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L4sBot @lemmy.world

1y ago

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

www.cnbc.com 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.

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.

122 comments

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!
  
  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.
  
  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.
- 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
- 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.
  
  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?
  
  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).
  
  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.
  
  Remote wipes are possible. Log into your Apple/Google account, figure out how to find your device, then perform a remote wipe.
  
  Plug it into a computer and delete the files that way?
  
  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.

"But 3rd party repair people will install TikTok on your phone if you trust them"

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... 🙆
- I wouldn't doubt that 75% or more of people don't. Back before encryption was standard on Windows laptops my ex sold her laptop on eBay and forgot to wipe it, it had a bunch of nudes on it that she sent me over the years. Instead of just assuming the person would wipe it she messaged them and told them to wipe it because she had forgotten to and asked them to please not look at the contents of the drive 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
  
  I rescued a 2010 Macbook Pro from a recycling dropoff and the previous owner did not wipe it. They had an Excel file with all their logins in it. Bank accounts and all.
- 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.
  
  Sometimes they offer crazy promotions. Verizon had a any pixel for a pixel 7 deal. My boss traded in a pixel 1 for like $500 off a 7.
  
  you can run octoprint on old phones, that's pretty fun.
  
  Yep, I've had smartphones since 2010, probably about 5 or 6 phones, I think I've traded in maybe two. After like 1-2 years they were like "I'll give you $150 for this phone that you spent $800 for even though it's in perfect condition" .
  
  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.
- 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
  
  How else are you going to release the magic smoke?
  
  Way more fun to see tho
  
  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.
  
  but breaking bad does it
- I keep the previous generation as a backup
  This is what I thought I could do with my old devices, an S4 and an S5, but shortly after moving my data to each upgraded device the internal EMMC failed on each.
  The s4 powers on into some OEM flashing mode (nothing on the screen, just appears as a Qualcomm something when plugged into usb), and the S5 shows this horror inducing message
  ::: spoiler Spoiler
  
  :::
  
  Well, they discontinue bands, so yeah, my 2g phone got the axe.

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.
- Did the company policy state that they would access your data and save it?
  No?
  Then you're normalizing criminal behavior because it's possible. Was the phone's data wearing a crop top? Maybe that's why it was violated.
- You'd be right if the company didn't have policies specifically forbidding this behavior.

122 comments