Find my iPhone major weakness

[DanR16]

Why not a simple toggle to allow turning off to require a passcode. Even rebooting using the home and power button could be made set a flag in the phones storage so that any attempt to reload new firmware via itunes on the reboot would need the keycode to be entered via iTunes etc.

I would like to see Apple seriously look at this ease of loading firmware on a stolen phone and rendering it useable once again (Until the carrier blocks it, but thats usually for 1 carrier or 1 country - send it overseas and that is bypassed).

Already thought off that...

I agree, which is why I suggested iTunes could send out the location of the Device when it's plugged in. It's just an idea, personally I think anything that gives me a better chance of getting back my beloved iPad has got to be worth a shot. I kind of thought it should be optional so you could just turn it on in settings.

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How would that help? Anyone savvy enough to perform the necessary steps to blank the phone isn't going to be connected to the internet while they're doing it. Find My iPhone/iPad/Mac works just fine how it is. If you want something more, look into Undercover, Prey Project, or any of the other apps that are branded as "theft recovery" assistants.

I thought you needed to have an Internet connection to restore, even if you use shift restore for pre-download software, iTunes refuses to restore software without checking it's ok with apples servers first.

 

[CTHarrryH]

I agree, which is why I suggested iTunes could send out the location of the Device when it's plugged in. It's just an idea, personally I think anything that gives me a better chance of getting back my beloved iPad has got to be worth a shot. I kind of thought it should be optional so you could just turn it on in settings.

I don't think location via iTunes via internet service is very accurate. It isn't like cellular service where it would record tower location (and even that isn't very accurate despite TV shows). Depending upon the network you are using and maybe a corporate network it could show your internet presence in another state.
If sending via your gps coordinates again not the most accurate. I think you'd have trouble getting anyone to search officially for your phone in the range of GPS accuracy if you could get anyone to search for a stolen phone at all.
It works for "where did I leave my phone" but not for finding it from being stolen.

 

[LostSoul80]

You can't software lock a piece of hardware and expect no one one day finds out a way to hack into the system. Maybe in your dreams.

 

[DanR16]

I don't think location via iTunes via internet service is very accurate. It isn't like cellular service where it would record tower location (and even that isn't very accurate despite TV shows). Depending upon the network you are using and maybe a corporate network it could show your internet presence in another state.
If sending via your gps coordinates again not the most accurate. I think you'd have trouble getting anyone to search officially for your phone in the range of GPS accuracy if you could get anyone to search for a stolen phone at all.
It works for "where did I leave my phone" but not for finding it from being stolen.

I know, I thought iTunes could possibly use the iPhones GPS

 

[Rory Manton]

I may be being a bit thick here but can a lost / stolen phone be tracked and traced after it has been restored to factory settings via iTunes ?

 

[DanR16]

I may be being a bit thick here but can a lost / stolen phone be tracked and traced after it has been retorted to factory settings via iTunes ?

No because restoring erases everything including iCloud and find my iPhone settings.

 

[piecloud]

At the moment if somebody wants to prevent somebody from using find my iPhone they just need to power off the device. They can then boot it up in recovery mode and restore it and set it up as new! It would be great if you could provide an option so the iPad can't be powered off in any way before entering the passcode. It would also be good if when then the device is in lost mode and is plugged into iTunes (e.g. To restore it) iTunes would automatically record the location and refuse to restore so when the rightful owner logs into find my iPhone they can easily find it and hopefully get it back.

Obviously this is just an idea but you get my general goal: make it impossible to steal iThings! Any feed back would be apprechiated and if you like my idea (or have better one. Please submit a new feature request on apples bug reporter as that's the only way to get it!

Thanks,
Dan

I think the passcode to power off would be a great feature. I always wondered why it hasn't been there from the beginning. I'll at least have time till my battery runs down to track it.

Of course the thief could still remove the sim card (unless you have a CDMA phone). But it'll still deter a lot of thefts. I constantly hear people losing the phones in a coffee shop. I've even heard people sitting in the next table quickly putting the phones in their bags. In all those cases they cannot remove the sim quickly. It's a nice to have option.

 

[Ariii]

I am aware that find my iPhone isn't designed to track stolen devices, I'm simply suggesting it could be, that's the whole point.

You're suggesting you want it to be a jailbreak that would modify the iPhone's OS to add that layer of security, just to make sure, right? If so, then that would be a good option for people, but it should be a separate option since not everybody would want to jailbreak their iPhones in order to do so. In some rare occasions, it does work. For example, somebody in my school was able to be tracked down with that for stealing three iPhones. He misunderstood how the iPhone worked, but he stole it since he assumed it wouldn't be a problem. Thieves who are very un-tech-savvy would probably get caught by this.

 

[DanR16]

You're suggesting you want it to be a jailbreak that would modify the iPhone's OS to add that layer of security, just to make sure, right? If so, then that would be a good option for people, but it should be a separate option since not everybody would want to jailbreak their iPhones in order to do so. In some rare occasions, it does work. For example, somebody in my school was able to be tracked down with that for stealing three iPhones. He misunderstood how the iPhone worked, but he stole it since he assumed it wouldn't be a problem. Thieves who are very un-tech-savvy would probably get caught by this.

Yes I wanted it to be optional but I don't want to have to jailbreak, I just want a toggle in settings, simple

 

[Gjwilly]

Almost every piece of electronic hardware needs some way to reset it for those instances when the software/firmware fails.
Therefore nothing that can be implemented via software will be undefeatable by the required hardware reset.
Apple can pursue the suggestions being listed but they will all remain defeatable unless Apple also removes the hardware reset which is not at all likely to happen.

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I may be being a bit thick here but can a lost / stolen phone be tracked and traced after it has been restored to factory settings via iTunes ?

The IMEI and the UDID will remain unchanged so yes, AT&T can tell you exactly whose account the phone is being used on and Apple can tell you exactly whose Apple ID is now using the phone but neither of them will because they both want to keep selling phones and charging for services.
That's where all of this discontent should be aimed.