PETALING JAYA: After accidentally leaving his cellphone in a shopping trolley, Sivagurunathan Chinniah called his number many times but his calls went unanswered.
“I then realised that whoever took the phone had no intention of returning it,” said the Perak-born Sivagurunathan who lives in Iowa, United States, with his wife and two children.
Looking for ways to retrieve his Samsung Galaxy Light Android, Sivagurunathan went online.
“At first, I tracked my phone using the Android Device Manager,” said Sivagurunathan, 53, who lost his phone on Oct 4.
But this only indicated an approximate location of the phone, he added.
Following this Sivagurunathan, who has degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaya respectively, remotely installed a software called AndroidLost.
“It is so simple. And there are many ways you can locate your phone,” said Sivagurunathan, who is the vice- president of application development Newcom Technologies Inc.
What followed was an experience of sorts as Sivagurunathan was able to hear and see the person who had taken his phone.
Within 12 hours of installing the application, he managed to trace the phone to a house in Ottumwa, some 160km from where he lived.
“I managed to remotely take control of my phone on the Internet and could even take pictures of the surroundings,” said Sivagurunathan.
Sivagurunathan added that he managed to record the sounds in the house as well as programmed a fake pop-up, which when opened, would snap pictures of the person handling the phone.
“Unfortunately the pictures were not clear,” said Sivagurunathan, who then informed the Ottumwa Police Department.
Two police officers were despatched to the location and when they arrived, Sivagurunathan, set-off the alarm in his phone enabling the officers to locate the house.
To a question if our android phones can be taken control of remotely in the same way by hacking e-mail accounts, Sivagurunathan said: “Yes, it is quite easy to do.”
