Weird cellphone question

[universible]

Here's a weird one...a non tech-savy buddy called me tonight. He thinks someone hacked his cellphone somehow and removed a "received call" phone number from his phone. Basically, he had a work related meeting with someone, they called his cellphone so that he'd have their cellphone number (shows up in received calls)...meeting went bad, the next day my friend checks his phone to call the person back and he number is now gone. He said his cell provider also has a list of numbers called and received online, and the number is missing from there now too.

I laughed at him and said he's been watching too many movies, but he thinks that someone hacked into his phone and account and removed the callback number.

Anyone heard of anything like this before?

[Hoepoe]

Many cellhones have a max number of calls that are stored in the cal log. Some defaults to removing numbers when the max is reached - sounds like that's what happened on the phone at least.

h

[CV]

I am not sure of the exact issue but "hacking" of the phone to take a single phone number off of the received list is a a bit extreme.

[Jimbo]

if your buddy did not answer the call and no voicemail was left, it would likely not show up in the phone companies records as there is no basis for billing. Also, if he did not pick up, it would be in missed calls, not received calls.

[The Fat Guy]

Hacking a cell phone can be fairly easy, but hacking a cell phone company is a whole nother skill set. Not sure what happened during the meeting but it is also possible to block your number when calling out just for that reason. You would have no record on your phone and the phone company woud have at best a "Blocked Number" record. You would have to go to the switch owner to get the record of the actual number, very hard to do.


My $.02

[CV]

Neg; I believe what you mean is that spoofing a cell phone is fairly easy. Actually hacking into and accessing the data within the phone is not without some serious equipment.

[universible]

Thanks for the info guys. This is all pretty much what I thought. I mentioned the cycling through of the saved numbers, though I'm not sure if he was actually left a voicemail (so it'd show up in his bill or online info). I also mentioned that my friend might have watched too many spy movies...his meeting was nothing that'd give anyone a reason to have the NSA hack his phone and send in the black helicopters, if you know what I mean. He says he knows he saw the number on his phone, but I'm even guessing he didn't actually see it and that it was never saved to his missed or received calls in the first place.

Thanks again

[The Fat Guy]

Neg; I believe what you mean is that spoofing a cell phone is fairly easy. Actually hacking into and accessing the data within the phone is not without some serious equipment.

My mogul has a wireless network card and it can be accessed like any other unprotected windows device on a wireless network. I stand corrected, a normal run of the mil cell phone would be much harder.

I do agree with you that spoofing is easier, especially a GSM device. I also think that if you can hack a cell phone why the fuck would you be wasting time removing numbers from a call list.

It sounds like a David Blaine Street magic trick...