This should only work for truly stolen phones. Not "omg I left my phone on the subway or at the bar so I'm gonna say someone stole it even though it's my dumb ass fault for leaving it there and not being responsible." If it's the latter people should just deal with the loss and blame themselves. This society is so soft and too quick to blame others rather than themselves.
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Federal Bill Would Mandate Anti-Theft 'Kill Switch' in All Smartphones
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What does me. It wanting to make someone else who found my lost phone (and doesn't want to give it back) unable to use the device?
My stupid fault for losing it. But sorry guy who found it who thinks he scored a free new iPhone. NOPE!
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Include the adapter like they have been. Am I missing something?
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They can already do this. "Oops. Cellular radios have been shut off by government mandate".
I won't make a comment about your self proclaimed conspiracy but attitude, but they don't need any more power to be perfectly capable of doing what your saying should they want to. As such there is no reason to assume this to be the intent behind it.
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Is it your stance that loss and especially theft are always a result of irresponsibility?Stupid. How about people just act responsibly and not lose their friggin phones?
oh be quiet, they're not interfering with your life, they're just setting up some normal standards, which should have been in effect for a long time.
Earn your forum name easily do ya.
Yes, they are needlessly in your face here.
Let competition determine features, not needless regulation.
I like the idea.
If the telcos, the American chamber of commerce, and chuckles schism et are against something, then I'm all for it.
Two out of the above three here, just reinforces my initial impression that such legislation is a good idea.
If the telcos, the American chamber of commerce, and chuckles schism et are against something, then I'm all for it.
Two out of the above three here, just reinforces my initial impression that such legislation is a good idea.
Can someone explain how Activation Lock works? As far as I can understand, anyone can disable the radio signal by turning on Airplane mode or by simply removing the SIM. If the thief does that, how on earth will you communicate with the lost iPhone, and instruct it to "deactivate"?
Best system of this kind would:
1. Allow devices to still receive (just not transmit) when in airplane mode.
2. Prevent devices from being powered-off, rebooted, jail broken, if a lock command has been issued by owner.
3. If device has been locked and SIM later removed, the device (as for 911 calls) maintains a persistent connection to the cell network and sends out pings of its location until recovered or its battery dies.
A couple things.
1) Why would anyone be against a bill designed to deter theft?
2) Why would anyone be against a bill where if a device is stolen, the thief would not be able to sell it because of an installed kill switch?
3) Since there is opposition between this and the original CITA bill, why not marry the two and have both a kill switch and a stolen device database?
1) Why would anyone be against a bill designed to deter theft?
2) Why would anyone be against a bill where if a device is stolen, the thief would not be able to sell it because of an installed kill switch?
3) Since there is opposition between this and the original CITA bill, why not marry the two and have both a kill switch and a stolen device database?
It may look like a battery, but it's 2 grams of C4. Nice!
The ball is in your court Mr. Crazy-Pants , don't let us down
You know why so many phones are stolen. Because these dolts walk down the street with their head buried in their phone. Like sheep, easy Pickens . Keep your phone in you pocket while you walk down the street and you'll be just fine.
Women wear 20k diamond rings, they don't get stolen yet a 600 phone does.
Women wear 20k diamond rings, they don't get stolen yet a 600 phone does.
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Its redundant if all they care about is cell phone access. The kill switch would surely prevent use of everything else, including wifi communication, and access to data/apps on the phone would it not?
Flood123 said:
Theres already a patent for something similar, by google. http://phandroid.com/2014/01/29/google-mob-sourced-video-patent/ . Not to mention another by apple (supposed to stop people filming at concerts, police action etc) http://www.phonearena.com/news/Apples-camera-kill-switch-patent-enrages-rights-groups_id19725
Until Apple allow password protection for turning off the phone, data and all location services including airplane mode the phones can still be stopped from wiping.
Also they need a way to physically lock a sim in the phone unless passcode released so only way to remove a sim would be force, dmaging the phone Nd ruining stolen resale value.
Even when off as long as there is battery charge it should maintain a data connection if FMI is on to allow mobile wiping and tracking.
Only then will the iphone be truly secure, and with fingerprint reading the entering of passcodes will be negligibly time consuming.
Also they need a way to physically lock a sim in the phone unless passcode released so only way to remove a sim would be force, dmaging the phone Nd ruining stolen resale value.
Even when off as long as there is battery charge it should maintain a data connection if FMI is on to allow mobile wiping and tracking.
Only then will the iphone be truly secure, and with fingerprint reading the entering of passcodes will be negligibly time consuming.
So lets see what competition did so far: Nobody did ANYTHING against thefts. The only one that did anything was Apple and that was only after the famous New York SA demanded that they implement something like that to prevent thefts. What did google do? Only thing that they did is that Android device manager or whatever its called that really doesnt do anything usefull if your phone gets stolen. So yes, some sort of regulation needs to be done since companies, obviously, didnt do anything about it all this time. They currently dont give a damn if your phone gets stolen, it only means that you'll have to buy another phone from them and that makes them quite happy. Yes, you can still sell bricked phone for parts but the most important thing here is that it will be much much less profitable than it was just a year ago and in time people will figure it out that it's really not worth all the hassle when they steal a phone.
So no, they are not needlessly in your face, they're just forcing companies to do what they could've done long time ago.
Nothing will ever completely stop a crime from occurring 100%, but it will help reduce it.
100% is an impossible goal to reach, but you should always aim for it.
Four senators working on this... This is good news, right!?
Tackling this issue can only mean that all the big problems like the economy, social issues, unemployment have all been addressed and that they now have time to tackle big problems like this one
Tackling this issue can only mean that all the big problems like the economy, social issues, unemployment have all been addressed and that they now have time to tackle big problems like this one
It sounds like YOUR priorities are out of whack.
A law to help you out personally, or some mythical amount of money that a state or government supposedly owes.
All these people talking about "how dare they do this" will always be the first to complain that they should have done something more to prevent it, should their phone ever get stolen......
Because it's so difficult to focus on more than one thing, right?
And you realise that different committees do different things, right?
Because no regulation has worked SO well in the past, right?
Four senators working on this... This is good news, right!?
Tackling this issue can only mean that all the big problems like the economy, social issues, unemployment have all been addressed and that they now have time to tackle big problems like this one
Because it's so difficult to focus on more than one thing, right?
And you realise that different committees do different things, right?
Because no regulation has worked SO well in the past, right?
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So, let me see if I have this right. You want the abandoned phone to be unkillable by the owner? Why on Earth would you want... oh right, you want the ability to claim a phone you find on the subway as your own. Maybe sell it on ebay or something, all the while blaming the owner for your actions.
The phone isn't deactivated. The assumption is that the owner has locked it, so the thief would need to wipe it in order to use it. Once wiped however, the phone needs to connect to the network and be activated. The network refuses to activate the phone without the owner's password.
OR
Could be used to silence dissent against our dear leaders during times of unrest.
Could really take the edge off getting the word out about government abuse. The smartphone is used to as the voice of people as we have seen in all the Arab countries during their uprising against their governments.
Do - you - really - want - to - give - this - power - to - your - government??
Something for you to think about.
100% consumer controlled, yeah right!
It will not be long, before we hear that a homeland security forced "request" to kill a certain phone is pushed through in the interest of national security.
Anything that can be thought of, humans will do! That includes the government.
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