# Is it possible to be spied on with a Blackberry?



## LauraA

Dear Friends , 
My ex seems to know who I write to and who writes to me. We both got Blackberries a few months ago and he has my e-mail adresses, although I never gave him my password. However, I called my server a few times and I know there was a problem with my password which I had to change several times. Is it possible for him to use his Blackberry to spy on me? Who has access to passwords? How can I put a stop to this ? 
Thank-you for your help ! 
Laura


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## tlarkin

If it is CDMA technology he could have cloned your phone, or cloned the SIM card if it is GSA.

I would back up your contents and reset the phone and all the passwords to be safe.


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## LauraA

Dear TLarkin,

Thank-you very much for your prompt response ! 

I don't know what kind of technology my Blackberry is . All I know is I deal with Bell Mobility (Canada) and my ex deals with Videotron (Canadian State or Province). I don't think I have a SIM card.

I don't really need a back up, since all my messages are in my main computer at home. I therefore only need to reset the phone: Would you have the kindness to indicate how can I proceed in order to reset my phone  ???

Thank-you!

Laura


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## tlarkin

I was just saying if he ever had physical access to the phone he could have cloned it.  I would back up your contacts if you want them and then wipe and reload the phone, possibly go to the dealer and get it reactivated or get a new SIM.

They will probably do it for free given your current situation as a customer service.


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## PohTayToez

tlarkin, I think you're going a bit over the top with your theories. I'm pretty sure that CDMA cloning only allows you to make/receive calls from that number, and cloning a SIM card is basically impossible since they changed the type of SIM cards they use several years ago.  You used to be able to brute force the key to get the information off of the SIM card, but they started using new ones that can detect when somone is trying to hack it and they will just stop working.  

I think that the most like scenario is that he knew your security questions to recover your passwords on the accounts, or he got them off of a computer that you used.  Or maybe he just guessed your password.

Change the passwords AND the security questions.  Was he still able to get at your email after you changed the password the first time?


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## tlarkin

PohTayToez said:


> tlarkin, I think you're going a bit over the top with your theories. I'm pretty sure that CDMA cloning only allows you to make/receive calls from that number, and cloning a SIM card is basically impossible since they changed the type of SIM cards they use several years ago.  You used to be able to brute force the key to get the information off of the SIM card, but they started using new ones that can detect when somone is trying to hack it and they will just stop working.
> 
> I think that the most like scenario is that he knew your security questions to recover your passwords on the accounts, or he got them off of a computer that you used.  Or maybe he just guessed your password.
> 
> Change the passwords AND the security questions.  Was he still able to get at your email after you changed the password the first time?




Sorry, you are wrong.   Physical access trumps all security regardless of what platform you are using. If their ex ever had access anything is possible.  It is best practice from a security stand point to wipe, reload and forget about it.


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## vinnie107

Its not to difficult to clone a phone. I would suggest you reset everything including password, recovery questions the lot. Just for peace of mind.


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## Jamin43

PohTayToez said:


> tlarkin, I think you're going a bit over the top with your theories. I'm pretty sure that CDMA cloning only allows you to make/receive calls from that number, and cloning a SIM card is basically impossible since they changed the type of SIM cards they use several years ago.



I saw a news story a week or two ago re: cloning ( or something like it ) where a s/w bug can be put on your phone and another person could get all your text messages - listen to your phone calls - Turn on your speaker phone function when you're not even using your phone to listen to you speaking in proxmity of the phone. 

It was relatively inexpensive and easy to get the software - but to install it - the person needed to have physical access to your phone.

Check out this link to spy phone Website

http://www.thespyshop.ws/spyphonesoftware.html#sp


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## massahwahl

I would check to make sure that he hasnt just forwarded your email to his or something.


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## PohTayToez

tlarkin said:


> Sorry, you are wrong.   Physical access trumps all security regardless of what platform you are using. If their ex ever had access anything is possible.  It is best practice from a security stand point to wipe, reload and forget about it.



Sorry, wrong about what?  This isn't a debate about the best way to hack a phone, I'm just saying that given the average person's technical knowledge, I would say it's much more likely that her boyfriend would steal/guess her password than clone her phone.  She also only mentioned the boyfriend getting into her email, nothing about texts or phone calls.



Jamin43 said:


> I saw a news story a week or two ago re: cloning ( or something like it ) where a s/w bug can be put on your phone and another person could get all your text messages - listen to your phone calls - Turn on your speaker phone function when you're not even using your phone to listen to you speaking in proxmity of the phone.
> 
> It was relatively inexpensive and easy to get the software - but to install it - the person needed to have physical access to your phone.
> 
> Check out this link to spy phone Website
> 
> http://www.thespyshop.ws/spyphonesoftware.html#sp



That's interesting and all, but has nothing to do with getting someone's email, isn't cloning, and only works on a few select phones.



ukulele_ninja said:


> I would check to make sure that he hasnt just forwarded your email to his or something.



That is a good example of a _plausible_ explanation for the problem.


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## tlarkin

Dude all it takes is loading spy software on the phone and physical access does that.  Changing your password does zilch if it has been hijacked.  Don't believe me, google search cell phone tapping software and see what comes up.  

Yes, if he ever had physical access he could have cloned your phone or installed software on it that allows him to spy on you.  If he had physical access to your phone he could have done that.  If there is ever any doubt he touched your phone, erase it.

The media even did a story on it, and well it is the media but they got some of the info right at least.

[YT]uCyKcoDaofg[/YT]

You are right this is not up for debate considering google will tell any moron how to do this.


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## Jamin43

PohTayToez said:


> That's interesting and all, but has nothing to do with getting someone's email, isn't cloning, and only works on a few select phones.



She said it's a blackberry


			
				Google search - Spyphone blackberry said:
			
		

> THE GOOD: *All the “must have” spy phone features* such as SMS* (text message) interception*, *remote monitoring *(listen in on the phone’s surroundings) *call & email logging *(incoming & outgoing), & *GPS location tracking *are now available for Blackberry phones.
> 
> THE BAD: Remote monitoring (PRO version) is a bit unstable. Stick with the Light version for now.
> 
> *THE BOTTOM LINE: Yes, you can spy on a BlackBerry*. Flexispy works EXACTLY as advertised. If you need to spy on a Blackberry cell phone, your ONLY choice is to purchase Flexispy. Once installed, you’ll be able to secretly read all incoming and ougoing SMS (text) messages, email, and call logs. You’ll also get location tracking and remote monitoring features (PRO version only).
> 
> COST: Flexispy Light -* 100 Euro (approx $150 USD) *  / Flexispy PRO - 150 Euro (approx $215 USD)
> 
> http://www.spyphoneguy.com/2009/01/...-spy-phone-review-how-to-be-a-blackberry-spy/



Pretty cheap to Spy on that phone.


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## PohTayToez

tlarkin said:


> Dude all it takes is loading spy software on the phone and physical access does that.  Changing your password does zilch if it has been hijacked.  Don't believe me, google search cell phone tapping software and see what comes up.
> 
> Yes, if he ever had physical access he could have cloned your phone or installed software on it that allows him to spy on you.  If he had physical access to your phone he could have done that.  If there is ever any doubt he touched your phone, erase it.
> 
> The media even did a story on it, and well it is the media but they got some of the info right at least.



Wow, you have a thick head.  You're so desperate to look for an argument that you're not even paying attention to what I'm saying.  I'm not trying to dispute the possibility of a single thing you've said.  *I'm not arguing with you about whether or not he could have cloned or tapped her phone.  I know it's possible.  I'm not disputing that.  This isn't what talking about.  I feel like I'm being redundant, but apparently it hasn't registered with you yet.*

Now I'm going to try and explain to you why I don't think her phone was cloned/tapped: she only thinks that he is reading her emails.  None of the tapping programs I've seen allow you to read emails, and I am fairly certain that cloning would not either.  Also, why would he ONLY be reading her email and not listening to her calls or texts.  

The only reason she even brought up the idea that he was spying on her Blackberry is because that is where she reads and writes her email.  Of course, that is not the only place that her email is stored.  It is much more *plausible*that he stole her password or set up her account to forward to his (as ukulele_ninja suggested).  There are many ways he could have gotten her password.  Maybe she saved it on his computer, maybe she saved it on her computer and he got it from there, maybe he guessed it, maybe he guessed her security question, etc, etc.


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## Jamin43

PohTayToez said:


> Also, why would he ONLY be reading her email and not listening to her calls or texts.



The OP knows her situation better than any of us - so she'll have to figure out what her Ex is doing to intrude on her life and make an educated decision about it.  But do you really think if he was listening to her calls or texts - that he'd let her know he was doin it.  

I'm just sayin


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## PohTayToez

Jamin43 said:


> The OP knows her situation better than any of us - so she'll have to figure out what her Ex is doing to intrude on her life and make an educated decision about it.  But do you really think if he was listening to her calls or texts - that he'd let her know he was doin it.
> 
> I'm just sayin



But he'd let her know he was spying on her email.


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## Jamin43

PohTayToez said:


> But he'd let her know he was spying on her email.



*My ex seems to know who I write to and who writes to me. We both got Blackberries a few months ago and he has my e-mail adresses, although I never gave him my password. However, I called my server a few times and I know there was a problem with my password which I had to change several times. Is it possible for him to use his Blackberry to spy on me? Who has access to passwords? How can I put a stop to this*

Just b/c somebody's dumb enough to get caught doesn't mean he " LET HE RKNOW " he was spying on them.  Give the OP some credit.  It just means they're not as smart as the person they're spyin on


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## PohTayToez

Jamin43 said:


> *My ex seems to know who I write to and who writes to me. We both got Blackberries a few months ago and he has my e-mail adresses, although I never gave him my password. However, I called my server a few times and I know there was a problem with my password which I had to change several times. Is it possible for him to use his Blackberry to spy on me? Who has access to passwords? How can I put a stop to this*
> 
> Just b/c somebody's dumb enough to get caught doesn't mean he " LET HE RKNOW " he was spying on them.  Give the OP some credit.  It just means they're not as smart as the person they're spyin on



When I made that last post, I almost went back and edited it to include the word "indirectly", but decided not to, because I thought that you would know what I meant.

Yes, I know that he probably didn't go up to her and say "Hey, all your emails are belong to me!".  But if she knows he's using information from emails, he would probably use information from phone calls in the same way and it would be just as apparent.


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## tlarkin

PohTayToez said:


> Wow, you have a thick head.  You're so desperate to look for an argument that you're not even paying attention to what I'm saying.  I'm not trying to dispute the possibility of a single thing you've said.  *I'm not arguing with you about whether or not he could have cloned or tapped her phone.  I know it's possible.  I'm not disputing that.  This isn't what talking about.  I feel like I'm being redundant, but apparently it hasn't registered with you yet.*
> 
> Now I'm going to try and explain to you why I don't think her phone was cloned/tapped: she only thinks that he is reading her emails.  None of the tapping programs I've seen allow you to read emails, and I am fairly certain that cloning would not either.  Also, why would he ONLY be reading her email and not listening to her calls or texts.
> 
> The only reason she even brought up the idea that he was spying on her Blackberry is because that is where she reads and writes her email.  Of course, that is not the only place that her email is stored.  It is much more *plausible*that he stole her password or set up her account to forward to his (as ukulele_ninja suggested).  There are many ways he could have gotten her password.  Maybe she saved it on his computer, maybe she saved it on her computer and he got it from there, maybe he guessed it, maybe he guessed her security question, etc, etc.



HAHA likewise you aren't listening to what I am saying.  There is no way to tell on cell phones if it has been cracked/hacked or spied.  Cell phone OSes have zero security model and there are no log files or anything else to suspect or prove that it is being spied upon.

My point was and still is, if there is any doubt you need to wipe and reload the phone completely to remove any such software.  There is no way you can prove it because cell phone OSes have pretty much no security built into them.  It is not like you can run a high jack log, see the running processes or run any kind of AV software on them.  If the process is running as 'root' there is nothing you can do but wipe and reload to eliminate the spy software.

There are even NSA security documents on such things since most of the government runs off of RIM and black berrys.  The whole judicial system for one runs off of RIM technology.  

There is no way she could verify if he was listening on emails, phone and texts unless he told her so.  There is no system in a cell phone OS that allows you to deduct such things.

Perhaps a certain member who develops for such devices can come and explain it better since he would know it way more than you or I would.  Crome if you read this thread can you put in your thoughts since you are probably the best authority on such things.


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## Cromewell

I know that it's very hard to clone a SIM now, I'm not sure about CDMA though. Since you are on Bell, you have a CDMA phone with no SIM. Videotron uses a GSM network and his phone will have a SIM card. So I'm fairly sure this isn't a cloning issue anyway.

If he's receiving your emails then it's entirely possible that he has gotten into your email account and that it's nothing related to your phone. I find it unlikely that he is 'intercepting' messages from your phone.

If you are worried about something loaded on your phone (I doubt this is the case but it's an easy fix) it's pretty easy to wipe and reload a BlackBerry. You should be able to back up your messages and everything as well.

Of all the possibilities, I'd say the most likely is that he has access to your email account.


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## Cromewell

Just to add a little more to this, if you want to wipe your phone anyway it's easy to do. Load up BlackBerry Desktop Manager and download a new version of the software and update your phone. You can find all of the software here: https://www.blackberry.com/Downloads/entry.do?code=6C3CF77D52820CD0FE646D38BC2145CA


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## tlarkin

It is not hard to actually clone a SIM, but it does require a device to do so.  I have a SIM cloner that an ex mobile phone company employee gave me and you can buy them online.  It takes seconds to clone a SIM after you take it out and put it in the cloner.

I know that seems like a lot of work and maybe far fetched but if you were determined to do so, it is not that hard.  google searching would show you guides and where to buy.

CDMA phones are even easier to clone.  I once cloned a sprint phone in a matter of a few minutes but it does require physical access.

If she left her phone on say the coffee table for even 5 minutes that would be enough time to load hijack software onto the phone.

The only way to be 100% sure that your phone is safe is to wipe it and reload it and change all your passwords.


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## LauraA

*Blackberry Spying: Precisions and Clarifications*

Thank-you to all of you for your kindness to help me solve this problem ! 

1. My ex did not tell me explicitely that he is spying on my e-mails: he just insinuates things, i.e. "Did you write to X today?" or "Did you get an e-mail from Y lately?" while there is no way he should know about when or how often I write to these persons or they write to me ! I feel he does it purposefully to test me .

2. He never had long access to my Blackberry (but certainly 5 or 10 minutes here and there). However, he is rather technologically impaired, so I doubt he would have cloned my phone.

3. I think I once entered my e-mail account from his computer, and typed in my unforgivably long, difficult, and "un-guessable" password. Perhaps he could use my password again. That is the only instance that I remember placing myself in a vulnerable position, lately. Therefore, I guess Cromewell was probably on the right path when he said :



Cromewell said:


> Of all the possibilities, I'd say the most likely is that he has access to your email account.



I imagine that changing my password would suffice to correct the problem? I this is not the case, please let me know.  I still will try to "wipe" my phone: I have tons of messages there and it takes forever to delete them! Unless one of you geniuses (no sarcasm here, just full admiration) can suggest a way to erase messages faster.

Take care and *THANK-YOU FOR ALL YOUR BRILLIANT ADVICE AND IDEAS !!!* :good:


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## Cromewell

> imagine that changing my password would suffice to correct the problem?


Yes, changing your password and 'secret question' if you have one should be enough. You may want to scan your PC for keyloggers and such first.



> Unless one of you geniuses (no sarcasm here, just full admiration) can suggest a way to erase messages faster.


It shouldn't take too long to erase. The last time I erased and reloaded the OS and other software it took about 20-30 min. If you have set a password, entering it wrong 10 times should wipe all messages but if you are reloading the handhelp software anyway you might as well use the application loader to erase everything.


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## PohTayToez

tlarkin said:


> It is not hard to actually clone a SIM, but it does require a device to do so.  I have a SIM cloner that an ex mobile phone company employee gave me and you can buy them online.  It takes seconds to clone a SIM after you take it out and put it in the cloner.



Sorry, you're wrong on several points.  First, like I said in my first post, SIM cloning is much harder since they upgraded the security on them several years ago.  Also, even on the older cards, brute forcing the key took hours, sometimes days.

Secondly, as I've brought up before as well, cloning would not give you access to any email accounts being used on that phone.  To set up a phone for email, you have to enter in all of the account information.  Cloning the ESN or SIM would not magically load all of the account information into the new phone.


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## Cromewell

PohTayToez said:


> Sorry, you're wrong on several points.  First, like I said in my first post, SIM cloning is much harder since they upgraded the security on them several years ago.  Also, even on the older cards, brute forcing the key took hours, sometimes days.
> 
> Secondly, as I've brought up before as well, cloning would not give you access to any email accounts being used on that phone.  To set up a phone for email, you have to enter in all of the account information.  Cloning the ESN or SIM would not magically load all of the account information into the new phone.



It would allow eavesdropping and you would miss calls if the tower found the cloned phone first. I haven't dealt with cloned phones with push email services so I don't know what would get forwarded where.


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## PohTayToez

Cromewell said:


> It would allow eavesdropping and you would miss calls if the tower found the cloned phone first. I haven't dealt with cloned phones with push email services so I don't know what would get forwarded where.



Well, unlike a call, email doesn't go directly to the phone, it goes to a server and the phone communicates that that server, so IF a cloned phone did have have access to the email accounts then it would be delivered to both phones unlike an SMS or call.  However, like I said, cloning a phone woudn't input the email account details into the new phone.


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