US mobile firms cave on kill switch, agree to install anti-theft code US mobile companies have finally agreed to install free anti-theft software on their products, but not until the middle of next year and they plan to leave it turned it off by default. The CTIA, which dubs itself "the Wireless Association," announced that its members – including Apple, Samsung, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile US, …
Well if the police are telling the truth and people are killing other people to get their phones then this i unlikely to help as they'll just kill them to get something else if this avenue is closed off.
While I'm not against the idea (although there are plenty of risks as others have pointed out) the root cause seems to be people who are prepared to kill to get money. American society seems to breed more of these than most others so I'd suggest looking at why.
If you kill the owner of the phone, who or what triggers the phone's kill switch? Right now the problem is theft and mugging potentially leaving the victim in the hospital. Murder - which is a rather big leap for the traditional snatch and grab petty thief - solves the problem of having someone disable the phone. By the time the carrier realizes the subscriber is dead some months later, longer if they have auto-bill pay, the phone will have been used by someone in Spangalore Atoll for quite some time.
Well, since they were planning on using GPS to generate timing signals, they were already planning on putting GPS in the handsets - and thus it didn't cost them anything that they weren't already planning on doing.
iPhones already have the capability of remote lock and wipe, and Android phones already have the capability of remote lock and wipe, so I am really trying to hard to figure out what else they are trying to do here - perhaps educate the public that the features exist? Or perhaps force Microsoft to include a similar feature?
Rapid communications is what prevented Bundy ranch from becoming another Waco. I don't want anyone able to brick my phone in an emergency.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/13/nevada-bundy-ranch-standoff-could-leave-dirt-on-ha/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS
To align the 'experience' of car and smartphone ownership, as of next year car makers will remove door and ignition key locks, replacing them with a simple swipe button on the drivers door, The engine can then be started by entering a one digit PIN on the radio panel..
Number plates will be attached with Velcro and available in kit form from Plates_R_Us
In a related announcement, insurance companies have increased their profit forecasts for next year..
My phone has had a kill switch that I set up myself for years now with an app called TotalCare. Send the right text from the right number and it can do a whole plethora of useful things, one of which is to wipe the data and brick the phone. More usefully, it can reply with its current GPS coordinates.
When mine was stolen I sent it a command adding the number the officer taking the report gave me to the whitelist and then gave him the command to make it reply with GPS coordinates. I got my phone back in about 2 hours.
I had insurance for a while. Their charge ("deductible") to exercise the insurance was almost 1/3 the cost of a new phone. Figuring a replacement used phone is worth about 1/3 of a new phone by 1 -1.5 years after you buy a new phone, and that you have to go through hoops to use the insurance unless you give them the broken phone, means that the insurance is only good for maybe... 3-6 months. And that presumes your phone is totaled, not just damaged and fixable for less than replacing the phone.
Anyone paying for insurance on a phone more than 6 months old should paste "sucker" on their foreheads.
Unless you actually have something go wrong. Me? I paid $10 a month once for the insurance. Nine months in, all the touch-buttons broke down simultaneously. Just flat broke. Got a replacement phone through the mail with little fuss. Phone kept working for the duration of my contract, so I call this Your Mileage May Vary.
If they have an easy way for the customer to do this, wouldn't it mean they sell more phones?
That said:
- This should have a been available from day one.
- There are several apps that already do this.
- Just report your phone stolen to your phone company and they will brick it. I have bricked MANY phones at my previous jobs. Serial+IMEI+SIM# = BRICKED.
You are missing two things. One is that the thieves already have countermeasures, and have for years. The other is that by mandating a unified approach to phone-bricking, LEOs can now brick all phones in a certain area, much like they temporarily shut down cell service at the BART protests, and sent threatening text-messages to the Ukrainian protesters, only more durably. Thieves do not mind using things like Faraday bags because they are taking the phone as an object, whereas protesters actually need the phone to be in communication to send out pictures of trigger-happy "protectors" dealing with peaceful protesters.
Not that this has ever been a problem in the "Free World".
You are also missing the fact that hackers will figure out how to leverage a standard "bricking" procedure and that even if the phone gets bricked, there will still be parts in it that have value.
I, for one, am glad this is being rolled out as opt-in and hope it never gets beyond opt-out. I don't want this functionality on my phone and will disable it for as long ass I can.
What makes you think you are the one controlling the option?
More likely it will be like the "write protect" on SD cards (or 5.25-inch floppies for that matter), which merely suggests to the software that you would really rather not write, if the software feels like pleasing you rather than its owners today.
Samsung and Apple have been singing from the same hymn sheet for a long time.
It's just that the hymn in question is titled "My patent is bigger than your patent", and the accompanying music is played on particularly esoteric instruments such as the Six-Barrel Rotary Lawyer Cannon.
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