Welcome to the BuddyGuard online help. This page contains information on how to use BuddyGuard, the list of supported commands, and their descriptions.

Overview

How BuddyGuard Works

Using BuddyGuard

Command Descriptions

Application Icons

Passwords and Notification Email

Troubleshooting

BuddyGuard is an application for securing your BlackBerry smartphone when it is lost, misplaced or stolen. Using BuddyGuard you can lock your device to prevent unauthorized access, play a tone or get a map to help find your phone, or wipe your personal data if the phone is unrecoverable.

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BuddyGuard works by listening for commands sent TO your BlackBerry smartphone FROM a PC or a friend's phone. The commands can be send in SMS and email messages.

When enabled, BuddyGuard runs silently in the background, monitoring messages as they arrive. When a message containing one of the commands is received on your BlackBerry, BuddyGuard will scan the message for your password. This verifies that the message was sent by you and prevents any unauthorized person from executing commands on your device.

Once BuddyGuard verifies the password it will execute the command that you've sent. After completing the command, it will send a reply to acknowledge that the command was received and performed successfully.

When sending commands via email, BuddyGuard will automatically delete the email containing the command and your password. This prevents anyone from reading the message and discovering your password.

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To execute a command on your BlackBerry, send a SMS or an email message to your phone. For email messages, it can be to any email account you read in the Messages application on your BlackBerry. In the message, enter the command you wish to perform and your password, separated by a space. When sending via email, you may enter the command and password in the either the subject line or the email body; either will be detected by BuddyGuard.

For example, if your BuddyGuard password is 1234, then to execute the Help command you would send this message to your BlackBerry:

bg-help 1234

All commands are case insensitive, so bg-help, Bg-Help and BG-HELP are all considered valid.

Unlike commands, however, passwords are case sensitive. Your BuddyGuard password can contain any character—alpha, numeric or symbol—except the space character. Passwords must be at least 4 characters long.

** Note: In the application's Help text, references to the password are denoted as PASSWORD. When appending your password to the command, you should replace the word PASSWORD with your actual BuddyGuard password. For example, if your password is 1234, then you should append 1234 rather than PASSWORD.

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In the command descriptions below, all instances of PASSWORD should be replaced with your BuddyGuard password when sending commands.

• Help
• Format: bg-help PASSWORD
• The Help command will reply with a short summary of the available commands. It's useful when you are away from your phone and need a reminder of the supported commands.

• Alert
• Format: bg-alert PASSWORD
• The Alert command will play a tone on your BlackBerry to assist in finding your phone when it has been misplaced. The tone will sound for up to 10 minutes, and will play even if you have your phone set to silent or vibrate only. To help secure your BlackBerry, this command will also lock your phone and display a contact information screen. As with the Lock command, your phone will remain locked until your enter your password, even if your phone is rebooted.

• Lock
• Format: bg-lock PASSWORD
• The Lock command will lock your BlackBerry and display a contact information screen. This prevents unauthorized persons in possession of your phone from accessing your personal data. Your BlackBerry will remain locked until you enter your password, even if your phone is rebooted. You can use this as an alternative to wiping your phone in case of loss, allowing you to protect your privacy while not deleting your data. Since this command uses your BuddyGuard password to unlock your phone, it will work even if you haven't defined a system password.

• Locate
• Format: bg-locate PASSWORD
• The Locate command will use the GPS capabilities of your BlackBerry to read the location of your device. BuddyGuard will format this information and send you a link that will open a web browser and display your phone's location in a map. Typically this command will take 1-2 minutes to complete due to the delay in acquiring the GPS data. If you're sending the command via SMS from a phone that can't connect to the internet or will incur additional charges, you can copy the link and manually enter it into a PC web browser. BlackBerry models that do not support GPS will return a message stating that GPS is unavailable.

• List
• Format: bg-list PASSWORD
• The List command will create reports of all of the data that is on your BlackBerry. This allows you to check what personal data is currently accessible to anyone in possession of your phone. Executing this command after a Wipe also allows you to verify that your data was correctly deleted.

• Wipe
• Format: bg-wipe PASSWORD
• The Wipe command will delete your personal data from your BlackBerry. Data that is wiped is permanently removed from the device. BuddyGuard currently supports the wiping of Calendar, Contact, Messages, Phone Logs, Memos, Tasks and Files (SD Card and Device Memory). This command is useful in cases of loss or theft when your BlackBerry is unrecoverable, allowing to remove your personal data from your phone.

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BuddyGuard uses three different icons to keep you informed of its current state. This allows you to easily know at all times whether BuddyGuard is securing your BlackBerry smartphone and personal data.

The green icon is displayed when it's enabled and ready to process commands.

The red icon is displayed when the application is disabled.

The yellow icon is used when BuddyGuard needs your attention, such as when updates are available or some setting is preventing it from working properly.

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Your BuddyGuard password is used for two purposes. First, in order to prevent unauthorized access to its settings, the application prompts for the password when launched. Secondly, the password is required to be appended to each command when sent in a SMS or email message. This allows BuddyGuard to verify that the received command came from you rather than some other person.

If you forget your BuddyGuard password you can easily recover it by clicking on the "Recover Password" button in the login screen. This will instruct BuddyGuard to email the password to your notification email address. Your notification email address should be one that is accessible from your PC. If this email address is also received on your BlackBerry, BuddyGuard will scan for and delete the password recovery email when it is received. This ensures that someone in possession of your phone can't request and intercept your password.

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• Not receiving email replies
• In many cases this is caused by the replies being flagged as spam, so that they are rerouted to a spam folder. To verify if this is the cause of the problem, check the spam folder for the email account that you're sending the commands FROM.

• The Help and Locate commands are not working when sent by email
• This is typically caused by the email replies being flagged as spam. See the "Not receiving email replies" item above.

• Commands not working when sent by email
• BuddyGuard will monitor emails that are received by the Messages application. When you're sending commands by email, be sure to send them to an email account that you can access using the Message application. If you access that email account using some other client, such as the Gmail client, try sending them to a different account. Alternatively, adding the email account to your BIS accounts will resolve the issue (see Setup > Personal Email Set Up).
• Another possible cause of commands not working is that the email account you're sending them to is flagging the messages as spam. To check whether this is the problem, check the spam filter of the email account you're sending the commands TO. You can also try sending the commands to a different email account if you receive multiple email accounts on your BlackBerry.

• Receiving a "password is incorrect" reply
• If you are receiving a "password is incorrect" reply from BuddyGuard when sending commands, your actual password may be different than expected. This can occur because the password field in BuddyGuard is "masked", which makes the field secure but also makes it difficult to verify the value you've entered. To verify that the password saved by the application is what you expect, launch the application and click on the "Recover Password" button. This will email your password to your notification email address. You can then use that to verify whether the saved password is the same as the password you've entered in the command messages.

• Check for Updates incorrectly states that the app is current
• If you had installed the application from App World, then the test performed by Check for Updates will always state that your version is current, even when an update is available. To work around this issue, open BlackBerry App World, click on the My World icon and check whether a BuddyGuard update is available. While this issue has been addressed, the change won't be released until the beta 5 update. This issue also prevents the application icon from turning yellow when updates are available.

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