they like sharing them with their partners. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's not their fault if something like this happens. People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information…

Amazing how most of the replies of your comment and the other comments too are still victim blaming, not for taking or sharing the nudes but for being so naive to send a phone unwiped. There's no excuse for violating and exposing someone's private life like this, being tech unsavvy (or you know, not being able to wipe a dead phone) is absolutely not an excuse to shift the blame to the victim. We get it you're good, y…

What's really amazing is how the reddit post says very clearly that they were unable to wipe it bc it was broken. The post was deleted but someone posted the text in a comment here.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#274

Post by slownews45 »

jfrunyon wrote: post #171

[dubious - discuss] There's a few things that make this pretty unlikely. Google doesn't triage or repair the phones themselves, they contract it out just like everyone else. And the people they contract it out to almost certainly have procedures in place which are meant to ensure that neither the devices themselves nor the data on them get out. I'm not saying it's false, but I would definitely take it with a grain of…

False.

T-Mobile for example had a major device theft issue with their mailed in device place for the upgrade program they used to run. No surprise, the process was to unlock phone, turn of find my iphone and send in the phone WITHOUT TRACKING to this random low bidder.

This was early in program, you couldn't turn device in at store (I tried). So I filmed myself mailing the device, because without a tracking number on the pre-printed label and an unlocked phone - 100% for sure these were getting jacked along the way.

If you use a brain dead process like this, you have to be bulletproof every step (mail pickup, sort, deliver, warehouse workers handing $1K+ devices etc).

Of course, the phone was reported as never having been received. Tired of the runaround and with the video I had I simply said, fair enough, I will persue this legally and part of that is going to be asking how many complaints you've received like mine (phone reported not turned in). Bamm, 2 days later I had my money.

Thankfully they then let you turn in at a store and I think started sticking at least tracking numbers on things so they'd have SOME sense of what was supposed to be coming in.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#275

Post by orthecreedence »

encryptluks2 wrote: post #53
vmception wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These guys sent it in for RMA because it couldn't be turned on Also the photos were in the google account so none of this advice would have mattered anyway aside from the advice #4 about not doing it, which is moot. They and many people probably auto backup all photos on the device to the google account. Not sure if there is a way to distinguish which photos are too sensitive for online backup with that service.

It would have mattered because you can deauthorize a device from your Google account on a computer, like a phone and if they are saved locally as well you can remove SD card before sending it back. The only thing I'm unsure of is if thumbnails are saved in a standard image format but those should get removed as well during the notification that the device has stopped syncing, but if mobile data is turned off it may c…

Where's the SD card on a Pixel?

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#276

Post by skoskie »

wpietri wrote: post #185
VortexDream wrote: post #4

I'm sick of people, so I'm not going to read the inevitable comments that are going to come. Look, face it, some people like taking nude photos of themselves and they like sharing them with their partners. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's not their fault if something like this happens. People should be able to feel secure in the tech that they use, in the companies that they entrust their information…

Thanks for posting this. I get why people do the victim-blaming thing; it lets them feel smart and superior, two feelings I have been known to enjoy. But it's a fundamentally bad way to approach analyzing safety issues. For those who really want to dig in on the topic, I strongly recommend Dekker's "A Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q8XCSFI/ref=dbs_a_def_r... It's nom…

Apple Books:

https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-field-guide-to-understan...

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#277

Post by syntheticnature »

notreallyserio wrote: post #131
IncRnd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the fault lies with the person who posted the images online. That person also violated state and federal laws. There is no doubt about that. However, most people wouldn't knowingly leave nude images of their spouse on the car's back seat when getting the car serviced. In many ways this is similar. Edit: For people who think I'm blaming the victim, I am not. I thought that was clear, since I blamed the thief…

I don't know how broken the phone was, but it's possible for a phone to be so damaged that you can't wipe it's contents prior to sending it in for service. I love car analogies (who doesn't), I think this is more like your car being on fire and asking a firefighter to put it out, while hoping they won't find and share any documents they find in the back seat.

Indeed, when my Pixel 1 abruptly failed it would not turn on at all. Not merely briefly, not a boot loop, it was truly a brick and there was no way to alter what was on it. I thought it was unfortunate that it happened a mere few months past the end of warranty, but at least that way I didn't send it back to Google. Instead, a local school got it for the students to disassemble in a technology course.

Now, I don't store nudes on my phone. That said, it was recently suggested to me, here on HN, to use a scanner app in lieu of a flatbed scanner for all my scanning needs (primarily documents around tax time). Not so sure that's a good idea versus this.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#278

Post by nkrisc »

Bud wrote: post #54
rootusrootus wrote: post #41

We need to educate people on how to secure the data on their phones so that even the manufacturer cannot reach it. And if that is not possible for a particular device, that should be clearly understood so people can make an informed choice about what smartphone they use. Can't just tell people 'do not put nudes on your phone' because while it's good advice, it misses the point. And, of course, whoever does something…

No. We don't need to "educate" people on how to magically dodge evil behavior. We need to punish the evil behavior. Like you said in your last sentence.

Let’s educate people on how to protect themselves from evil while we’re still trying to vanquish it.

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#279

Post by grubbs »

acheron wrote: post #172
oh_sigh wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming any of it is true, and he isn't just LARPing based on what he read about Apple a few months ago. I'd put the odds at 50/50.

That's pretty high. The default assumption about any personal story on reddit is that it's all lies.

All stories on the Internet are 100% real: https://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/page1.html

Re: Pixel sent to Google for replacement. They used it to post wife's nudes online

#280

Post by ghoward »

Johnny555 wrote: post #217
ghoward wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not always an option -- my last android phone died with a reboot loop. You're not wrong, but for future reference, there is a way to stop such a reboot loop; I did it just yesterday with my wife's phone. (Of course, it was a Pixel, so it might not be on every phone.) You do it by holding power and down volume until it says "Command not found", then you hold power and volume up until you get a menu. One of th…

I spent days going through every blog post I could find for tips on how to fix it, including booting to recovery mode -- it would reboot as I scrolled through the recovery menu and even when I got as far as trying to do the factory reset, it would reboot before it even started the reset. I let it reboot itself until it ran out of battery and waited a day after that to let it completely drain. Even tried putting it in…

Apologies then. I agree you were out of options.
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