legends · 4 min read ·
Repair Ticket 2208-R
A phone-repair ticket shows photographs that the phone takes of its owner when he is asleep.
**Clearwater Mobile Repairs · Ticket 2208-R**
**Customer:** Jonah Reed · **Device:** Smartphone, black, cracked screen · **Fault:** Screen cracked, touch intermittent
**Received:** 3 Oct · **Technician:** M. Stroud · **Passcode provided:** yes
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**Intake notes (3 Oct)**
Screen cracked across the lower third. Touch responds in patches. Customer states the phone was dropped on a stairwell. Customer asked us to back up the photos before repair. Backup completed.
*Technician's note: the backup contains 1,402 photos. Customer's gallery shows the same location in most, a kitchen with a window facing a brick wall. Customer appears in very few of them.*
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**Diagnostic notes (M. Stroud, 5 Oct)**
Screen replaced. Display calibrated. Device passes all functional tests. Camera, microphone, speaker: working.
Device shows a recent photo gallery, dated after the repair, and the photos were taken with the front camera, while the device was in the workshop, on the test bench. Each one is of the technician, at the bench, from behind, holding the phone up. In the last photo, the technician is turned round, looking into the lens, with the expression of someone who has just noticed the phone is watching them.
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**Technician's note (5 Oct, continued)**
I didn't take the photos. The device has no other users. The timestamps are accurate. The location data shows the phone was at the bench the whole time, and at the customer's kitchen window at the same time. Both can't be correct.
I've reset the device. I've deleted the photo gallery. The phone has rebooted.
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**Customer message (Jonah Reed, 6 Oct, 02:11)**
Hi, I got the phone back. Thanks. The screen's great.
But my gallery has the photos again. It's all of my kitchen. Taken from the window, at night, with my light on. And there's a woman standing in the yard, outside, looking up at me. She's wearing the same grey coat as the technician who fixed it.
I haven't left the flat since I got it back. I can see her in the photo every time I look.
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**Technician's note (6 Oct, 09:30)**
Customer returned the device. Asked us to check the front camera. Customer says the photos are being taken every time he unlocks the phone, and that they show the room he is standing in, from the position of the phone, which is in his hand. But the room in the photos has no one in it except the customer, asleep in a chair by the window, with the phone in his lap, and a woman behind him, leaning over the back of the chair, with her hand on his shoulder.
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**Diagnostic notes (M. Stroud, 7 Oct)**
Second diagnostic. Device logs the same photos, with new metadata. The camera's location is recorded as "shop, bench 3." The subject's location is recorded as "customer's flat." Both are true. I checked the bench. There's a mark in the dust on the bench where the phone was placed, and a second mark, a small handprint, pressed flat, facing the camera.
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**Customer message (Jonah Reed, 9 Oct)**
I've been trying to stay awake. I keep falling asleep in the chair. Every time I wake up, the phone has taken another photo. In the most recent, I'm asleep in the chair. The woman's hand is on my shoulder, and she's not holding anything. She's just looking down at me, and her face is my face. Same eyes. Same mouth. She's wearing my glasses.
Please tell me how to delete the photos. I've tried. They come back when I'm asleep.
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**Technician's note (9 Oct, final)**
The customer's phone has been returned to the workshop for a full factory reset. Device was wiped. The reset completed at 23:58.
The reset log shows a single recovered file: a photo, taken at 23:58 by the front camera of the device, while it was in the workshop, on the test bench, face down. The file has no subject. The image is of a bench, empty, with a phone lying on it face up. The screen of the phone is lit, showing the photo gallery. The gallery is showing a picture of the bench.
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**Final ticket update (Clearwater, 27 Oct)**
Ticket 2208-R closed. Device collected by the customer on 26 Oct.
*Technician's note: the customer came in to collect the phone and asked to see the device before he left. He looked at the screen for a long time. Then he said, "It's got its own photos now. I don't need to keep any." He handed the phone back to me, and asked me to keep it on the bench, and to take a picture of it every hour, so he would know it was still there.*
*I've set it up. The phone is on the bench, face up, screen lit. Every hour it takes a photo of the room. The room has a window. The window faces the yard, and there is a grey coat hanging on the hook behind the door, and a man in a chair in the corner, asleep.*