T-Mobile sued after employee stole nude images from customer phone during trade-in

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.
- That's awesome. Reminds me of having to tell an SVP that yes, per his demand, I did take his request to keep sharing music online illegally at work. He didnt seem to accept that the legal letters the form received meant he needed to change anything.
  
  What could have been an 'oh shit, my bad' and noone has to know - turned into the entire leadership weighed in to direct me to delete the files and tools and be very clear he was putting his employment at risk.
  
  The poor man's ego. He seemed to think the IT guy didn't have the ability to speak to him like that. Even insisted I tell him in front of two of his staff as a power play
- Omg that’s golden
  
  Yeah, that was about a decade ago and it's still fresh in my memory, probably one of the most difficult times to maintain my composure. I could tell he wanted to die inside the moment I told him the tabs didn't disappear.
- I've seen too many guys, even those in "respectable" positions like executives or club captains, just leave their porn tabs open before asking me for some help with their phones.
  
  When I asked them to open up their browser they would straight up open it up to a previously opened porn tab and start to panic. And somehow, the porn site that opened is always XNXX, lol. Pornhubs' banned here and I guess XNXX just become popular instead.
  
  It's quite ridiculous how brazen they are about it
- I'm not gonna lie I do this too. Not leaving porn tabs open, but not closing apps/tabs. Android should automatically clean these up afaik.
  
  Android should automatically clean these up afaik
  
  NOOOOOOOOOO! DO NOT. EVEN. SUGGEST. THAT.
  I've got hundreds of tabs opened, if Android cleaned them automatically it'd be like burning my own Library of Alexandria.
  
  Use bookmarks my dude
  
  Like if I didn't have any mess in my bookmarks as well...
  
  Apart from that, a tab open means a task to do. I can bookmark an interesting tab only if I've "been there" already, e.g. if I've already read an article cover to cover.
- Someone needs to share this to !bestoflemmy@lemmy.world
- after the first few it was about 90 tabs of (teen) porn
  
  I better hope you saved the links. Just asking for a friend.
  
  Bro it's 2023. Do you and your friend really not know how to find porn on the internet?
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.
  
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- 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.
  
  I worked in my university's computer lab and one time I had a girl complain that the computer wasn't allowing her to do something (like download or save a file, this was over a decade ago) and she was frustrated. I asked her to show me what the issue was. She did what she was trying to do, a pop-up appeared and without reading it she clicked "no" and then proceeded to bitch about it not working. I did it again and the pop-up was asking for permission but she kept denying it, and then complaining that it didn't work 🤦‍♂️
  
  Though I do see that these two have the opposite problems. One clicks yes without understanding, the other clicks no without understanding.
  
  Though I will say I wish the admin access requests had more information about what the app wants to do with that admin access. And that programs that request admin access for things they don't really need it for were generally treated with disdain.
  
  It's not that she didn't understand what it was asking, she straight up didn't even read it, as soon as it came up she clicked "no" in a split second. I watched her do it like three times.
  
  Yeah, that was a part of my assumption, that her misunderstanding was about whether she should read it rather than about what the words themselves said. Those who do at least read have a better chance at understanding, though messages aren't always easy to understand.
  
  In a way, the two have the same issue: they think that these message dialogs are things that get in the way of doing what they want to do. They just act on that in opposite ways so the yes guy allows everything to happen (including bad stuff he doesn't actually want) and your friend disallows anything from happening, including what she does want.
  
  They are both trying to run before they have learned to walk properly.
- We started with Boomers etc who never used tech so had no idea what to do. Then a couple generations of people having to learn tech to use it. Now we are at the point where it’s so easy to use that people can use without ever having to learn about it.
- My toaster now gets regular updates and needs constant internet access
  
  My oven asked me to allow cookies 🍪🍪🍪
- On the plus side it's going to keep you employed, a bit like COBOL programmers today.
- Back when I was in college (mid to late 2000s) I worked in the campus computer lab. People frequently asked "how do I print stuff?" because they had to pay for it ($25 was included, it was to stop people from printing out a few hundred page books for free), they just had to swipe their ID at a touchscreen terminal, select the print jobs and hit "print".
  
  This girl came over asking this question and I repeated the above, then she said "No... how do I print from the computer?". I was dumbfounded because this was a very large statue university that didn't accept just anyone. It was Microsoft Word (when they switched from the menu bar to that stupid start menu style button in the upper left hand corner) and she had zero clue how to use it. I was thinking "damn girl, how did you make it through high school and get accepted here?!". She was apparently your typical hot blonde airhead.
  
  Please don't be sexist
  
  Oh shut up. Lemmy is quickly turning into Reddit where people get butthurt and cry foul over the dumbest things.

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.

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- 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.
- I've seen it as a bdsm humiliation task a few times? Usually temporary though.
- Phone stores attract the most RETARDED (HARD R) people
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?

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:

accept the loss and destroy the phone. Or,

accept that whatever is in there will be viewed

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.
- Stop being logical! We need to find holes!
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).
- Practically every shop demands you give them the passcode to unlock the phone or they refuse to work on it. They need it to "test the device to make sure it works". Giving a false passcode causes other issues with them in their fine print.
  
  (Found this out the hard way, had to shop around to find the one store that wouldn't demand the passcode, and even then they declared their warranty would be invalidated since they couldn't have my passcode).
Remote wipes are possible. Log into your Apple/Google account, figure out how to find your device, then perform a remote wipe.
- Assuming the device is powered on and can connect to a network to recieve the instruction.
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...
  
  You cant wipe a phone remotely with your google sign on unless "find my device" is enabled, which it never was.
  
  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.
  
  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 is still possible to unlock an android phone with a fucked screen.
  
  I had to do this once and managed to unlock the phone with a USB mouse. It took me a while to get the right pattern, but it is possible.
  
  I mean sure it’s not easy to remote wipe if you never set up the feature that lets you remote wipe.
  
  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.
  
  The first ever Android I had (Galaxy S4) was sadly dropped by a friend, and the oled screen was toast within a few days... thankfully I had previously authorized ADB on my main computer, had it paired to a Sony Ericsson LiveView (with OpenLiveView), and my bluetooth headset was set up to automatically launch the music player when connected. Could also make calls using the voice assistant (forgot what it was called back then, S-Voice or something?) needless to say a screen replacement wasn't urgent at all.
  
  Can't say I'd be able to do the same nowadays on modern Android with all the forced app killing and stuff, as well as Google Assistant being a massive downgrade (believe most useful actions on a smashed device would require unlocking, and on-screen confirmation)
  
  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.
  
  Dude you dont even know whether I use android or apple and youre making assumptions about how MY PHONE works. My phone requires that permission be granted to access data from the phone. Telling me again that I can fix this doing something I have already tried is a waste of both of our time. It didnt fucking work. Do you understand? You can fuck right off with this "I know how your phone works better than you do despite not knowing anything at all about it."
  
  What about a dongle to connect a mouse and an external display?
  
  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.
  
  Not if the phone doesn't give permission to lol. I speak from personal experience of a Pixel 3a. Previously connected and all.
  
  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.
  
  Way to out yourself as one of the idiots I'm talking about. Reddit is full of jackasses who think they are the epitome of knowledge on a subject when the opposite is the truth, the ones who post the most telling others they are wrong are the ones who don't know shit about jack, sadly these numbnuts are making there way here, apparently you are one of them.
  
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  Nope. Had this happen with my wife's phone. Because developer mode had not been enabled previously and the screen was completely inactive, there was absolutely no way to wipe the phone.
  
  Choice was either pay a stupid amount of money to get the screen repaired (and I've had a bad experience with screen repairs actually working) or bin the phone and hope that nobody bothers to try and fix and then gain access. :/
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.