Qs about SD cards et al.

[UncleS2]

1. Many cell phones utilize a microSD card as extra memory, and work just fine without it.
2. I Don't Know- but I betcha, given proper warrants etc, police &/or various gov't alphabet soup outfits can get cell phone records.
3. The no video phone could be brand new. I can go to the Dollar Store & buy a brand new Tracfone or Net 10 for $10 or less. They have models that may be shy on features, but will call & text just fine, while offering either no video(still camera only), or some with no camera at all. These models seem to be on their way out, but they are still available. A ca$h purchase of a Tracfone at a $tore or similar may well be the ultimate untraceable phone still available today, so long as the user doesn't get stupid & use his own landline &/or computer to get it up & running. They even come with 20 minutes on 'em. Same goes for ca$h purchase of TF talk-time cards.

EDIT: yup, might need an intermediate buyer for the phone. And a digital camera could come from anywhere, one picked up at a garage sale should be *really* untraceable. In fact, here's a whole other plotline for a novel- digital camera bought at flea market, has memory card still in it, on memory card there is

!! Stuff ensues. Film at 11.

Isn't it something that in all the old spy novels, they went to all the trouble with the little Minox cameras, putting a few pages of info/data on microfilm or microdots- when now, on a common-as-dirt MicroSD card we can store many Gigabytes(probably a terabyte coming soon) on something the size of someone's little fingernail. Hiding places, even in poain sight, are near infinite.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: UncleS2
. . . And a digital camera could come from anywhere, one picked up at a garage sale should be *really* untraceable. In fact, here's a whole other plotline for a novel- digital camera bought at flea market, has memory card still in it, on memory card there is

!! Stuff ensues. Film at 11.

Isn't it something that in all the old spy novels, they went. to all the trouble with the little Minox cameras, putting a few pages of info/data on microfilm or microdots- when now, on a common-as-dirt MicroSD card we can store many Gigabytes(probably a terabyte coming soon) on something the size of someone's little fingernail. Hiding places, even in poain sight, are near infinite.

Yeah -- and we thought in 1967 that the little flat data disks Spock was always handing to Kirk was really wild SF stuff. But in a few years after that we had music cassettes, and now little flash drives the size of a stick of gum.

The second-hand camera sounds like a grand idea. More rewriting to do, but that'll smooth everything out later.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
The second-hand camera sounds like a grand idea. More rewriting to do, but that'll smooth everything out later.

So now that the video was taken using a digital camera, do you even need the old flip phone in your story? What purpose would it serve?

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
The second-hand camera sounds like a grand idea. More rewriting to do, but that'll smooth everything out later.

So now that the video was taken using a digital camera, do you even need the old flip phone in your story? What purpose would it serve?


Because it would be very strange in 2013 for anyone with a business, however small in however small a market, not to have at least a basic phone. (Even I, Luddite though I tend to be, have one.) And I can mention that the investigators at the time pulled the records for that phone, and found no leads. The idea is that the cops did everything reasonable; they were not incompetent or crooked. But they came up against one dead end after another.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Working on a new story:

A woman is murdered on Christmas Eve 2013 in a small town at 10,000 feet in the Rockies. The murderer took her purse and cell phone, because he knows she has incriminating cell phone video of him; he also broke into her house and searched there. He does not find the video, because she dismounted her SD card from her phone and hid it, and now (10 months later) he has no idea where it could be.

1) What happens if you try to call someone on a phone that has had its SD card removed? Does the caller get a "not in service" message?


Phone works. SD card is not the same as the SIM.
Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral


2) We've seen on TV that law enforcement agencies, the bigger ones anyway, can uncover a person's cell phone records. (True?) I expect the cops have to know the brand of phone (?) and the service provider, who can then extract the record of that person's calls. If the cops don't have either one, can they get the records? I don't want them to be able to trace the murderer through calls to/from the victim. (Of course, I can always say the murderer was crafty and only spoke to his victim in person or on local land lines.)


Several ways to track/trace a cell phone. The phone company can dump the call history for the phone number.

I suspect they can also track the phone based on either the ESN/IEMI or MEID value.

Our criminal could use a burner phone, a cell phone, bought with cash and then tossed when done. So that's another option besides land line.

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral


3) If my victim had two phones, one a modern one that could take video and one that doesn't, how old would the latter have to be? And what make would sound right? If the cops know about only the older no-video phone and obtain those records, they would not know about the newer video-enabled phone (presuming she used a different provider, right?).

Let me know if any of this makes sense, or if I need to explain more. I don't want my plot to hinge on something that will be exploded by anybody who knows a little about phone tech!


On the two phone theory, and old Nokia seems to be the most obvious. I don't know what model. As far as knowing, wouldn't the cops dump her financials. If she were paying for two phones, wouldn't they find the second phone in her financials.

Maybe the newer phone is provided by parents, a significant other, or she's a second phone on a friends plan who gets a discount? Sprint's Friends and Family comes to mind, but even that plan gives each Friend his/her own bill.