IamA Anthony van der Meer, director of the shortfilm Find my Phone AMA!

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-29T13:13:25+00:00

It's actually pretty hard to find out if your phone is infected. The best thing you can do is minimize the risks as prevention is a big part of the battle.

Download only from trusted sources like the official app stores.
Check the permissions when installing an app. If a notepad app wants access to your camera, location or contacts it should ring a bell.
Be aware even apps in the official appstore can be infected or your phone might get infected in another way so protect your information. For instance, I don't take my phone with me to every meeting and I don't my phone for music when showering.

If you have a company Phone there is a big chance they have a remote administration system installed on your phone. They usually install this to track the phone once stolen and wipe the data on it. That means that your company can at least track your locations and has access to a lot of metadata. It doesn't mean that your company is collecting it as well but the backdoor is already open. Be aware of this and treat your phone use accordingly.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-29T13:01:31+00:00

If I asked to record the conversation, I think the policeman would have acted differently. I wanted to really show what police do when you report a theft: noting. He even assumed I just reported the theft because it's mandatory for a insurance claim and not because I really wanted to report a crime.

I the Netherlands this is starting to become a part of the problem. It takes a long time to fill in a report and when your done, the police can't act because of it's priority. The result is almost no one reports phone theft. Less reports is being interpreted as less crimes which results in even less priority.

The policeman is isn't shown in the video, you only hear is voice. The only thing that you see is me at the front desk, this is also what you can see when you look trough the glass door if I'm not mistaking.

Thank you for your concerns :)

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-25T11:06:19+00:00

Although I used his data, this wasn't that much because I always waited for a WiFi connection before doing the more data hungry actions like backing up his contacts or photo's. So it was possible to notice but I think didn't really so too much to make it very suspicious. The data I usrd would show up under Android -System so that shouldn't really raise any suspension as well. But as I said before, I am not 100% certain he didn't notice anything.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-23T23:36:25+00:00

I don't really think so as he used the phone some time after that, but I am not 100% sure. People on drugs can get very paranoid so maybe. But if I had to guess he probably needed money and sold the phone

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-23T23:26:11+00:00

Thank you!

Find my phone got nominated for a few awards (drempel award, maaskant award) but I never really was actively sending it in to international festivals because I wanted the international version film to be online within a month after the Dutch release.

I am working on several projects that have a bigger budget (still not a lot) and still am looking for the right partner for some other projects. I am a director and have to try to make a living out of it, so definitely!

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-23T23:17:14+00:00

I was already in the preproduction of the film when I heard about that project. So it wasn't really an inspiration for me but I did like it. There was a point in his project where in my opinion he just strated shaming the guy and didn't really add anything to the story but other than that I like it.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-23T21:11:53+00:00

Not really scared but there is a chance a law suit will follow. I tried to minimize the chance of that happening though. You can read about it in a previous post.

In general I think journalists should follow their hart and have the guts to sometimes reach the boarder of legal and illegal if the story is important enough. If every journalist stops working when they feel threatened, we won't have any news but only press releases. I think this is a problem a lot of countries face. Some of the main stream media seems to be in bed with politics and corporations.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-23T21:05:18+00:00

I love that presentation. When I was doing research I tried to find similar projects to make sure my concept was still was original and relevant. I came across that video. It's a great story but with a completely different approach.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T11:31:14+00:00

My iPhone got stolen in January 2014. It was an iPhone 5 and had a simple lock screen (code). As you may know there were a lot of lockscreen bypasses for the older iOS versions and even the newest was recently patched because of a glitch that allowed going through the contacts and photo's whole the iPhone was still locked.

But for me that wasn't even relevant as the phone was unlocked because I was making notes when it was stolen.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T10:53:00+00:00

I am not sure if I understand the question correctly. I don't think there was enough material to make the film longer.

If you mean the concept, I would refer to my previous answer. This was not a project for pure entertainment. So it really depends on what the motives of the movie company would be and who's in control of the project.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T10:50:35+00:00

Well, I have answered this question a lot so I will quote a previous answer. "I started to feel sorry for the thief because I interpreted all of the data I got in a way which made me feel sorry for him. What if I wanted to see him as a criminal? Or a terrorist? The data would allow me to do that because some of his behaviour can be found suspicious. In the end I was actually shocked when I saw the guy in real life. He didn't look as lonely, sad and old as I thought he looked in the footage I took. Instead he looked pretty fit, smelled like drugs and came very aggressive and suspicious towards me. I saw this man every day, two weeks long so I thought I knew him. The para-social band I had with him (a one-sided band trough a screen) fooled me."

To add some extra things. As you may not realize, just because the guy bragged about the girls to his friend, this is not solid evidence he actually does what he says. Also, a lot of information wasn't translated before I met him in real life and felt sorry for him. This is btw a common problem that a lot of spy agencies also face, collecting data but don't have the capacity to have their translations and analytics on time.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:51:29+00:00

It was never my intention to confront the guy because I was investigating where stolen phones end up. I was hoping the phone would turn up somewhere else, which it did 7 months later. Even though the story of this guy stops at the end, the story about the phone still continuous on.

I went to all the places that were important to the story to take some footage I never used besides that last scene. I thought I could might catch a glimpse of the guy to see if he was still in the Netherlands. If he wasn't I would explain why It didn't have internet connection. I was all by myself and was holding a mono pod. If I had the intention to confront him, I wouldn't have gone alone.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:47:08+00:00

Thank you! I just answered this question so: There is a big chance the man has seen the film. Maybe it's naive but I hope it will be an eye-opener for him to change his life around in a positive way. He already got rid of the phone after two weeks so that won't be a problem.

And if I do get killed, a few million people know who probably has done it ;)

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:42:06+00:00

Thanks man!

There is a big chance the man has seen the film. Maybe it's naive but I hope it will be an eye-opener for him to change his life around in a positive way. He already got rid of the phone after two weeks so that won't be a problem.
Check the last 15 seconds of the film ;)

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:34:34+00:00

Love the title. It's hard to tell. I will focus the sequel on the complete life cycle of the phone.

A prequel about where my iPhone ended up will probably be released before that. I am in the pre-production of that film now and I am planning on releasing it next year. It all depends on the developments of the story

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:32:18+00:00

I started to get interested in these topics when I was around the age of 19. I always liked technology but was never really thinking about the negative consequences have. I was and am very interested in Wiki leaks and the Snowden revelations. Snowden really kickstarted my interest in the subjects. When I did research for the film I really dived into the material as well. I now am politicly active on these subjects by giving speeches and workshops, soon even for politicians to help defend our privacy rights.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:22:59+00:00

It was never my intention to confront the guy because I was investigating where stolen phones end up. I was hoping the phone would turn up somewhere else, which it did 7 months later. Even though the story of this guy stops at the end, the story about the phone still continuous on.

I think the reactions regarding the nationality, where people blame his behaviour on it are terrible. It is a fact the guy was a Egyptian. In the film I wanted to tell a story about the human side of the thief, and religion and ethnicity are a big part of somebodies identity. That's the only reason I mentioned it.

But the thief could have been anyone. It's just coincidence. It also doesn't say anything about the country he is from. There are always idiots who will blame bad behaviour on ethnicity. Fortunately the big majority just sees a man as a man and not as race or colour.

The opposite reactions were people claim I made the film to spread hate and Islamophobia are just as bad and actually are quite racist as well. Just because I am a western white guy doesn't mean I hate Arabic people.

But it's typical for the time we are living in.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:11:50+00:00

Yes, check the last 15 seconds of the film ;)

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-21T00:06:54+00:00

I was operating in a grey area. It basically comes down to this: Spying or hacking someone is illegal.

But technically I was doing it with my own device. As an artist and journalist I had a have a some more rights.

There are a few important things I had to take in account. - proportionality; I couldn't just spy as much as I wanted but only collected the necessary data I needed for the film. This is also why in the sequel I will focus on less privacy sensitive data. - social importance: The reason I made the film and came up with the concept. - maximizing the impact while minimizing the negative consequences: I got a lot of media coverage, in every interview I explain my motives. On the other side I censored the data of the guy.

The most important thing is the motive. I did this project to start a discussion about privacy on smartphones and make people aware of the issue. I believe the film is a very effective way to really show what kind of data you can collect and what the consequences of it can be.

Even though not everyone gets the point at first, people now subconsciously realize that getting your smartphone hacked is possible, easy and the amount of data you can collect is enormous. I hope all people who see the film will realize the risk of getting hacked on smartphones, by hackers and governments. On computers, most people use virus scans, install updates and some people even put tape on their webcams while almost nobody even considers how vulnerable a smartphone is, and what the implications of getting hacked mean.

I think the film already created a lot of awareness and started discussions about it. I don't want to encourage anyone to redo this experiment because the film already made the point. I didn't make the film for entertainment. Hacking of phones is a big business and there are plenty recent examples of phones getting hacked. During my research I came across a lot of malware for smartphones that was sold pretty cheap. The problem is already there, unfortunately people are not as aware as they should.

That doesn't guarantee I won't get thrown in jail, but I did the best I could to prevent it while still be able to publish the film

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T23:32:11+00:00

I studied film on a Art academy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. I am now working as a freelance director and I give speeches and workshops about privacy, hacking and cybercrime.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T23:09:49+00:00

The phone woke up with a Romanian user, it wasn't in Romania. It already has a new users and is in a new country again (so now a third owner). I am not going to spoil more than this but I think the sequel will surprise a lot of people.
We were witnesses of the theft, my girlfriend looked the man in the eyes a moment before he stole the phone. The whole point of going to the police that night and filing the report the next morning was to have an official document that discribes what the man looked like. As you can hear the first time the man appears in a picture, the description we gave the police officer fits the man on the photo. Also my girlfriend immediately recognized him in the pictures. Besides that we have a lot of supporting evidence it's the same guy. It is privacy sensitive information (like phonenumbers he called the first few minutes etc.) so I can't publish it. Also, he didn't reset the phone so even if it was a buyer, he could have known the phone was stolen because all my pictures and accounts were still connected to the phone and I definitely did not sell him the phone. We were not allowed to see the CCTV recordings.
yes I do believe that. I prepared the phone with advanced thiefs in mind.
I am not going to get into to much detail about that because I don't want this information to be used by the wrong people or encourage anyone to spy or redo this project but here we go. I had a lot of help from Mr_Bartek. He explained it on reddit very easily befor so I am going to quote him:

"Basically the phone was S-OFF'd first. Next we modified the ROM and turned the phone S-ON and locked BL. S-OFF was needed to make the device look stock after installing Cerberus. Some other HTC device specific changes were made in order to stop people from flashing ROMs."

We also unrooted the phone, made some changes so it couldn't find system updates and wiped our traces.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T23:07:22+00:00

I always start with a story idea. I always try to minimize the characters and make a draft were I just summarize the crucial scenes to tell the story. I think that's a good way to start.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T23:03:57+00:00

I wasn't expecting the film to go viral. So that was actually unexpected for me.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T22:48:45+00:00

I used Google Maps and recorded the screen really closely so you can see the pixels

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer · 2016-12-20T22:27:58+00:00

I took me about a year of technical research before making the film and a year after making about the legal consequences the film might have.

As a student I didn't have a big budget. I paid for the film myself, so from paying the composer of the music to buying the phone and testing different spyware.

FMP_Anthony_vd_Meer

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