I’m curious what sort of notice was given to this person that the phone was evidence. For example was she arrested, and had her phone on her, and then the police never returned it, or was there a search warrant/subpoena and she was given a receipt for items held under that order?
Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
101–110 of 160 posts
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#102I guess it didn't have a passcode? Just let the police try whatever they have, as long as you have the iOS 12 update that disables accessories and thwarts "GrayKey" there's no need to remotely wipe it.
It only locks out accessories if the device has been locked for over an hour, so make sure to lock your device at least an hour before getting arrested, or reboot it. Also make sure the option is enabled under passcode settings; I think it's disabled by default.
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Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#103Howdy, digital forensics software developer here. A few points: 1) yes, the police probably should have put the phone in a Faraday bag, but those aren’t perfect and municipal law enforcement generally doesn’t have the same equipment that state and federal police do. It doesn’t excuse the suspect allegedly taking action to destroy evidence; 2) this is probably about the boyfriend, who they suspect committed a shooting…
if police are collecting phones as evidence on the regular, having these bags should be standard
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#104I'm kinda curious how the law would treat a dead man's switch that automatically wipes the phone if you haven't unlocked it for N hours (say, 24 or 48). (Assuming it was set up well before any event that prompted the phone's seizure, of course.) Could they somehow charge you for not warning the police about the auto-wipe when they took your phone? Does the answer change if you were officially under arrest and had a r…
I think it is essentially identical to deletion policies - except you probably don't have any legal requirements for minimum retention policies not a lawyer admittedly.
Essentially they need to subpeona you to formally tell you to preserve all potential evidence and stop the deletions or take backups such that the day to day deletions are irrelevant. The later being a fine but important distinction that shredding extra copies of your own is okay. You wouldn't get arrested for copying a customer's account information to do profit margin math and then shred the copy when done to ensure their privacy.
If you are unbound by other regulations there is nothing illegal about reimagining your device every 24 hours.
If they were trying to keep a low investigation profile and never told you that you were to preserve the data the destruction of evidence is on their incompetence.
If you implemented it post subpoena you are at fault of course.
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then again, if a browser cookie is the only thing providing access to "evidence" on a particular machine, then it wasn't actually on that machine to begin with. That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. I recall there are some cases that centered on whether someone was aware of the existence of a browser cache and kne…
> That's far from a mere technical detail, as it also means the person lacked any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence. That would still be irrelevant if their intention for getting themselves to "lack any meaningful physical control of, or proximity to, the evidence" is deemed by a judge to be malicious.
You have badly misunderstood the point the GP was making. The person in question was always in a state of “lack[ing] any physical control of or, proximity to, the evidence”. They had no control of this in any way.
This, by the way is why the technical issues are important, relying solely on the lay person interpretation is dubious. A court that issued ruling on issues it doesn’t understand is inherently unjust.
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, then, does telling the Apple Store that you lost your phone, when it was in fact impounded by police, constitute evidence destruction? I can see how it might.
I bet saying the magic words "my phone is impounded by the police, please wipe my phone" would be. But, assuming the suspect is telling the truth and assuming an apple employee disassociated the suspect's phone from their icloud account, let's also assume the suspect lied to the apple employee. "I lost my phone and need a new one." "Your phone is lost? Let me disassociate your old and and help you set your new one up…
>Is it acceptable to accidentally destroy evidence?
Theoretically no. In practice it's murkier.
If you're a cop? Definitely not acceptable on paper but you'll get a slap on the wrist at best.
If you're OJ Simpson and can afford a good lawyer? You will probably be found not-guilty.
Peasants like you or I? They'll throw the book and something will stick.
Edit: Am I being down-voted for being blunt or because reality makes people uncomfortable?
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#107Howdy, digital forensics software developer here. A few points: 1) yes, the police probably should have put the phone in a Faraday bag, but those aren’t perfect and municipal law enforcement generally doesn’t have the same equipment that state and federal police do. It doesn’t excuse the suspect allegedly taking action to destroy evidence; 2) this is probably about the boyfriend, who they suspect committed a shooting…
How do you get into digital forensics dev? Seems like an interesting field.
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#108But who wiped the data anyway? Apple - sure she asked them to, but apple did it.
But then if it was Apple who deleted, does it raise the question that they(Apple) didn't check if the data being deleted was evidence or not?
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#109Howdy, digital forensics software developer here. A few points: 1) yes, the police probably should have put the phone in a Faraday bag, but those aren’t perfect and municipal law enforcement generally doesn’t have the same equipment that state and federal police do. It doesn’t excuse the suspect allegedly taking action to destroy evidence; 2) this is probably about the boyfriend, who they suspect committed a shooting…
Seems like a tampering charge is better to take than a murder charge, though.
Re: Destruction of evidence charges filed for remotely wiping iPhone
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does the answer change if you were officially under arrest and had a right to remain silent? Being formally under arrest doesn't affect whether you have the right to remain silent. It affects whether the police are required to tell you that you do.
Fascinating how this varies between nations and cultures. In Norwegian case law, refusing to explain yourself can be considered indirect evidence of guilt. I remember a report from a recent Norwegian criminal trial, where the judge himself warned the accused that refusing to give an explanation could reflect badly on the question of whether she was guilty or not.
Refusing to provide an alibi is going to cause you problems in the US as well, but generally in the US defendants talk through their lawyers, not directly.