The FBI seems to be having a bit of trouble accessing electronic evidence lately. First there was
the case of the forgotten encryption key
, and now the Bureau is unable to prosecute a notorious San Diego pimp because they can't break his Android's screen lock. Dante Dears was recently paroled from state prison recently after serving time for his founding role in the Pimpin' Hos Daily organization (PHD). Yes, that's the real name of the group and its purpose is exactly what the name implies. Since the conditions of his parole dictated he wear a GPS tracker that confined him to his home, Dears ran his pimpire from there using a standard Samsung Android.
When the FBI got wise to his plan, they confronted Dears about the phone-pimping. Dears immediately claimed the phone belonged to his sister and refused to give up the unlock pattern even though they confiscated the phone. So the Feds sent the Samsung to its Regional Computer Forensics Lab in Southern California for cracking.
That didn't work out as well as they had hoped. Technicians "attempted to gain access to the contents of the memory of the cellular telephone in question," said the FBI, but were unable to decipher Dears' password before the system shut them out permanently for excessive login failures. The only way to get into the phone now is with Dears' Google account credentials, which he'll share just after he divulges the unlock pattern, so the FBI is SOL right? Wrong!
The FBI has now filed for
a new warrant against Google
requesting pretty much everything they would need to build a case against Dears, including:
- The subscriber's name, address, Social Security number, account login and password
- "All e-mail and personal contact list information on file for cellular telephone"
- The times and duration of every webpage visited
- All text messages sent and received from the phone, including photo and video messages
- Any e-mail addresses or instant messenger accounts used on the phone
- "Verbal and/or written instructions for overriding the ‘pattern lock' installed on the" phone
- All search terms, Internet history, and GPS data that Google has stored for the phone
Google hasn't responded to the warrant yet. It should also be noted that this isn't just a case of the Man coming down on a hard-working pimp. Dears, if court records are to be believed, is no Big Poppa with a heart of gold. According to Ars Technica, <blockquote> Before Dears pled guilty in the middle of his 2005 trial, one minor female testified how Dears had recruited her out of a homeless shelter.
"He told me he was going to help take care of me and be there for me," she told the court. "He told me what to do and how to do it and said we would make money that way... I was tired of living on the streets."
Her $500 a night went straight to Dears, though, who "took care of her" in his own special way. As San Diego's Union Tribune reported, Dears found out the woman had spoken to a man who wanted to help her get off the streets. So Dears "beat her up in the back seat of his Cadillac and then forced her to get into the car's trunk, she testified. While in the trunk, she was driven from East Main Street in El Cajon to Hotel Circle in Mission Valley, she testified...the girl, only 15 at the time, was released in Hotel Circle, "bleeding and bruised."</blockquote>
