Verizon demo phone MDM data wipe: Difference between revisions

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everyone is overreacting to this

~~==Remote factory reset & data loss==~~

The demo unit did not fix Collery's network problems, but it worked at first. He transferred his data to it & returned his original phone.<ref name="ars" /> After about ten days the phone began repeatedly installing security updates & restarting, & within a few more days it restarted as though it had been factory reset.<ref name="ars" /> Collery could no longer sign in to his Google or Samsung accounts; the device told him he did not have permission & to contact his IT administrator.<ref name="ars" />

~~His cloud backups turned out to be less complete than he had assumed, so the wipe was not recoverable. In a phone interview he described what was gone:~~

<blockquote>''I lost everything. Contacts, messages, videos, documents, pictures, everything from patient information to the last video I have with my grandmother before she died.''</blockquote><ref name="ars" />

Cooper Quintin, a security researcher & senior technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars Technica that the restarts & reset were consistent with Verizon pushing instructions to a group of managed devices at once. He said that with a fleet of demo phones under MDM, ''you're just sending instructions to all the phones,'' & that if Verizon wipes demo units on a schedule, the timing may have been the policy taking effect.<ref name="ars" /> Verizon advised Collery to take the phone to a uBreakiFix store, but a technician there could not recover any data because of the management profile.<ref name="ars" />

==Verizon's response==

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 everyone is overreacting to this
-==Remote factory reset & data loss==
-The demo unit did not fix Collery's network problems, but it worked at first. He transferred his data to it & returned his original phone.<ref name="ars" /> After about ten days the phone began repeatedly installing security updates & restarting, & within a few more days it restarted as though it had been factory reset.<ref name="ars" /> Collery could no longer sign in to his Google or Samsung accounts; the device told him he did not have permission & to contact his IT administrator.<ref name="ars" />
-His cloud backups turned out to be less complete than he had assumed, so the wipe was not recoverable. In a phone interview he described what was gone:
-<blockquote>''I lost everything. Contacts, messages, videos, documents, pictures, everything from patient information to the last video I have with my grandmother before she died.''</blockquote><ref name="ars" />
-Cooper Quintin, a security researcher & senior technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Ars Technica that the restarts & reset were consistent with Verizon pushing instructions to a group of managed devices at once. He said that with a fleet of demo phones under MDM, ''you're just sending instructions to all the phones,'' & that if Verizon wipes demo units on a schedule, the timing may have been the policy taking effect.<ref name="ars" /> Verizon advised Collery to take the phone to a uBreakiFix store, but a technician there could not recover any data because of the management profile.<ref name="ars" />
 ==Verizon's response==