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!
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.
technisch
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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.
On the plus side it's going to keep you employed, a bit like COBOL programmers today.
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.
That's suspicious.
I have a theory…
Are you sure they weren't hitting on you, placing nudes on the background and handing you their phone so they knew you had access to their phone number (during the transfer) so they were willing to pay the price of switching phone to get a callback?I seriously can't think of another reason than that to put nudes as a freaking background…
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.
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I've seen it as a bdsm humiliation task a few times? Usually temporary though.
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.
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.
So what do you do if you literally cant wipe the phone I.e broken screen? Just never have anything there to begin with?
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…
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You cant wipe a phone remotely with your google sign on unless "find my device" is enabled, which it never was.
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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.
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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 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.
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.
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Are there people out there who are not factory resetting their phones before they trade them in?
…what?
There are people out there that don't know where the settings on their phone are
There are people out there, a LOT, that don't know how to power off a phone.
Same people using "Google" as their browser… 🙆
Samsung's official service center refused to not wipe the phone after a screen replacement, because "procedures". Paying extra wasn't even an option! So I said "fuck them" and took my Note 9 to an independent repairman who did it at half the official price because he could separate broken glass from a working screen and replace just the former. I simply turned the phone off and trusted Samsung Secure Startup encryption before handing it over to the guy. That was the moment I thanked myself for turning on full-disk encryption.
Two really dumb people and Tmobile is going to pay. Also, never trade in your phone. I keep the previous generation as a backup in case I lose or break it, and I take a hammer to the older ones on rotation.
By the time I'm ready to part with a phone, they offer peanuts for the trade in. I might as well keep it and do something else with it
Actually the last few times, Verizon has called me to upgrade for little or no money, sometimes paying more for my old phone than I did when it was new. I asked once why they do it, and it is some sort of loyalty program.
you can run octoprint on old phones, that's pretty fun.
I’ll trade when the money is right. iPhone 12 Pro-13 ProMax cost me $60. Yes it was a year old, but for a fresh battery and better tele lens it was worth it. This year I upgraded to a 15 Pro. I get nothing but a new battery and a C charging port (faster processor means little to me), but it cost me only $95 net - less than a battery replacement. For all the limitation of the Apple ecosystem and over-priced hardware, it gets exceptionally favorable trade-in pricing.
Iirc, iPhones reset / overwrite the encryption key so it would take substantial effort for someone to see how many steps I take in a day or to find my vacation photos. It’s probably easier to steal info from my iCloud backup at Apple.
Your trade-in doesn't count because you paid $60 to get essentially the same exact phone.
Mine was a trade up from std pro to max, plus a longer tele (and maybe 1/3 of a battery). DD went from the 12 to the 13 for $28 on the same trade promo.
Even ignoring the battery value, from a residual value basis a years’ newer phone is worth about $50-75 even on the 3rd or 4th year out, so the bare resale value for both was a wash or better. If I’m getting upgraded for almost nothing out-of-pocket, long term, I’m going to take it.
I hope you remove the batteries first before going at it with the hammer, or else you're going to be breathing in some really nasty fumes.
Plus damaging the battery could cause it to ignite anywhere between an hour to several days after it takes damage.
And unless you actually destroy the storage, you are in the exact same situation. Also, I assume someone taking a hammer to a device is not recycling it properly.
Phones have a factory reset for a reason
Man, that sounds exciting!
Particularly if you're in someone else's house, of course.
I rarely upgrade phones, and the last one I smashed had removable batteries. Yeah, I'd figure next upgrade. I'd have to figure something out for my Note 8.
I've got a hard nut to crack as well, my Note 9 is peak Samsung and I can't find a replacement that has stylus, 3.5 mm jack, microSD and capacitive fingerprint scanner (in-display ones suck, at least on A50 from my workplace).
Is the last one an absolute requirement? If not, although I imagine you're already aware of it, have you considered the Moto G Stylus? It manages the first three details nicely, but I don't think any of the models have a capacitive fingerprint scanner (may be mistaken, wasn't a feature I was interested in when looking into these).
Is the last one an absolute requirement?
No, but it must match capacitive reader's performance.
I've just checked the 2023 version of Moto G Stylus and… IPS? Seriously, Motorola? Sorry, devil wears Prada and flagships wear AMOLED.
Oh, yeah. I forgot that G Stylus isn't supposed to be a flagship. Duh.
Thank you for suggesting something anyway. Guess I'll stick to the Note 9 and keep fixing it until the world dies.
"But 3rd party repair people will install TikTok on your phone if you trust them"
Had an iPhone 8 serviced at ubreakifix and I got it back and it opened to the top-level of the Photos app. It was also the time when putting the phone to sleep in Recently Deleted or Hidden sent the app back to the top-level when woken back up.
Lesson learned, inferior parts too due to availability and cost limitations sadly. I didn’t mind the added thickness but I did mind that it could not keep up with my typing speed. Apple services phones without requiring the passcode and I’m disappointed I didn’t dig in my heels more.
i know iphones are user friendly but dude thats a DINOSAUR 🦕
You’re talking to someone who keeps a couple Palm PDAs around!
But more seriously, it worked fine, ran well enough and I got rid of it maybe 14 months ago? I had it for around 4 years at that point and it’s still getting some iOS 16 patches if I had kept it.
It’s not about the user friendliness, it’s about available parts, service, and software support! Just happens to age gracefully for a phone
"Stole" nude images? From a trade-in phone? More like "were handed access to". I mean, the employee's an ass, but the customer is in the wrong as well
As someone that had to delete some photos from his Samsung:
Nah, these phones are shitshows that save shit everywhere. I had to delete them three times.
That's just disregarding the fact that you're straight up victim blaming. Might as well ask what they were wearing, there is no excuse, just violation.
Might as well ask what they were wearing
They were nude photos, just sayin'
I'm not blaming the victim, the employee did act like an ass. All I'm saying is the victim did not take safety precautions people should take regardless of whether they are trading in their phone or not. If that is victim blaming then I'm victim blaming everyone who has no common sense regarding privacy and mindfull use of electronics.
"I'm not victim blaming"
Proceeds to keep victim blaming
Regardless of the fact that people just forget things sometimes, expecting people that just want a phone to know how to do a factory reset simply isn't reasonable.
You and I wouldn't trade it in without wiping it, probably, but we're mega nerds on the Fediverse. These things seem obvious to us but they simply aren't that important, or common knowledge, to normal people.
There is, and there only ever is, one person at fault when trust is violated. That there are safeguards you can take is a different discussion.
It's not common knowledge to delete data on a device you're getting rid off? What the fuck are you on about?
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Again, the employee should be taken to court and punished. But this case, if anything, proves that one should never assume good faith in humans and always take precautions. That's why there are privacy and security measures and good practices available in every aspect of our life.
You'd be right if the company didn't have policies specifically forbidding this behavior.
