Posted on 06/13/2013 9:54:40 AM PDT by Theoria
When thieves steal an iPhone, it's referred to as "Apple picking."
Apple's latest idea to deter such thefts is a feature called "activation lock." The company says it’ll be arming new iPhones -- and all its mobile devices -- with a kind of kill switch that can render a lost or stolen phone inoperable.
The announcement comes shortly before San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, along with New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, is scheduled to meet with officials from several cellphone companies about how to prevent the growing number of smartphone thefts.
Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi, announced activation lock at a software designers conference Monday.
"With activation lock, if a thief tries to turn off 'Find my iPhone', or if they even wipe the device entirely, they will not be able to reactivate it because they don’t know your iCloud username and password," says Federighi. "We think this is going to be a very powerful theft deterrent.”
That’s welcome news to iPhone owners who were recently shopping at the Apple store in West Berkeley.
“I had a phone stolen and it wasn’t locked, so whoever took the phone got all my contacts,” says Sisel Cardell.
Another shopper, recent high school graduate Adrienne Ramsey, says, "I think that is the coolest thing ever because, if somebody steals your phone, they can steal all your information, like your credit card info and your emails. So for you to deactivate that, can basically kind of save your life.”
The change could also have a major impact on law enforcement agencies. San Francisco police has said about half of robberies reported are of mobile devices.
(Excerpt) Read more at kqed.org ...
I’d rather see an embeded explosive device that could be remotely activated by the phone’s owner........
This feature has been available and usable in the iPhone almost since it’s inception. This feature isn’t new.
And if it’s attached to an Exchange server, it can be done in-house. This is why I encouraged their deployment in the corporate environment.
This is built-in tech. Not even a plugin.
If you live in the DC region....I’d take a guess around sixty of these are stolen on a weekly basis. All punk kids...mostly sixteen to eighteen. The chief of police in DC has been demanding a ‘kill-feature’ for months.
There’s already a feature in the iPhone that if you use an activation lock p/w, and someone bungles it enough times, the phone basically becomes a fashionable brick.
Yep. I bricked my daughter’s phone after it went missing.
You can remote lock or wipe the phone now, but the thief can plug it in to a computer, reset it to default settings, put their sim card in, and use it or sell it. So currently, just your data is protected. What they are talking about with the kill switch is making the hardware unusable.
Great, now the gov’t can shut you down remotely.
I know.
The problem for people who are pissed at their phone theft is that they don’t even do the simple stuff, and they start asking for silly legislation like this.
If they get a for-real kill switch, mark my words, hackers are going to find a way to brick people’s phones while they’re still in the possession of the owners.
Explosives would be nice, but practically...there are ways to disable the software to the point it’s little more than a lightweight brick. Sure a smart guy can get around that but most thieves won’t want to be beholden to some smart guy who knows how many stolen phones he’s brought them. It would be a reasonable deterrent.
My XM Radio is a lump unless you pay to have it turned on, and smartphones should be the same way. No games, no rooting no nuttin.
Right, there is already a lock feature with password, and the ability to remotely find it and remotely wipe data. Similar to iPad. Mine was swiped, I opened a police report with information on the location where the device was located (a hotel). Then later wiped the data. Must have spooked the thief, as it was anonomously turned in and I got it back.
If they add a feature, how about after activation it automatically takes the thief’s picture continuously with location information, and send it to trackers.
If they get a for-real kill switch, mark my words, hackers are going to find a way to brick people’s phones while they’re still in the possession of the owners.haha - you are totally right.
Unfortunately, my "kill-feature" that goes everywhere with me is not allowed in DC.
That has implications that could cause trouble, but if it could be told remotely to catch on fire and seriously burn the thief’s pants off, I’m all for it. If it catches his wallet and other accessories on fire, all the better.
I’m thinking of writing an app that would do something similar.... but mine would send the information to me.
I could have a lot of fun tormenting the thief by playing Big Brother.
What could possibly go wrong?
Corrected in the interest of accuracy.
In a sane world where property owners didn’t have to be concerned about being sued by a villain, a mini explosive would be great.
A mini mildly radioactive dye pack would be something to tag the theif with.
Or the user's pissed off ex-girlfriend who secretly obtained his userid and pword? :-(
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