Challenges in Mobile Phone Antenna Development

Abstract

As ubiquitous societal components, mobile (or cellular) telephonescontinue to become increasingly prevalent. With a shrinking footprintand a seemingly ever-increasing storage capacitance, these devices canbe warehouses of information about our daily lives. Just as mobilephones permeate our social fabric, they are also becoming more and morecrucial as evidentiary devices in civil and criminal investigations.Thus, our law enforcement, intelligence and private investigationcommunities are grasping for ways to get evidence off each and everymobile device. Some tools and techniques exist for such investigativework; however, there is not yet one good solution. The variousmanufacturers, models, operating systems, protocols, and cables lend toa combinatorial explosion that leaves most criminal investigatorsgrasping for a cohesive solution.During a recent project funded by a National Institute of JusticeElectronic Crimes Research grant, we experienced these challenges firsthand. In this paper, we summarize the issues facing both the criminalinvestigators hoping to recover evidence from these mobile phone devicesas well as the challenges that must be overcome by the technologyvendors who are working to develop automated tools to aid theinvestigators.