Hi,

A friend has just passed away and his wife would like to retrieve only the photographs from the handset. Blackberry Storm2 9520, but she does not know the password.

She is more than happy to send the phone to RIM etc.. as she is just interested in the photographs.

Is there a RIM process in place for this situation? alternatively can someone provide me with RIM CEO's email address?

Many Thanks

Harish

I'm sorry to say that I know neither the CEO's email address, nor of any process to assist you. Whilst this is a sad situation, I am not sure that RIM will effectively "break" their own security for you.

If the pics are on an SD card in the device, and the user did not enable SD card encryption, you would be able to get the photos by accessing the card in another BB or an SD Card reader.

Have you tried that?

RIM won't (and can't) break a password for your. Top-notch security just doesn't work that way.

Do what Jadey said about the Media Card. If the pictures on the Media Card are encrypted then there's nothing else you can do.

Sorry.

Thanks for your responses.

How do RIM verify issues for field/customer returned phones, all manufactures have a return rate and to analyse the reasons for these returns you would need to bypass password protection if set.

RIM not wanting to expose this to in dealing with individual clients is a seperate issue, but to say that they cant access the data on the handset makes no sense.

If your story is true, I can understand that you may be distressed over this and not thinking rationally.
Quite simply, the BlackBerry is specifically designed to be the most secure mobile device on the market. For all intents and purposes, it's unhackable.
There's no "master key" that would allow RIM, or anyone, to bypass the password security on the handheld.
It makes perfect sense... unfortunately you aren't able to accept that.

There's no need for RIM to bypass the password for testing and analysis on any returned handheld.
They'd simply wipe the handheld if they needed to gain access to it for any reason.

Agree with penguin3107

RIM won't DOA a handheld bc a user messed the software up... If there is a hardware fault, they would wipe and reload OS if needs be... No need to break passwords at all.

Agree with Penguin also. There's just nothing you can do.

Of course there are private businesses whose business is to use high level forensics software to extract data from locked devices and fried memory, and such. They mostly do work for government agencies, which are about the only ones who can afford such services.

Of course, you haven't answered the main question.. or I missed it.
Are these pictures on the Media Card, and have you removed it to check and see?

Hi chaps,

Thanks for all your responses.

Bill was a good friend, you can find a tribute to him at Bhajan Singh Sohal - Bill Sohal

I am currently out of the country and got this request by phone from Bills wife. SD card was the first question I asked, but apparently no SD card found fitted, so photo's must be saved to internal memory.

So, if the pictures were in the device memory, and no one knows the password, there's nothing that can be done.

Sorry, hopefully he might have backed up his pictures to his PC?