French President's rage at ex-wife SMS claims

Ah I wondered when we’d see a high profile case that depends on the contents of a text message. Text messaging is absolutely fraught with validation issues because it is so, so, SO easy to fake the originator and make a text message appear to have been sent from someone’s mobile phone.

The vast majority of people are entirely unaware just how easy it is to fake text messages.

They are also under the impression that simply deleting the text message means it’s gone forever. Not so. Networks generally hold on to the actual content for variable amounts of time and it’s also possible to recover data from some SIM cards and phone memories.

Have a read of this issue:

Link: Sarkozy To Sue Over SMS Claim – EURSOC – News and comment from Europe

President Nicolas Sarkzoy’s lawyer says his client never sent a text message to his ex-wife pleading with her to come back to him.

Last week, the website of left-wing news weekly Le Nouvel Observateur claimed that eight days before his marriage to Carla Bruni, Sarkozy sent a text message to former wife Cécilia telling her “If you come back, I’ll cancel everything.”

That’s obviously a rather powerful, charged text message — and highly embarrassing for the President.

The article continues, asking:

How easy is it to hoax a message like this, or send it from another phone to make it appear as if it emanated from Sarkozy’s mobile?

Simple. Any 12 year old with access to a mobile gateway (via the likes of the anonymous texting services that are so popular on the web today) can do it.

The only way to be ultra sure who sent what is to ask the mobile operators to dig deep into their logs. One of the two parties in the above story will then be proved correct.