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Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

> Monday Update: Suspect in remote phone-wiping case denies wrongdoing, Nov. 12, 2018 > [https://dailygazette.com/article/2018/11/12/suspect-in-remot...]

> "Our position is that my client didn't access anything to remotely delete anything," Smalls said. "My client wouldn't have any knowledge how to do that."

That seems like something pretty easily disproven with a subpoena to Apple for records of whether a remote wipe command was issued, no?

Which makes me think the defendent probably indeed didn't remote wipe.

I wonder if it wiped itself after too many wrong password attempts (is that a thing they do?), or as the attorney suggests "days after her phone was seized, Grant got a new phone. Smalls said he didn't know if that had any impact on the data on the phone police had taken" -- does it auto-wipe the old phone in those circumstances sometimes?

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That seems like something pretty easily disproven with a subpoena to Apple for records of whether a remote wipe command was issued, no?

But who wiped it? Was it her or her boyfriend or some other friend that though that she lost her phone? Or did she tell the Apple store that she lost her phone, and they wiped it as a "courtesy"?

Yes, there's an option to have your phone auto-wipe after 10 failed unlock attempts. However, I'm not aware of any way to have it auto-wipe by itself after n-days. Getting a new phone and signing into your Apple ID has no effect on the data stored on your old phone.

Removing a phone that was previously associated with your Apple ID will remotely erase the device. You will get an email confirming the erasure the next time the device is turned on.

Assuming the suspect is telling the truth, that's probably what happened. And it might not even have been the suspect herself; a store employee helping her set up her new phone might have helpfully removed her "lost" phone from her account.

OK, then, does telling the Apple Store that you lost your phone, when it was in fact impounded by police, constitute evidence destruction? I can see how it might.

I bet saying the magic words "my phone is impounded by the police, please wipe my phone" would be. But, assuming the suspect is telling the truth and assuming an apple employee disassociated the suspect's phone from their icloud account, let's also assume the suspect lied to the apple employee.

"I lost my phone and need a new one." "Your phone is lost? Let me disassociate your old and and help you set your new one up. What's your icloud username, email or phone number?"

Assuming the suspect knew disassociation meant data deletion on their old phone, is it up to the suspect to prevent this from happening? It seems pretty close to invoking the magic words I started out with, especially if this was the suspect's intent going into the store.

Now assuming the suspect didn't know, and he did not intent to delete data from his old phone... Now what? Is it acceptable to accidentally destroy evidence? Spoliation of evidence suggests a guilty conscience, but in this case it was an accident.

>Is it acceptable to accidentally destroy evidence?

Theoretically no. In practice it's murkier.

If you're a cop? Definitely not acceptable on paper but you'll get a slap on the wrist at best.

If you're OJ Simpson and can afford a good lawyer? You will probably be found not-guilty.

Peasants like you or I? They'll throw the book and something will stick.

Edit: Am I being down-voted for being blunt or because reality makes people uncomfortable?

I didn’t downvote you, but I think you were downvoted because the post you were replying to was asking a legal/ethical question about whether it’s acceptable to accidentally destroy evidence in general, and you gave an unsupported answer and then veered off into a discussion of whether the law is applied to all people fairly.

In my view the question of whether the law is unbiased and “fair” is more important to resolve than whether accidentally erasing a phone seized by law enforcement counts as spoiling evidence.

There’s no point arguing that storing a vat of milk in the sun counts as the law enforcement impounding incorrectly or the suspect deliberately arranging evidence to destroy itself, when the crux of the matter is that the defendant is a black woman in Alabama so has no chance of a fair trial regardless how airtight the case might seem.

I'm pretty sure you have to tell it specifically to do that. I've done it a couple of times and don't recall ever just having it "happen" when I removed the phone from my Apple ID -- I think it was an option you could select to have it remote wiped.

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