T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in
T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in
www.cnbc.com
T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in
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!
After being in IT for a decade it never ceases to amaze me how incompetent people are when it comes to tech.
At my first gig in NYC I worked at a smaller financial firm (about 100 people) and every mid-level and above employee was given a work phone. One time I got a ticket that said "my smartphone is being really slow, can someone please take a look?". I went up there and it was a guy in his 40s (I was like 30), suit and tie, I think he was a Junior VP or something like that. He gave me his Galaxy S5 and I looked at the RAM usage and it was all taken up by Chrome. I opened up Chrome and he had 99+ tabs open, I told him that was the reason and he said "Oh.. I thought those automatically closed when I exited (he meant switched apps, not killing the process)...", I told him they didn't and started swiping them away, after the first few it was about 90 tabs of (teen) porn 🤣. I had to stand there in front of him, straight faced for a good few minutes cleaning up his porn. Afterwards I said "it should be better now, just remember to close your tabs when you're finished with them." and left. Once I got in the elevator I nearly pissed myself laughing so hard.
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.
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
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.
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).
If it's just a broken screen, Google your way in learning how to repair it yourself.
Or, find a shop that will repair it in front of you the whole time. Pay extra if need be
Or, if the material is too sensitive and the above options aren't viable:
The good thing with a problem like this is that your options are limited. So there's not a whole hell of a lot of decision tree making you need to do.
Remote wipes are possible. Log into your Apple/Google account, figure out how to find your device, then perform a remote wipe.
Plug it into a computer and delete the files that way?
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.