Skytel stored ‘text messages’, ya busted!!

Ignorant, arrogant idiots Kwame and Christine chose to pitch woo using the one texting system that leaves a permanent record

The mayor apparently picked it himself.

Do text messages disappear — like oral conversations — or are they permanently logged somewhere for potential retrieval — like e-mail usually is?…[Detroit Mayor Kwame] Kilpatrick and [his former Chief of Staff Christine] Beatty testified last summer in a whistleblower trial that arose from a lawsuit filed by two police officers alleging they were fired for investigating claims Kilpatrick used his security unit to cover his extramarital affairs.Kilpatrick and Beatty denied any sexual or romantic ties in 2002 and 2003. But the Detroit Free Press said in a story published Thursday that it examined 14,000 text messages on Beatty’s city-issued pager from those years and found many examples….The city’s text messaging service is provided by Mississippi-based wireless company SkyTel.SkyTel’s devices employ a technology called Narrowband PCS, including two-way paging, that “rose and fell” in the mid-1990s, according to David Chamberlain, a wireless analyst with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based In-Stat.

Chamberlain said SkyTel’s device is more akin to e-mail than to text-messaging, and messages are stored. While mainstream technology has since moved to SMS or Short Message Service technology, some corporations and governments have stayed with wireless services like SkyTel.

textually.org | March 11, 2008 | Texts expose yet another politician’s indiscretions

Just how do authorities get text messages?In the case of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who allegedly sent sexually explicit text messages to a top aide, records were archived by a private company that he, as mayor, authorized to handle the city’s messaging system. It became part of the subpoena process of a lawsuit…….text messages are routinely erased by the wireless phone companies, generally within a few days of being transmitted.Verizon, Sprint and AT&Tall insist there are no stored volumes of text messages out there.

Don’t use Skytel Kwame……..use a cb

~ by mediashark on March 26, 2008.