Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Lost teen's iPhone recovered at sea, family seeks Apple assistance

Lost teen's iPhone recovered at sea, family seeks Apple assistance
Thread Tools
NewsPoster
MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 26, 2016, 07:50 AM
 
An iPhone 6, thought to belong to a Florida teenager lost at sea in 2015, has been recovered from the vessel the youth and his companion were in when they disappeared. Both Austin Stephanos and Perry Cohen were just 14 when they embarked on a small fishing trip off the coast of Jupiter, Florida. Mystery surrounds what happened to the pair, after a large-scale air and sea search failed to find the teenagers, but did locate their empty 19-foot boat some two days after they were reported missing on July 24, 2015.


Although the empty vessel was marked for recovery with a data buoy, it malfunctioned, and the vessel was once again lost. It was only on March 18 this year that their single-engine craft was rediscovered by the Norwegian supply vessel Edda Fjord, with Austin Stephanos's iPhone found on board. Stephanos's father has been in touch with Apple about the iPhone, reports CNN, and is hopeful that the iPhone might yield some clues as to what happened.

"[Apple] seems willing to help us try to get the phone operational again. That would be the first order of business, since Austin's phone has been submerged in salt water for over eight months," said Blu Stephanos. The family had tried, unsuccessfully, to access their son Austin's iCloud backup, but apparently he hadn't activated the function. "Every IT professional that I've contacted warned me that there is a very, very slim chance that anything can be recovered from this phone ... but I'm not giving up hope," Stephanos said.

Although the mainstream media have tried to conflate this case with Apple's fight over data encryption with the FBI, the data request is from a family grieving for the loss of a son, with hope that there might be a final farewell message on the iPhone in question. Apple has refused a similar request from a family in Italy with a functional iPhone. Further, it is not clear what level of passcode protection Stephanos had enabled on the iPhone, or if there was an iCloud login passcode that Apple would potentially be able to recover.
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Apr 26, 2016 at 03:13 PM. )
     
coffeetime
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2006
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 26, 2016, 08:15 AM
 
Maybe in the future and when technology is becoming so advance, there will be a mini black-box built into each phone. It will record and maintain the last 2 hours of what had happened: data and voice.
     
DiabloConQueso
Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jun 2008
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 26, 2016, 11:12 AM
 
I'm sure the teeming millions would absolutely love that. Another device surreptitiously adding the mundane events of our mundane lives to the ever-growing body of recorded history.
     
sgs123
Junior Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 26, 2016, 01:14 PM
 
The favor they're asking here is probably on the order of transferring the flash memory and maybe the matching Secure Enclave chip(s) to a functioning phone to attempt recovery. Apple might take it that far and perhaps the FBI can take over if it's still locked. ;-)
     
Mike Wuerthele
Managing Editor
Join Date: Jul 2012
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
Apr 26, 2016, 03:06 PM
 
In the ocean for nine months. They're not going to get anything back from the chips on the phone.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 03:37 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,