SMS text spying app?

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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iWin
My neighbor has a problem. Her brother is somehow able to see all the SMS text messages her family sends to each other. He has replied to messages he wasn't sent.

I advised that they continue to diss him and bait him in messages.

The only clues she has are
  1. He has an iPhone with some spy app
  2. Something about "they're in a group"

THEY don't have iPhones. She has a Blackberry.

Methinks it only works because bro set up forwarding on each of their phones. He snuck it on. As in call the police and have his ass arrested.

Is it possible that he sent a message that got the forwarding turned on?

I refuse to believe this can work across devices and carrier without opting in, either maliciously or inadvertently.

Anybody got any ideas? Google just gives links to scammy sites that sell software - that you have to install on the victim.
 
Last edited:
Mike I've dealt with some internet crimes in my career and I don't have the tech knowledge to say how this happened, I use experts for that, but my criminal defense attorney smell test is ringing bells, that what ever was done ain't exactly kosher.
 
Something doesn't sound right Mike. There isn't a very easy way to do something like that...that wouldn't be very obvious.

I'd start by calling the cell phone company to see if there is something on their end, perhaps he called as them, but I doubt they have any such features.

I'm more leaning towards your neighbor being crazy :)
 
I'm with Jesse. I'm leaning toward someone is physically snooping with the phone.

Hey, that's happened to me!
 
Group MMS?

If one responds to a text that is a group MMS, the response goes back to everybody.
 
rpadula said:
Group MMS?

If one responds to a text that is a group MMS, the response goes back to everybody.
Click to expand...

Sounds like that could be it. Wouldn't the group have a unique address?

I'm going to get my hands on her phone and see what it looks like.
 
My first suspicion would be to check with the cell provider and find out if there have been parental controls put on any of the phones. I used to have parental controls on my kids' phones, and while I never did this, IIRC one of the options was to be able to see their texts. I can't swear to it, but I think it was an option.
 
save the images/movies/music that's on the phone and do a factory reset. after that, send out some "test" messages that you know he'd answer to. If he does, then you know it wasn't the phone itself. This would also eliminate a blind-recipient group message -- that would be my biggest guess. Most people don't create a "new" text message conversation when they go to text on iPhones, they just "continue the conversation" with the person they're looking for. It's pretty easy to do any of those items above.

There's also tons of hooks you can throw on an iphone to capture data, if he knows what he's doing and had access to the phone for say 20 minutes you can crack them so that all "key presses" are sent to you as well as applications launched.

Parental controls and detailed-usage-histories are ways of getting it from the provider.

There's more advanced ways, but they all cost a lot of money.

My thoughts are: Back up the music, contacts, video, and images (NOT an itunes backup) and then factory-reset, and manually add the music/video/images/contacts back. There's always a risk of losing data/files/etc., so be warned in that regard.
 
Or, an actual participant in the conversation forwarded the message (purposefully) and then they made up this story to cover their tracks.
 
This sounds exactly like group MMS on iPhones. Doing a factory reset won't fix it because the setting is "on" by default. The setting essentially says "my replies always go to the group" but the messaging app only displays you replying to the actual sender.

Settings -> Messages -> group messaging to "off"
 
masloki said:
This sounds exactly like group MMS on iPhones. Doing a factory reset won't fix it because the setting is "on" by default. The setting essentially says "my replies always go to the group" but the messaging app only displays you replying to the actual sender.

Settings -> Messages -> group messaging to "off"
Click to expand...
Once done, own the phone. Put a lock on the keyboard and don't let him EVER have access to the unlocked phone.
 
masloki said:
This sounds exactly like group MMS on iPhones. Doing a factory reset won't fix it because the setting is "on" by default. The setting essentially says "my replies always go to the group" but the messaging app only displays you replying to the actual sender.

Settings -> Messages -> group messaging to "off"
Click to expand...

AHA! That's it. I have to find that setting on her BlackBerry.

She said she deleted bro from contacts so far but he may still be getting messages to/from her sister.
 
If you're sending a group message it's really obvious. It'll show everyone you're sending to.
 
jesse said:
If you're sending a group message it's really obvious. It'll show everyone you're sending to.
Click to expand...

On Blackberry or iOS?

(Haven't looked at a Blackberry in years. I wouldn't be surprised if their interface sucked big rocks for newer features like group MMS, though.)
 
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