By Kenfrey Kiberenge
Cheating spouses watch out: A new technology that recovers deleted SMSes from ‘spare wheels’ is in the country!
The technology is reining in promiscuous partners who conceal their illicit affairs by deleting text messages they receive from their other lovers.
Today, from as low as Sh6,500, you can establish whether your partner is cheating on you. This has been made possible by East African Data Handlers Limited, a company based in Nairobi’s Westlands area.
According to the company’s Managing Director George Njoroge, innumerable people have engaged the services of the company to have their partners investigated. And contrary to popular belief that women are the culprits when it comes to spying on their partners, Njoroge says Kenya has "very many jealous men" who will do anything to know if their partners are unfaithful.
Good response
"The response is good. Both men and women are coming to us for this service," said Njoroge.
The managing director said majority of his customers are married couples their social standing notwithstanding. "Even the high and mighty are coming to us for this service. The response is overwhelming," he said. But this service is not for the light-hearted: you have to ‘steal’ your partner’s mobile phone at least for a day, during which time the recovery of deleted SMS will be made. In addition, you need to be ready to handle the outcome.
"We have recovered incriminating evidence. We normally put the SMSes on a CD or in text format and send them to our client and it is now for him or her to decide what to do with them," said the MD. Njoroge conceived the idea of recovering data after a nasty experience in 2003.
He was in fourth year at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology when his computer crashed, just as he was finalising his academic project.
As a result, he did not graduate with his classmates since he had not been assessed. Although he is set to attend the coveted ceremony next year, to the 27-year-old the crashing of the hard disk was a "blessing in disguise".
"I decided to look for a way to recover data, even that which has been deleted," he recalls.
His subsequent endeavours earned him more than he anticipated. In 2003, he enrolled for an online course in computer forensic and data recovery at a UK-based university.
Between 2006 and 2007 Njoroge travelled to Singapore to train with the main manufacturers of hard disk drives, Seagate Company.
Today, he can recover even an SMS that has been deleted from a mobile phone, a service hitherto unique to his firm. Njoroge has nine employees, but he is the only one licensed to recover SMS.
But that is not all. Njoroge’s expertise has come in handy to rape survivors, especially where the aggressor is a friend and later sends a text message apologising for the beastly act. He says he has recovered messages where the survivors deleted the texts in a huff but later filed a lawsuit and evidence is required.
"I feel it is a noble thing we are doing as a company not just for money but because we are assisting many people," he stated.
In addition, his company can retrieve e-mails that have been deleted intentionally or otherwise, from the trash, and he can also return files and other documents to an emptied recycle bin of a computer.
Guardian angel
Njoroge says he acts like a guardian angel to companies that suspect some of their employees are giving out crucial information to their competitors as well as employees who are racing against time to beat a deadline, but lose data in the last minute.
"Imagine as an accountant you are required to give the company’s annual outlook to the board of directors and you suddenly lose that data 12 hours to the deadline. How much time will it take you to retype it? Our company can retrieve it easily," said Njoroge.
The data reconstruction company can also help you recover information from any gadget that stores digital data. These include hard disks, flash disks, floppy disks, CDs or DVD and audio and videocassette tapes among others, and for Sh6,500 fee an hour of the recovery process.
What is unique about his company is that it is the only one offering such services in East and Central Africa.
Parcel from Rwanda
During our interview, Njoroge had just received a parcel from Rwanda containing hard disk drives that had lost crucial data. On one machine, a disk from a local leading bank with similar problem was being worked on; and on another a state parastatal’s.
The company also specialises in using computer investigation and analysis techniques to determine potential legal evidence.
"Evidence might be sought in a wide range of computer crimes or misuse, including theft of trade secrets, theft of or destruction of intellectual property, and fraud," said Njoroge.
This service can be used by criminal prosecutors who use computer evidence in a variety of cases where incriminating documents can be found; insurance companies that may want to mitigate costs by using discovered computer evidence of possible fraud in accident, arson, and workman’s compensation cases.
Corporations that want to ascertain evidence relating to sexual harassment, embezzlement, theft or misappropriation of trade secrets and other internal or confidential information may also engage the services of this whiz kid.
