Ride the Lightning

Craig Ball: Dem Phones, Dem Phones, Dem iPhones

October 1, 2014

Digital forensics expert and friend Craig Ball has penned (such a delightfully old-fashioned word) a terrific post on the subject of smartphones, which seem to rule the lives of so many people. As Craig points out, 41% of people no longer have a landline and 80% of folks are on their smartphones within the first 15 minutes of waking up.

And more from Craig . . . "Seventy-one percent of the U.S. population use smartphones. That’s up 40 percentage points in three years. Fifty-seven percent of the U.S. population now use tablets, up 45 percentage points in the same three years."

As Craig points out, many people are failing to recognize how much data (and potential evidence) resides on smartphones – and sometimes nowhere else. Because we do digital forensics, we are aware of all that data, particularly on the evidence-rich iPhone, which stores so much data (thank you Apple). We have probably seen a 500% increase in the number of smartphones which show up in our forensics lab.

Craig is right – phone forensics is not the same – read his post to get just a taste of "why."

And he gives his readers homework, which makes him a braver soul than me. I particularly liked question #2. I can't count the number of times we've had to explain how long it might take to image someone's iPhone only to have them go into a meltdown. The withdrawal symptoms are immediate – and we are likely to get hourly calls on the order of "Are you done yet? Are you done yet?"

Nice to have Craig's wit and entertaining education back online!

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