T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in::T-Mobile has been sued again for failing to protect consumer data after an employee at one of its Washington stores stole nude images off of a customer’s phone.
The employee was and is a scum bag human, but what dumbass trades a phone with nudes on it‽ I wouldn’t even get a phone serviced with nudes.
Most people aren’t all that clear on the distinction of things being “on” a phone. When they switch to their next phone and their photos immediately sync onto it from whatever cloud stuff they use, they may have the illusion that the new phone is where their photos “are” now and not consider the continuing existence of the data on the old one.
Basic technical literacy should be everyone’s responsibility and would be in a perfect world, but any IT person will tell you that it can never be assumed of anyone. However on the bright side, stories like this blowing up in the mainstream news will knock a little awareness into more end-user skulls every now and then. Send it to all the non-techies you know and care about!
Sad but true.
As one of those IT people (who was taught on punched cards), I’d had some hope that by the 21st century only GenX and Boomers would have this issue.
That young adults don’t know this stuff is very frustrating.
Most people cant explain how a toaster works - it may as well be magic to them.
There is actually a theory floating around, that people growing up in the 80ies-2000 were the most tech literate, because they had to tinker to get thinks to work. Want to play a game on DOS 6.2 and it did not work? Edit some system files for more memory. Today the technisch hidden behind false physics and got really well.
My son is nine. I got him a Kano (the old one with a raspberry pie as base) and he has to learn why we need to connect a display to the processing unit and connect peripherals to do things. His friends own a tablet, a smartphone and a gaming console. You cannot see behind the tech in those, if you don’t want to destroy them and explore hobbit works (on a basic level).
Kano. Never heard if it…of too the webs I go!
Thanks!
It is a great project, but unfortunately I guess it is not running very well. They did the setup with raspberry pies first with additional modules like a screen, an LED matrix and other things you could program. The software experience is pretty awesome. The whole manual is telling your kid a story and describing everything in just the right language for a kid. You plug it and the story goes on at terminal level when your kid is promted to write their name. After this it boots into a really well made desktop with a adventure game to get to know the computer, a bunch of programming tools and a browser.
technisch
Schland detektiert
It’s genuinely crazy. I’ve had to remove viruses from my friends (16 or 17 at the time) and just didn’t understand. Why are you allowing things to make admin changes? Or just having to explain the difference to people what a “zip drive” is and a USB drive. As things get more “convenient” tech literacy definitely goes down.
On the plus side it’s going to keep you employed, a bit like COBOL programmers today.
People forget, my ex sold her laptop on eBay, but forgot to wipe it and it had a bunch of nudes she had sent me over the years on it. After she realized what she did she told him to wipe the computer because she forgot to 🤦♂️ this was like a decade ago before BitLocker/encryption was standard on most laptops. The dude definitely saw her naked.
I had a friend leave her laptop with me for some maintenance. I think it was probably a reformat or something? I return her laptop, and she asks “have you seen my photos in folder X on the desktop?”. I responded “no, why would I”. She went “oh, such a shame” and made a “cartoonish” pouty face. From the conversation that followed, they were “raunchy”.
Like, bruh, I won’t be looking into your data. Want me to see something, send it to me straight, don’t expect me to snoop around lol
Yeah. We’re stupid. Title the folder “/c/Maalus look here” and we might
Still wouldn’t tbh if it wasn’t relevant, i.e. if she asked to save specific data from that folder
I’ve been asked to help a couple save/recover their porn folder. Harder not to see at that point.
I worked for sprint in a retail store for 3 years, and the number of people that handed me their phones with their own nudes as the backgrounds was shocking.
That’s suspicious.
I have a theory…
Are you sure they weren’t hitting on you, placing nudes on the background and handing you their phone so they knew you had access to their phone number (during the transfer) so they were willing to pay the price of switching phone to get a callback?I seriously can’t think of another reason than that to put nudes as a freaking background…
They could just be an exhibitionist. Self absorbed is also a possibility. Or both!
I was pretty oblivious at the time so it’s possible. But I don’t think so.
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I’ve seen it as a bdsm humiliation task a few times? Usually temporary though.
One of our customers sent their server back to us for repair, and we were greeted with a desktop background of the grottiest fanny any of us have ever seen.
So what do you do if you literally cant wipe the phone I.e broken screen? Just never have anything there to begin with?
Phones these days are encrypted. If you ever set up a pin/password to unlock your phone, that means it’s encrypted. Just make sure your phone is powered off or restarted (or battery drained, if the off button isn’t working), before you drop it off at the repair shop.
No one can access your files in this state - not even the manufacturer (unless there’s backdoor, but that’s a different topic - but even then, there are many “secure folder” type apps you could use to encrypt sensitive data).
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Plug it into a computer and delete the files that way?
Youve never actually had that happen if you think its that easy.
Guys no…
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You cant wipe a phone remotely with your google sign on unless “find my device” is enabled, which it never was.
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My phone does not just give access automatically to any device plugged into it. You are REQUIRED to give permission from the phone. Which cant be done because the screen is fucked.
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Your phone SHOULDNT be accessible in this scenario because allowing any device to just plug in and download everything with no authentication is a security risk.
It depends on how the phone is setup and whether or not you have plugged in to a pc before. It sounds like it’s you that has that no idea.
Most android phones (can’t speak to Apple) are pretty much plug and play via USB. Plug it in and browse the files on it, it’s slow as hell and may be retrievable by software designed to undelete files but it’s doable, you may have to approve the connection on the phone but if you have plugged it in prior then you probable don’t have to.
Dude the goddamned phone requires that you confirm permission to access or manipulate anything on that phone. You cant just plug a usb cable in and fuck with everything. What the hell sort of phones do you guys buy that it just does that with no security measures?
Sounds like you don’t understand tech at all. Some of us have been using smart phones since palm and blackberry. Earlier versions of Android didn’t need the confirmation at all, assuming that it was defaulted to file access.
I’ve been android since the beginning and my last few phones (all pixels) I don’t remember having to approve the usb connection after the first time.
Can you plug a random phone into a pc and access files? Probably not.
Can you plug your own phone into a pc it’s been connected to prior and access files even with a broken screen? More likely yes, than no.
You and the other minions downvoting me should try reading my entire comments as many times ad needed for you to grasp the very basic concepts at play.
And to repeat. You have no idea how the file system on android works. You most definitely can delete/backup/etc the photos, screenshots, etc on the phone via USB. You can not easily access app data as thats encrypted and stored elsewhere.
You kids need to get off the internet before you hurt yourself.
This is starting to feel more and more like reddit, that’s not a good thing.
This is starting to feel more and more like reddit, that’s not a good thing.
Huh, that’s odd. The same user having the same shitty experience across multiple platforms with no other discernable commonality. What a puzzle, we’ll never figure it out.
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Actually yes, but that’s just old man me yelling at the clouds. Nudes are just so pointless, especially of oneself.
Flashback to the time Gary Glitter got arrested for handing in a PC for repair that was stuffed to the gills with child porn.
Simple, Could’ve broken it beyond use after taking the noods. Possibly due to holding it an awkward position to get them sick porn angles.
Everyone knows that 196° is the best, and subsequently the most awkward and prone to dropping angle for porn.
See, I don’t care if people see my nudes as such. What would bother me more is the act of accessing my phone in ways they didn’t need to, rather than what they found, so I don’t see much point in removing nudes first.
“But 3rd party repair people will install TikTok on your phone if you trust them”
Are there people out there who are not factory resetting their phones before they trade them in?
…what?
There are people out there that don’t know where the settings on their phone are
There are people out there, a LOT, that don’t know how to power off a phone.
Same people using “Google” as their browser… 🙆
Samsung’s official service center refused to not wipe the phone after a screen replacement, because “procedures”. Paying extra wasn’t even an option! So I said “fuck them” and took my Note 9 to an independent repairman who did it at half the official price because he could separate broken glass from a working screen and replace just the former. I simply turned the phone off and trusted Samsung Secure Startup encryption before handing it over to the guy. That was the moment I thanked myself for turning on full-disk encryption.
Two really dumb people and Tmobile is going to pay. Also, never trade in your phone. I keep the previous generation as a backup in case I lose or break it, and I take a hammer to the older ones on rotation.
By the time I’m ready to part with a phone, they offer peanuts for the trade in. I might as well keep it and do something else with it
Actually the last few times, Verizon has called me to upgrade for little or no money, sometimes paying more for my old phone than I did when it was new. I asked once why they do it, and it is some sort of loyalty program.
Assuming you are on a plan where there is just a monthly hardware surcharge, you likely pay 20% of the price of the phone up front, and about 200% of the price of the phone by the time they recommend you change hardware. Even a crappy phone is almost a thousand dollars now, and they can still be worth hundreds used after a few years, there are many places older used phones can be sent and sold.
Most of those types of plans have about a 50-75 dollar a month hardware charge built into the plan. A “bring your own device” plan is like 20-30 dollars a month. 50 dollars a month for 2 years is 1200 dollars. 75 dollars a month for 3 years is 2700 dollars. Pretty easy to fit the price of a phone in there somewhere.
Also their favorite customer, is the one that has a hardware fee in their plan, but then buys a new phone themselves from a third party. For people that plan to buy their own phone, make sure you are on a “bring your own device” plan. Save yourself hundreds of dollars a year. I know that part doesn’t pertain to the person I am replying to, but I have talked to alot of people that brought their own device and were still on a 70-115$ monthly phone plan.
The phone company won’t tell you about the other options, you have to ask, and some of the bigger companies don’t even offer a plan without a built-in hardware surcharge. Then you better hope you have another option in your area. Most of the littler phone companies with dumb names aren’t big enough to even offer hardware, so if you were ever curious why their plans can be 1/3rd the price, they are byod plans.
Is this your recent experience with American wireless carriers? I have experience with phone companies and this is not how the big ones work. They did work like this years ago but it’s been a while since they have. The big ones right now have a plan per line and additional charges based on add-ons and device payments. So it’ll be something like $80 phone plan + $20 device payment (for 3 years) + $8 insurance. Once the payment plan is over the plan and addon’s typically remain the same price. If you bring your own phone as a NEW customer the big carriers give you a discount up front or distributed through a monthly credit, but the plan is the same plan. Once the credit runs out it’s the same price as everyone else’s plan.
Example bills:
New customer with no promotional offers: $25 iPhone 15 (I don’t know the actual price for this) $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $113 total
New customer with trade in promotion: $25 iPhone 15 -$25 iPhone 15 $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $88 total (I’m not a Nazi I’m just pretty sure this is the price of the cheapest insurance option)
Existing customer who buys a phone from Craigslist: $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $88 total
New customer that brings their own Craigslist device: $-5 credit for bringing own phone (probably applied for 24-36 months) $80 unlimited plan $8 insurance $83 total
Ah fair, last time I used a big carrier was when I found out that they were no longer offering any byod or pay as you go options, so I had to go with one of the little guys if I wanted those options. Which I very much do, as I always buy exactly the phone I want, rather than choosing from a small selection locally.
I haven’t really looked back since, but only hear about it from friends and family that it was still the case. But I would certainly understand if it turns out they don’t do their research and are just placating me.
Edit: and also technically Canada, but probably not much difference. Though as far as I can tell none of the big companies have a 30 dollar plan around here. So not sure how much of it goes to hardware if the price gap is still just as big as it was when I switched. Not sure what else the price difference would be about.
Sometimes they offer crazy promotions. Verizon had a any pixel for a pixel 7 deal. My boss traded in a pixel 1 for like $500 off a 7.
My boss traded in a pixel 1
He probably didn’t realize having Pixel 1 means unlimited lifetime Google Photos backup in original quality… I bought a 50-60$ used one just for that purpose.
Wut. I still have a pixel 1. Hold up.
Ok, for others, the pixel 1 needs to upload the photos so you sync a camera folder with your new phone to p1. Deets: https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/06/02/how-to-google-photos-pixel-free/
you can run octoprint on old phones, that’s pretty fun.
I’ll trade when the money is right. iPhone 12 Pro-13 ProMax cost me $60. Yes it was a year old, but for a fresh battery and better tele lens it was worth it. This year I upgraded to a 15 Pro. I get nothing but a new battery and a C charging port (faster processor means little to me), but it cost me only $95 net - less than a battery replacement. For all the limitation of the Apple ecosystem and over-priced hardware, it gets exceptionally favorable trade-in pricing.
Iirc, iPhones reset / overwrite the encryption key so it would take substantial effort for someone to see how many steps I take in a day or to find my vacation photos. It’s probably easier to steal info from my iCloud backup at Apple.
Your trade-in doesn’t count because you paid $60 to get essentially the same exact phone.
Mine was a trade up from std pro to max, plus a longer tele (and maybe 1/3 of a battery). DD went from the 12 to the 13 for $28 on the same trade promo.
Even ignoring the battery value, from a residual value basis a years’ newer phone is worth about $50-75 even on the 3rd or 4th year out, so the bare resale value for both was a wash or better. If I’m getting upgraded for almost nothing out-of-pocket, long term, I’m going to take it.
I hope you remove the batteries first before going at it with the hammer, or else you’re going to be breathing in some really nasty fumes.
Plus damaging the battery could cause it to ignite anywhere between an hour to several days after it takes damage.
And unless you actually destroy the storage, you are in the exact same situation. Also, I assume someone taking a hammer to a device is not recycling it properly.
Phones have a factory reset for a reason
Way more fun to see tho
Yikes that’s scary.
Man, that sounds exciting!
Particularly if you’re in someone else’s house, of course.
There’s a whole place outside you can do it also
I rarely upgrade phones, and the last one I smashed had removable batteries. Yeah, I’d figure next upgrade. I’d have to figure something out for my Note 8.
I’ve got a hard nut to crack as well, my Note 9 is peak Samsung and I can’t find a replacement that has stylus, 3.5 mm jack, microSD and capacitive fingerprint scanner (in-display ones suck, at least on A50 from my workplace).
Is the last one an absolute requirement? If not, although I imagine you’re already aware of it, have you considered the Moto G Stylus? It manages the first three details nicely, but I don’t think any of the models have a capacitive fingerprint scanner (may be mistaken, wasn’t a feature I was interested in when looking into these).
Is the last one an absolute requirement?
No, but it must match capacitive reader’s performance.
I’ve just checked the 2023 version of Moto G Stylus and… IPS? Seriously, Motorola? Sorry, devil wears Prada and flagships wear AMOLED.
Oh, yeah. I forgot that G Stylus isn’t supposed to be a flagship. Duh.
Thank you for suggesting something anyway. Guess I’ll stick to the Note 9 and keep fixing it until the world dies.
but breaking bad does it
I keep the previous generation as a backup
This is what I thought I could do with my old devices, an S4 and an S5, but shortly after moving my data to each upgraded device the internal EMMC failed on each.
The s4 powers on into some OEM flashing mode (nothing on the screen, just appears as a Qualcomm something when plugged into usb), and the S5 shows this horror inducing message
Spoiler
Well, they discontinue bands, so yeah, my 2g phone got the axe.
Had an iPhone 8 serviced at ubreakifix and I got it back and it opened to the top-level of the Photos app. It was also the time when putting the phone to sleep in Recently Deleted or Hidden sent the app back to the top-level when woken back up.
Lesson learned, inferior parts too due to availability and cost limitations sadly. I didn’t mind the added thickness but I did mind that it could not keep up with my typing speed. Apple services phones without requiring the passcode and I’m disappointed I didn’t dig in my heels more.
i know iphones are user friendly but dude thats a DINOSAUR 🦕
You’re talking to someone who keeps a couple Palm PDAs around!
But more seriously, it worked fine, ran well enough and I got rid of it maybe 14 months ago? I had it for around 4 years at that point and it’s still getting some iOS 16 patches if I had kept it.
It’s not about the user friendliness, it’s about available parts, service, and software support! Just happens to age gracefully for a phone
“Stole” nude images? From a trade-in phone? More like “were handed access to”. I mean, the employee’s an ass, but the customer is in the wrong as well
As someone that had to delete some photos from his Samsung:
Nah, these phones are shitshows that save shit everywhere. I had to delete them three times.
That’s just disregarding the fact that you’re straight up victim blaming. Might as well ask what they were wearing, there is no excuse, just violation.
Might as well ask what they were wearing
They were nude photos, just sayin’
I’m not blaming the victim, the employee did act like an ass. All I’m saying is the victim did not take safety precautions people should take regardless of whether they are trading in their phone or not. If that is victim blaming then I’m victim blaming everyone who has no common sense regarding privacy and mindfull use of electronics.
“I’m not victim blaming”
Proceeds to keep victim blaming
Regardless of the fact that people just forget things sometimes, expecting people that just want a phone to know how to do a factory reset simply isn’t reasonable.
You and I wouldn’t trade it in without wiping it, probably, but we’re mega nerds on the Fediverse. These things seem obvious to us but they simply aren’t that important, or common knowledge, to normal people.
There is, and there only ever is, one person at fault when trust is violated. That there are safeguards you can take is a different discussion.
It’s not common knowledge to delete data on a device you’re getting rid off? What the fuck are you on about?
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Again, the employee should be taken to court and punished. But this case, if anything, proves that one should never assume good faith in humans and always take precautions. That’s why there are privacy and security measures and good practices available in every aspect of our life.
Did the company policy state that they would access your data and save it?
No?
Then you’re normalizing criminal behavior because it’s possible. Was the phone’s data wearing a crop top? Maybe that’s why it was violated.
You’d be right if the company didn’t have policies specifically forbidding this behavior.
