Thinking about cheating on your spouse or significant other?
Contemplating the crime of the century (or maybe just murdering that asshole with the barking dog next door)?
Planning to turn a quick buck in the dope market?
Got a great idea for a new product?
Meeting face-to-face to discuss intimate matters or a criminal conspiracy?
Rule #1: Do not possess, use, or be in the same room with a cell phone. In fact, if you’re planning to commit any of the malfeasances listed above, you don’t even want to own a cell phone that you leave at home.
Tiger would text Mindy Lawton when his need for sex was "urgent"
Remember Tiger Woods, that golfer who made about a billion dollars a year off an occasional good round of golf and some great product endorsement deals? Down the shitter because he left a trail of cell phone voice mail and text messages Inspector Clouseau could have deciphered.
How about Paris Hilton, whose hacked cell phone revealed contact information for Eminem, Vin Diesel, Lindsay Lohan, Christina Aguilera, Ashlee Simpson, Andy Roddick and Anna Kourikova? Because Paris is a Hollywood idiot, she and every one of the aforementioned Hollywood idiots had to change their e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers and, who knows, even move because it’s damned tough to change your street address if you stay in the same house.
Paris' password was 'Tinkerbell'
And these are the ones that, although pathetic, are a bit funny.
Good data are not available but most law enforcement people will tell you that cell phones, not fingerprints, gun casings, or DNA, are the best source of leads in the police business. Yes, the other forensic evidence becomes more important at trial but, when it comes to rounding up likely suspects, nothing works quite as well as a cell phone.
Consider these:
The cops were happy to return Tony Ramirez' cell phone
Criminal mastermind Anthony Ramirez robs a house and leaves his cell phone behind. He calls his own cell phone number to see if maybe someone has found it. A cop answers Anthony’s phone and says, “Sure thing, Tony. Is there a reward? Great! Meet me at the Circle K in twenty minutes.” Turns out Tony’s also looking at a murder rap.
B&E man, Dan Kincaid is nailed when he sends his girlfriend a string of text messages asking her how to get out of a neighborhood he’s been working without being spotted by the cops.
Mikhail Mallayev shoots a man one morning in Queens. Mikhail is smart enough to turn his cell off during the morning, but when questioned by New York’s finest, his story simply doesn’t match his afternoon cell phone records.
Darnell Watson kills a man on the street in Atlanta, and then uses the victim’s cell phone to call his girlfriend from the crime scene for a ride home.
An Ontario CA cop faces permanent suspension for sending sexually explicit text messages over his department-issued cell phone.
Yeah, I know, none of these scenarios apply to you.
But, if you think conversations you have over your cell phone, even if you have “encryption,” are secure you are naïve. Some cell phone designs and encryption schemes are pretty good (today) but things are changing so quickly that you must assume that anyone might be able to eavesdrop at any time. For all cell phone conversation, for all e-mails, for all electronic communications (like e-mails), the best rule is to apply what my friend Jack calls The Washington Post test: if you’d be humiliated or arrested when something you communicated electronically winds up on the front page of The Washington Post—don’t do it!
It’s getting even worse. With some cell phone models, hackers (or a law enforcement agency, maybe with a warrant, maybe not) can download eavesdropping software to your cell phone over the network. They don’t need access to the phone itself at all. In these cases, the cell phone can act as a room microphone, broadcasting everything that’s said even when the phone is not in use. In fact, there are a few models of cell phones where this room microphone feature will work when the phone is turned OFF!
As Richard Nixon used to ruminate, even paranoids have real enemies.
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