Tuesday, May 10, 2011

iPhone Tracking Features No Surprise To Cell Phone Forensic Examiners


The recent news reports about the iPhone storing Wifi and cell phone tower information has really made international headlines. This has given birth to conspiracy theories and warnings about Big Brother and the New World Order. But this is not news at all to any cell phone forensic investigator that has been examining iPhones over the past few years. In fact this has been common knowledge.


The information is not actually tracking information per say. But it does record and store the WIFI and cell phone tower data that the phone or iPad has connected to during the devices various travels.


With the cooperation of the telcos this information can provide a forensic investigator with the general location of the device at any given time. Even without the cooperation of the telcos or ISPs with some further digging a determined investigator can probably dig up some serious clues to the devices whereabouts and recent travels.


In general a cell phone forensics can get a great deal of data from an iPhone. Much more than most devices. In fact for many years when potential clients inquire about an iPhone examination they are most interested in recovering deleted text messages. I always try to explain the vital data that can also be acquired but unfortunately this usually falls on deaf ears.


Now with the recent news reports almost every call is asking about tracking a husbands or wife's iPhone to catch them in the act of cheating. The news reports are leading people to believe that real time tracking and location is recoverable remotely from some Apple headquarters somewhere. Unfortunately this is not the case. However the recent IP address and WIFI log ins and cell phone tower data is.


What we can do with that information after it has been recovered via digital forensics is another story.


But again we cannot lose focus on the wealth of data that can be recovered from the iPhone. Texts, pics, video, voice mail, calendar, notes, browser history. This is all vital and valuable data that can be recovered with the standard iPhone forensic data recovery. So we can't become myopic in our investigation and only focus on the latest hot topic in the news. We have to use all of the tools in our tool kit to recover every last bit of data that is available from the device in question. Then use the subpoena process to obtain the telco ISP data or if that is not possible use old fashioned leg work to make sense out of the data and put names, dates and addresses to the numeric data recovered.


Copyright (c) 2011 Opperman Investigations Inc.








Ed Opperman is President of Opperman Investigations Inc. He is considered an expert in computer and cellular phone forensics.To learn more about how to recover deleted text messages and images please click here now:===> http://www.emailrevealer.com.


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Ed Opperman



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