Thursday, November 23, 2006

Disappearing SMS Text Messages

Disappearing SMS Text Messages

SMS (short message service) text messages are convienent way to communicate and the amount of texts sent each year runs into billions, proving that this service in the wireless world of mobile telephones is highly popular.

There are a number of classes of SMS messages, but the class of message relevant to this discussion is "Class 0 (flash message)", which can add difficulties to an examiner's investigation and evidence. Text messages that are stored and then deleted can be recovered, provided they have not been overwritten.

Flash messages though are a different beast altogether, because when sent the recipient sees the message on the handset screen without the message having been lodged at first instance in the handset inbox or SIM (ef) 7F106F42.

A simple constructed message and assignment can be:

[Flash] [Recipient Number] [Message]

The flash message once received can be deleted from the screen or made to disappear from the screen and it is possible to generate messages in such away that any content of importance may not be recoverable.

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