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Re-Victimization From Police-Auctioned Cell Phones - Slashdot
source link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/23/05/16/2041215/re-victimization-from-police-auctioned-cell-phones
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An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Countless smartphones seized in arrests and searches by police forces across the United States are being auctioned online without first having the data on them erased, a practice that can lead to crime victims being re-victimized, a new study found (PDF). In response, the largest online marketplace for items seized in U.S. law enforcement investigations says it now ensures that all phones sold through its platform will be data-wiped prior to auction.
Researchers at the University of Maryland last year purchased 228 smartphones sold "as-is" from PropertyRoom.com, which bills itself as the largest auction house for police departments in the United States. Of phones they won at auction (at an average of $18 per phone), the researchers found 49 had no PIN or passcode; they were able to guess an additional 11 of the PINs by using the top-40 most popular PIN or swipe patterns. Phones may end up in police custody for any number of reasons -- such as its owner was involved in identity theft -- and in these cases the phone itself was used as a tool to commit the crime. "We initially expected that police would never auction these phones, as they would enable the buyer to recommit the same crimes as the previous owner," the researchers explained in a paper released this month. "Unfortunately, that expectation has proven false in practice."
Beyond what you would expect from unwiped second hand phones -- every text message, picture, email, browser history, location history, etc. -- the 61 phones they were able to access also contained significant amounts of data pertaining to crime -- including victims' data -- the researchers found. [...] Also, the researchers found that many of the phones clearly had personal information on them regarding previous or intended targets of crime: A dozen of the phones had photographs of government-issued IDs. Three of those were on phones that apparently belonged to sex workers; their phones contained communications with clients. "We informed [PropertyRoom] of our research in October 2022, and they responded that they would review our findings internally," said Dave Levin, an assistant professor of computer science at University of Maryland. "They stopped selling them for a while, but then it slowly came back, and then we made sure we won every auction. And all of the ones we got from that were indeed wiped, except there were four devices that had external SD [storage] cards in them that weren't wiped."
Researchers at the University of Maryland last year purchased 228 smartphones sold "as-is" from PropertyRoom.com, which bills itself as the largest auction house for police departments in the United States. Of phones they won at auction (at an average of $18 per phone), the researchers found 49 had no PIN or passcode; they were able to guess an additional 11 of the PINs by using the top-40 most popular PIN or swipe patterns. Phones may end up in police custody for any number of reasons -- such as its owner was involved in identity theft -- and in these cases the phone itself was used as a tool to commit the crime. "We initially expected that police would never auction these phones, as they would enable the buyer to recommit the same crimes as the previous owner," the researchers explained in a paper released this month. "Unfortunately, that expectation has proven false in practice."
Beyond what you would expect from unwiped second hand phones -- every text message, picture, email, browser history, location history, etc. -- the 61 phones they were able to access also contained significant amounts of data pertaining to crime -- including victims' data -- the researchers found. [...] Also, the researchers found that many of the phones clearly had personal information on them regarding previous or intended targets of crime: A dozen of the phones had photographs of government-issued IDs. Three of those were on phones that apparently belonged to sex workers; their phones contained communications with clients. "We informed [PropertyRoom] of our research in October 2022, and they responded that they would review our findings internally," said Dave Levin, an assistant professor of computer science at University of Maryland. "They stopped selling them for a while, but then it slowly came back, and then we made sure we won every auction. And all of the ones we got from that were indeed wiped, except there were four devices that had external SD [storage] cards in them that weren't wiped."
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