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About DebiN
Expertise
I can answer questions on cellular phones, the physical device, the network, what to look for when purchasing cell phones. I am located in the United States. I am an expert on BlackBerrys, Treos, HTC devices and iPhones as well as cellphones and aircards. I have over 15 years of experience in both the wireless and wireline world with the carriers. I have a lot of knowledge regarding the wireless providers - their services, prices and policies, both GSM (AT&T (formerly Cingular) and T-Mobile) and CDMA (Verizon, Sprint/Nextel (iDEN)). I am very familiar with the individual devices and their specifications. I can also answer questions regarding BlackBerrys, iPhones and other PDAs, both Palm-based and Windows-based. I can troubleshoot most any problem someone is having with their cellular device or with the provider.

Experience
Over 15 years in the telecommunications field in the United States.

Education/Credentials
BA in Communications

You are here: Experts > Shopping > Cell Phones/Pagers > Cellular Phones > Blackberry Pearl

Topic: Cellular Phones

Expert: DebiN
Date: 10/3/2008
Subject: Blackberry Pearl

Question
QUESTION: My service is through Alltel. I've spoken with them about retrieving deleted texts off of my teenager's Blackberry Pearl. They tell me there is no SIM card so the SIM card reader won't work for me. I've heard of a superbluetoothhack website. Any other ideas?

ANSWER: Hi Beth -

Once a text message is deleted from your phone, it is gone. It wouldn't matter if you had a SIM card or not (only GSM phones use SIM cards and Alltel is a CDMA provider), once it is deleted, it's gone. A SIM card reader can't read a deleted text message either. The web site you are talking about can only retrieve a deleted message if you have set up the service first and it only works with certain phones and certain carriers and it will not work with Alltel because you wouldn't be able to get the phone set up to use this. The service is designed to keep a record of text messages so that if you deleted one, they could retrieve it. It's not for everyone and not really guaranteed to work. I highly recommend against this. I hpoe this helps. Thanks. DebiN

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: There IS a company that makes spyware (Brickhouse Security)that manufactures SIM card readers. The company seems legit and has been featured on CNN and other major news networks. There is a youtube video demonstrating this device. It claims to work with ANY SIM card. You simply take it out, plug it in to this device and plug it in to a PC. It claims to show everything, including pictures, that ever came in or out of that phone.

What do law enforcement folks do when they want information like this? There's GOT to be a way!?

My Razor phone is through Alltel and it has a SIM card.

Answer
I can guarantee you that once the information is deleted from the SIM card and information is saved onto the SIM card that takes it's place, there is no way possible to read the information that was previously on the SIM card. Just like with a computer, when you delete a file and another one takes it's place in the space that file was previously occupying, you absolutely, 100% cannot retrieve the file. If you delete a file on a computer and have not saved anything in the space where the file was, you can undelete the file. I saw the Brickhouse Video on YouTube and IF the text message was saved to the SIM card and deleted from the SIM card and nothing took it's place on that SIM card, then yes, this software would allow the retrieval of that deleted message. But if the text message was saved to the phone and deleted from the phone, then there is no record of it on the SIM card at all, so nothing to retrieve. The SIM card only has 64K of storage. When you delete something and then save something else, that new item takes the place of the old item. You can't retrieve more than what the card is capable of holding. If information was saved to the phone, it is NOT on the SIM and therefore could not be retrieved from the SIM anyway. I believe that the company is legit and I understand it was featured on CNN and that there is a Youtube video also, but keep something in mind - there are lots of variables and technological pieces of information that were missing here. First, the SIM card is not what contains every piece of informaiton, i.e., call records, text messages, etc. The SIM card has the user's rate plan information and a identity and a very limited amount of storage available for contacts, text messages, pictures, etc. 64K maximum (not a lot of storage). It does not contain a record of transactions - that is with the carrier. The information on the SIM is limited and is overwritten quickly. If you used the SIM card reader the way they show in the video, you would have to be constantly reviewing the information in order to capture what you needed. If you were looking for something that occurred a week ago or months ago, it would be long deleted. Even the company itself does not say that it contains a complete history, only what is available at the time on the SIM.

When law enforcement wants information, they typically seize the cell phone and if the user still has the information on it, they get it. If the text messages sent were sent over a year ago for example, and they are no longer on the cell phone, they don't exist anywhere. As I mentioned earlier, the carriers are not legally obligated to keep text message content, so they don't because of storage limitations. They are legally obligated to keep records and they do this. When you see TV shows or news shows that show actual text message data, they have this because they got it from the cell phones themselves, not from spyware or the carrier or any place other than the actual cell phone.

There's nothing special about a SIM card other than it is used in GSM devices and you can save a certain amount of information to it. A SIM card reader is a way to transfer information from one SIM card to another or to view information without a phone, but it is not a complete historical record, not even Brickhouse's software or tools can do that.

I assure you that no one can get copies of text messages after they have been deleted from your phone unless you set yourself up with spyware to start with that retained a copy of each text message on a server. There is spyware like this, but it requires set up on the front-end, not after the fact, because the text messages are actually just fowarded to another location whenever they are sent to you and then retained there. I hope this makes sense and helps. Thanks. DebiN

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