Gizmodo: Lost Phone Leads Police to Discover Major UK Child Porn Ring

[MattFancy]

http://gizmodo.com/5549154/lost-phone-leads-police-to-discover-major-uk-child-porn-ring?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Sony Ericson W350i—the phone of choice for British paedophiles, turns out. A massive UK child pornography ring with 70 members was discovered after a man left his phone on the bus, whose driver found indecent images of children.

While it was a prepaid phone, the police were able to track down the 50-year-old wheelchair-bound owner through the supermarket he'd topped the credit up at. After finding out the owners details, they searched his house and found another 14 phones, six of them containing images deemed not suitable (over 370 photos were found on the phones in total)—along with contact details of other paedophiles, which enabled the police to discover 70 more people involved.

This particular culprit managed to escape a prison sentence, instead being handed a three-year community order.

This brings up a question I have, if you find someones phone do you have the right to go through it? I understand looking for a phone number or something, but should you go through someone's pictures and messages? What do you guys think?

[Kosher Ham]

Lost property is pretty much free game.

I found a lost phone next to my car at the mall once and was lucky that I knew some Korean. I found the mom's number and called to give the girl her phone back. I only went through the numbers though.

[MattFancy]

Lost property is pretty much free game.

I found a lost phone next to my car at the mall once and was lucky that I knew some Korean. I found the mom's number and called to give the girl her phone back. I only went through the numbers though.

See I understand going through the contact list. But what makes it ok to do more than that? I mean in this case it was a good thing the person did, but would you be upset if someone went through your phone?

[Kosher Ham]

I personally would not care. And I have some pretty personal stuff on my phone. But nothing is damaging to my life, or embarrassing. I would just be happy to not have to buy a new phone and get all the numbers back.