Retrieving deleted text messages

I read somewhere that there is new technology available that can retrieve the last five years of deleted text messages - it was in one of those gadget type mags - has anyone any further information? I am desperate to locate an old friends message?

---

› See More: Retrieving deleted text messages

On 2004-07-28, Pav1 <[email protected]> wrote:
> I read somewhere that there is new technology available that can
> retrieve the last five years of deleted text messages - it was in one
> of those gadget type mags - has anyone any further information? I am
> desperate to locate an old friends message?

i'd call this a legend. even though we're talking about 2-3 Mb of
storage, i think it's doubtful that it can be retrieved once deleted
and overwritten with new messages.

though you may want to ask your provider. after all, they may well
store everything about you. wouldn't surprise me, especially not in
the US.

-m

"martin f. krafft" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On 2004-07-28, Pav1 <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I read somewhere that there is new technology available that can
> > retrieve the last five years of deleted text messages - it was in one
> > of those gadget type mags - has anyone any further information? I am
> > desperate to locate an old friends message?
>
> i'd call this a legend. even though we're talking about 2-3 Mb of
> storage, i think it's doubtful that it can be retrieved once deleted
> and overwritten with new messages.
>
> though you may want to ask your provider. after all, they may well
> store everything about you. wouldn't surprise me, especially not in
> the US.
>
> -m

If you're in the UK, they probably have copies of all your messages at GCHQ.
In order to protect you from terrorists and paedophiles, or maybe terrorist
paedophiles, or people who terrorise paedophiles, or something like that.



Ian

"Jaxtraw" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> If you're in the UK, they probably have copies of all your messages at
GCHQ.

Given that there have been many cases where SMS messages logs, dating back
many years, have been used as evidence in court, I would think that the
providers (or someone) keeps logs of all SMS messages.

The average SMS message is around 50 bytes in size. These days around 2
billion are sent each month, which is around 100GB or storage. However, due
to the nature of SMS messages they will compress to around 5% of their
original size, or around 5GB. Hence, this would require only 60GB of storage
per year to store every SMS message sent in the UK. Given that a 200GB hard
drive costs about £100 and could store around 3 years worth of SMS message,
I'd say that it would be stupid to think that somewhere somebody isn't
storing them all.

However, I doubt very much that the general public could get access to them.

I've also heard an urban legend that there is a network code you can dial
which will resend all the SMS messages sent to that number going back a user
specified number of days. I doubt that it's true though.

Adam

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 22:07:13 +0100, "Adam Greatrix"
<[email protected]> wrote:

|>Given that there have been many cases where SMS messages logs, dating back
|>many years, have been used as evidence in court,

"I think in these days of corporate fraud and in these days of
terrorism we're seeing more and more reason to store forever," Kagan
said. "Don't ever say anything on e-mail or text messaging that you
don't want to come back and bite you."

|> However, I doubt very much that the general public could get access to them.

agreed