Most people use mobile phones nowadays, right? I'm sure that at least 99% of all the people who are reading this article own at least one cellphone. But have you wondered what happens when a mobile phone is found at a crime scene? How do the police find out what that phone contains? It's surely pin code locked. It could even be damaged. Well, a smart person would go to the manufacturer and by use of legal documents, ask him to recover the data from the device. I'm sure they can pretty much recover everything from a mobile phone in the case it hasn't been damaged entirely.

But the truth is not anyone has the authority to ask for something like this. So, what could a normal person do in order to find out what data exists on a specific device?

They could use Paraben's CSI Stick. This is a simple USB device that comes with various adapters so it can connect to different mobile phone data ports and extract data from them. The thing is that the phone isn't actually switched on, but the user powers the stick from a bundled portable power source throughout the whole data mining process.

A switch on the device sets it to retain only text files (SMS messages, phone books and call logs), multimedia files (photos and movies), or it can be set for logical copying (all text and multimedia files). It can also be set for a complete physical copy, but this process can take a long time to complete. I wonder what happens if the power supply depletes while a physical copy is in progress.

After choosing the function just press the acquire button and let it do its thing. When it's done, you can plug it into a PC and read it using Paraben's Device Seizure or DS Lite. Wait, isn't the DS Lite a portable gaming console? Why, yes it is. But it seems that the geniuses at Paraben don't really know what's going on in the world. I suppose DS Lite comes from Device Seizure Lite and is a limited feature version of the Device Seizure software.

Remember when I said that the device comes with various data port adapters? Well, that was an overstatement, it only comes with two adapters and it only works with Motorola and Samsung phones. So good luck in Europe, where Nokia is market leader.

But hey, I'm sure all will be fine considering that the company's promising “more manufacturer support coming soon”.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .