The Expert Podcast

With our investigations many times the question we get is how can you get a text message if it's been deleted ? If I delete my text . Well then how can . It can come back to haunt me . Well , when a text message is sent . The records of that event of that transaction aren't only on your phone and when you delete it really you're just deleting that one piece of it That's on your phone . That texts may exist in dozens of other places that can still be retrieved Where are those places when we do investigations on recovering Digital records or digital forensics . Here are the sources that can be checked . To see if the record exists First of all , the other side of that conversation the recipient of your message . Their phone has a copy of it . And when you deleted on yours it doesn't delete it on theirs . A lot of people think that's the case When you delete your text , the other person's screen's gonna go blank . So how it works You're just deleting it off of your screen Not on the other person's screen . In between your phone and their phone . You know many places that text message existed First of all your carrier let's say if you have Verizon , well Verizon . Has a copy of that text message . In their server . When you deleted off your phone . It doesn't go away from their server In fact , Many . Cell phone providers keep the records forever . They never delete them They have backup just like you have backups on your computer , the major carriers . Keep . Cell phone records forever How many times have you watched . Some . Crime show on TV . Or some . lawyer show on TV . And they talk about a case A cold case that they retrieve old messages . It could be for months or years earlier The cell phone company keeps the records Now they're not . kind of give them out to anybody You have to go through a process in order how to extract those records . But there may even be other places . Depending upon how you have your phone set up . You may have a copy of all of your cellular records in the cloud Android apple the major carriers all have a cloud . Backup option that you may have turned on by default . Your photos that you take , even if you delete them from your gallery on your phone , maybe being stored in your cloud . Account If that's the case . Think of whatever else could be in there , your . Text messages your phone call records , your voicemails . Look you get . How many calls a day you get 10 15 calls a day People leave you voicemail You delete the voicemail . The same thing happens with voicemail . You deleted it just deleted from your phone . The original voicemail message That was a sound recording Is a file Just like any other file a picture . photo . A PDF file It's just a computer file that happens to be voice . When you delete it it just deletes it from your phone . Your cloud server may still have it . In fact the only reason why your phone prompts you to delete it is to free up space on your phone . those voicemail messages . Also many times last forever . In your cloud or at the Carrier of your phone system . If your phone account . Where else could exist Well , It could also exist . In . Third party backups . If you are working with a company like box or Google drive . Many times you have an automatic setting to save . Those records . Save those documents . Save those voicemails even things like . Vehicle infotainment systems . Your car is probably one of the biggest computers you use every day that you don't even know about . It could be bigger than your phone . If you don't use a desktop computer every day . Your car could be your biggest computer that you have regular access to If you connect by Bluetooth to your car Your vehicle infotainment system could be capturing and saving . Many things that you're not aware of . Text messages phone calls . Images more importantly map information Here's something that people don't realize . All of your mapping If it's done on your GPS on your car , will save breadcrumbs will save tracks will save way points . Your phone will do the same thing . How many times have you been on Google maps and you type in a restaurant or you click on a restaurant and it said you were here two months ago . How does it know that It records where you're at . You might . Here's what here's what else you do I go on Google maps And find a town that you visited , let's say a year ago . Okay . A town that you don't go to all the time . Maybe you went there a year ago on vacation or a trip doesn't have to be far away could be close by And think of a place that you went in that town a restaurant . A store Commercial place not a house a commercial location . Let's say a restaurant . And . On that map . Zoom into the area where that restaurant is don't zoom in too far Just start zooming it very gradually to the to the neighborhood where that restaurant is Right . That neighborhood is going to have maybe a dozen restaurants 10 15 restaurants . They don't all show up They don't all start popping up on the map . You'll see the streets you'll see the street names . and then you'll start to see a few Commercial businesses show up on Google maps Some of them will be . Major . Once some would be more popular The ones that people click on more Google has an algorithm which decides what information to show on your map as you zoom in I can guarantee you . That one of the things that will show up as you zoom in was the restaurant you went to because it remembers that you were there and it thinks , well you might want to know . About where this place is And as you zoom in you'll see it there Now click on it . And see if it says you were here two years ago you were here one year ago . We we had one that we looked at it says you were there four years ago It knew that . The person was at that location four years earlier . So Google remembers things The Saving and recording of the data is happening without your . Active participation . Photos . Maps . Emails , text messages . Website connections . Here's another one . Many times if you are in a . Distant location from your house . Your phone will ask you . Do you want to connect to this wifi network It'll give you a list of the networks Even when you drive away and you go somewhere else the networks will still show up on your phone . So you can actually get information about where somebody was located . By just looking at the wifi networks on their phone Your phone is constantly pinging , Bluetooth devices all around you That's how . Air tags work with Google or , or tiles work . They always ping Bluetooth devices . So you can get a sense for where devices by what other . Devices are being connected to it . It doesn't allow a connection unless you . permission , but it's always pinging them . And that goes for Wi-Fi . Networks So if you go into a restaurant . Or business that has a wifi network even if you don't connect to that network , that network knows your phone Is there . Because it pings your IP address and says Hey , I see this phone . Let me give you my information in case you want to connect and you look at your phone and it says , Hey here's a network . Joe Schmo coffee shop Do you want to connect yes or no And you don't have to , but your phone knows that it's there and in that network knows that your phone is there . How long does that last for Well , some wifi networks save all this data in . The chip . On that . Router . And that modem for a very long period of time . Some . Commercial networks download it and save that back that up . So you may find , you may be able to find that a person was at a location . just by going through their history of what's on their wifi router and find Hey here's the IP address of this phone ? That phone was there on this day At this time . Even if you didn't use the wifi network it pinged it and it created a record . Now if you used that wifi net work , You may be opening up another can of worms . It might be tracking . The phone numbers that you call because when you call sometimes from . wifi network It goes through there The . The internet and not through your mobile . Minutes . It tries to save you mobile minutes that even though most are unlimited now the phone will default to wifi so it doesn't have to eat up the network bandwidth for the phone So . You may not be aware of it but your phone is constantly putting out information and gathering information every single day . And those are all of the sources that can be used for digital forensics to find out what's been on a phone what's been deleted where the phone was what it sent what it received . It doesn't matter what you delete off your phone . It's creating a paper trail . Digitally of all your activity by connecting to these other devices . On a regular basis no matter where you are right now if you looked at your phone's network activity , it's probably trying to connect to a dozen different devices Even in your office you have different networks , different Bluetooth . Wifi networks . Your TV is probably wifi And it's probably trying to connect or at least giving you an option . So the sources of digital data . To track a person's phone and activity go well beyond what you think you're deleting from your phone at any given time .