Qs about SD cards et al.

[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?

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.)

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!

 

[The_Jeff]

I have a modern virgin mobile "Feature phone" that only takes .3 megapixel pictures and no video. It also has no SD slot and no contract.

Drug dealers get these and call them "burner phones", in the 90's they were called "disposable cell phones."

My wife's smartphone works as a phone without its SD chip. In fact, its android OS requires some but not all apps to run off the internal memory, which is filling up.

 

[opus1]

As far as Question 1 goes, the phone will still work for calls without the SD card. Some carriers, like T-Mobile use a SIM card which is needed for the phone to work, but the SD card only deals with the phone's available storage for things like apps, pictures, videos, ets.

Someone else will have to answer the rest of the questions.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Thanks, folks,

Question 1 was not essential to the plot; it's not utterly necessary that the phone not work as a phone with the SD card out. No problem there.

Eljefino, so if I say the victim had a "feature phone" which was the number she gave out to people -- that will work? And if she bought a new video-enabled phone in the few days before her death, but hadn't activated it yet, would the video feature be available?

In other words, the phone capability (of making and receiving calls) and the app capabilities (such as video) are really separate? One can work without the other?

 

[Cujet]

As mentioned above, droid based phones often have both built in memory and an available slot for external memory. The external memory can be used in various ways, but it's not necessary for typical phone functions.

The iPhone does not have an external memory slot.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: Cujet
As mentioned above, droid based phones often have both built in memory and an available slot for external memory. The external memory can be used in various ways, but it's not necessary for typical phone functions.

The iPhone does not have an external memory slot.

Okay; so my victim must have bought an Android phone, so that she can remove the SD card. (She also needs to be moderately tech savvy, to even know about such a thing as an SD card!)

 

[The_Jeff]

Calling it a feature phone would lose a bunch of your audience. I'd go with "flip phone" or "burner".

 

[BISCUT]

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?

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.)

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!


Think of the SD card as a second "drive" independent of the cell phone. Maybe easier to understand. The SD can be used (I use mine this way) to hold images and video. The phone works just fine without the SD and with the SD installed as well.

Police agencies, as well as any of other enforcement branch of gov't can file a search warrant and retrieve incoming/outgoing calls and texts irregardless of whether the phone is destroyed or working. Images & video are a whole other world IF THEY WERE NOT SENT AS TEXT OR EMAIL. If merely stored on SD card and the SD card removed....images are not retrievable from the phone.

Ahmmmm.....bad guys or guys with girl friends simply use what we call a "puta" phone. Buy a throw away, pre-paid from Walmart or Best Buy and toss when your dirty deed is done. Phone isn't registered to you by name.

 

[Quattro Pete]

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 by "cell phone records" you mean their calling/texting history, then all they really need is the phone number. Having the phone number, they can establish which provider the phone number belongs to, and then request that provider to release the records.

Quote:

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?

It does not have to be old at all. You can buy a dumb phone/flip phone today that does not have video taking capability.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
In other words, the phone capability (of making and receiving calls) and the app capabilities (such as video) are really separate? One can work without the other?

You may be confusing an SD card with a SIM card. With some providers, a SIM card is necessary to make/receive calls. However, a SIM card is not used to store things like videos, images, audio files, etc.

SD card is just additional storage (for videos, images, audio, etc.) and is not needed to make calls. Most smartphones don't actually come with one, but you can purchase one if the phone's built-in storage isn't enough for you.

 

[Benzadmiral]

All right. So:

Victim had basic flip phone (no video) for several years. She gave out that number to everyone. Those records would be accessible by the cops. Murderer carefully did not call her on that number, and she never called him. Small town; they could walk down and see each other, or call on local land lines.

Victim bought a new Android phone, perhaps as a gift for someone, two or three days before she died. She tested out the video capability the night she got it -- before it was activated (? possible?) -- and accidentally filmed the murderer doing something he's willing to kill her to keep secret. So she removes the SD card and hides it.

Murderer kills her, takes the purse with the flip phone away, finds it has no video capability. Breaks into her home, finds the newer phone and takes it away, only to find the SD card is gone. So he still needs to find the card. This phone, never having been activated, has no records for the cops to find. (True?)

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Benzadmiral
Victim bought a new Android phone, perhaps as a gift for someone, two or three days before she died. She tested out the video capability the night she got it -- before it was activated (? possible?) -- and accidentally filmed the murderer doing something he's willing to kill her to keep secret. So she removes the SD card and hides it.

She just needs to be tech savvy enough to reconfigure the phone so that it records to SD card instead of to internal memory. The default storage used is always the phone's internal memory.

 

[The_Jeff]

The phone would have a serial number and the cops could trace it to the store it was sold at.

Plausibly, if it were unlocked or prepaid, the buyer could pay cash and have no contract and no credit card record.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Scene of the crime most have been Leadville.Not many town above 10,000 even in Colorado.

 

[BISCUT]

Originally Posted By: eljefino
The phone would have a serial number and the cops could trace it to the store it was sold at.

Plausibly, if it were unlocked or prepaid, the buyer could pay cash and have no contract and no credit card record.


Need a straw purchase....or us [censored] cops will track the buyer by the store vidoe surveillance.

 

[spackard]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete

She just needs to be tech savvy enough to reconfigure the phone so that it records to SD card instead of to internal memory. The default storage used is always the phone's internal memory.


+1
Otherwise, the photos are on the (small) internal memory of the phone, not on the SD card.

 

[1000MPH]

Don't forget about cloud storage and automated back-ups.
Tracing the phone back to the store and finding out she had also bought an extra memory card could be a good clue for the detectives.
often people who only use cheapo tracfones don't go and buy the latest and greatest smartphones, they usually get hand-me-downs. I had one for a year that I used regularly for everything (ipod, camera, video, text msg, email) but calling (since I never registered it with a carrier).

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Scene of the crime most have been Leadville.Not many town above 10,000 even in Colorado.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: HosteenJorje
Scene of the crime most have been Leadville.Not many town above 10,000 even in Colorado.

Actually, I'm creating my own, "Silverlake," and setting it next door to Leadville. As someone says, "Nowadays the chief industries in Silverlake are tourism, heavy drinking, and hating Leadville."

 

[Benzadmiral]

Originally Posted By: BISCUT
Originally Posted By: eljefino
The phone would have a serial number and the cops could trace it to the store it was sold at.

Plausibly, if it were unlocked or prepaid, the buyer could pay cash and have no contract and no credit card record.


Need a straw purchase....or us [censored] cops will track the buyer by the store vidoe surveillance.

You see? This is why I dislike what cell phones and video cameras and so forth have done to the detective story. It's darn near impossible to keep anything hidden!

Well, if the phones and any documentation on them have been taken away by the murderer, there wouldn't be a serial number for the second one for the cops to trace. And if the cops don't know she purchased a second phone, they'd have no reason to look for one. Once they know she purchased it, then, possibly, there'd be a trail.

Would it make more sense -- for my plot purposes -- to say she bought a digital camera instead of a second phone? Many of them can take video as well as still shots; the pics and video would be loaded on the SD card (does it have to be configured that way, like a phone?); the card could be removed and hidden; and now the murderer has no idea where it is. Yet there would not be a trail in the same way there would be with a phone.