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iPhone Self-Destruct
- Thread starter mossme89
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When I was in High School they would take it away for the class period. Everyone used to take out the batteries before they got there phone taken away so the teacher couldn't see. With the iphone the best bet is to hide the icon, rename it to games, or simply put a password on your phone if your worried. They have no right to look through your phone to begin with.
You pretty much have no rights once you step into school campus! Constitutional laws somehow like do not apply in schools.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (JB3.1, unlocked): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C144 Safari/528.16)
The OP said he could do that, just that he'd be written up for insubordination ... AFAIC, that's a small price to pay for breaking the rules. If the school has no power to enforce the rules, what incentive is there for students to obey them? Obviously the OP doesn't obey the rules, so being written up is a small price to pay. (BTW, I'm a teacher at a JHS and if it were up to me, I'd simply smash any phones I confiscate. If you're stupid enough to break the rules, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of your stupidity)
wRek said:
The OP said he could do that, just that he'd be written up for insubordination ... AFAIC, that's a small price to pay for breaking the rules. If the school has no power to enforce the rules, what incentive is there for students to obey them? Obviously the OP doesn't obey the rules, so being written up is a small price to pay. (BTW, I'm a teacher at a JHS and if it were up to me, I'd simply smash any phones I confiscate. If you're stupid enough to break the rules, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of your stupidity)
No offense to you, since I have a huge respect for teachers in our public schools... But if a teacher were to smash my phone, that I or my parents had used their hard earned money to buy, I would file a small claims lawsuit against you for the price of the phone. If you're stupid enough to destroy another person's personal property, "you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of your stupidity."
If you're really that worried about the phone... don't use it in school. If you are going to use it in school, what EXACTLY is it that you're worried about them finding in the phone? If it's photos... Buy a PhotoSafe program from the AppStore... I have one that has a "snoop stopper" function, where if the wrong passcode is entered twice, it lets the person into a fake photo gallery of completely harmless stock photos. I set the passcode as something other than my phone's unlock code.
Someone on the jailbreaker forums may be able to write a bit of code to link a "panic button" app on the springboard to the wipe functionality in system prefs, with a slide to wipe confirmation. This way, there would be enough time to initiate an irreversible format while still being able to maintain the excuse of "hur durr idk it just broked?"
I didn't test this but it should work. Unzip and put this in /Applications so you have an /Applications/Panic.app with 5 files inside. Open the panic file and read it. This doesn't contain any executable code until you fill out the files or directories you want to delete. It's basic stuff so I didn't give a long explanation.
Respring and you should have a new icon. It will run as mobile, so it will only delete files mobile can delete. The screen will go blank for a second or two as it runs. That's just how it works when you run scripts like this from Springboard. Unless you're deleting a gig or something, it shouldn't take more than a second or two to execute.
(edit to add) There will be no delete confirmation or second chances. If the icon is accidentally tapped, the things you want deleted will be gone before you realize you tapped it.
Respring and you should have a new icon. It will run as mobile, so it will only delete files mobile can delete. The screen will go blank for a second or two as it runs. That's just how it works when you run scripts like this from Springboard. Unless you're deleting a gig or something, it shouldn't take more than a second or two to execute.
(edit to add) There will be no delete confirmation or second chances. If the icon is accidentally tapped, the things you want deleted will be gone before you realize you tapped it.
Boy, I can see somebody putting this on Cydia as some kind of app, then once you install it and press the icon, its "You've Been Punked"
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3GS (JB3.1, unlocked): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7C144 Safari/528.16)
I didn't say I smash my students' phones, only that I'd like to.
wRek said:
I didn't say I smash my students' phones, only that I'd like to.
Oh, oops, I forgot the icon in that is made for the Matte Nano theme that I use so it will be smaller than normal icons. Here is the original. I would make a normal one but, uh... to tell the truth, I don't know how. I could resize it in the Gimp and try to add a background but I would probably screw it up. I normally make them on the fly by creating a webclip of the icon, which Matte Nano automatically sizes, then moving the webclip icon to the app folder.
I use that trick so much I have a folder on my phone that acts as a template. All I had to do was edit the script and a couple lines in the plist file, find an icon and zip the folder up with iFile.
I use that trick so much I have a folder on my phone that acts as a template. All I had to do was edit the script and a couple lines in the plist file, find an icon and zip the folder up with iFile.
A good way to put a safety net on this... would be to hide the icon so you have to search it in spotlight or even to stick it in a Category so you have to load the category and then touch the app.
Just so you don't accidentally wipe youre phone. Great idea though!
Other safety features could be to just move the files somewhere else, rename them, scp them to your home pc or replace them with an innocent copy (oh I see you've been sending a lot of texts about your charity work with underprivileged children and not dirty texts to your girlfriend). To move them back, you could write another script, hide it, and only run it from mobileterminal.
One of these is really how it should be done because who knows if deleting files will cause something to stop working. If you delete your sms database, will the text app crash or recreate a new one? A new user may have to restore when it would be better if they could just move the old file back instead.
I may write something like that, but don't hold your breath. I don't have a lot of time, and I'm pretty lazy
One of these is really how it should be done because who knows if deleting files will cause something to stop working. If you delete your sms database, will the text app crash or recreate a new one? A new user may have to restore when it would be better if they could just move the old file back instead.
I may write something like that, but don't hold your breath. I don't have a lot of time, and I'm pretty lazy
This is just not true. Fourth Amendment protections almost never apply to students in a public school, and never in a private school (which is not a state actor and is therefore not bound by any of the bill of rights). The Supreme Court of the United States has been very clear on this point: schools can search you locker, your bag, your desk, can require you to turn out your pockets, etc with or without cause. And it's also pretty clear that they can strip search you if they have reasonable cause to believe that you might be hiding illicit substances on your person. The only open question seems to be whether they can strip search you based only on a suspicion and not upon reasonable cause.
I'm not saying I agree with it, but it remains a fact that students have almost no individual rights while on school property. They do not even have the right to free speech.
Ok I don't think anyone is really interested in using this but I got bored and wanted to finish this just to see if it worked.
Create a text file at /Applications/Panic.app/filelist.txt and list all the files and directories you want to hide. Don't worry about spaces or anything, just make a normal list with the full path to the files/directories like:
/var/mobile/myfile
/var/mobile/my directory
Put this script in /Applications/Panic.app/panic. It will hide the files by adding a dot to their name. E.g.: "/var/mobile/my file" becomes "/var/mobile/.my file"
Put this script anywhere you want and run it from MobileTerminal to unhide the files.
Files will be hidden in the same directory as their original location. If you want to move them all to a different directory, change "$dir"/."$file" to /path/to/another/directory/."$file"
You will need to make these scripts executable and if you want to delete anything that mobile doesn't have permission for, you will need to setuid to run as root. I will leave that to you, I feel bad enough teaching people how to delete things on their phone as a user, let alone as root.
Now this is cool. You could (sorta) run this remotely if you have the Prowl app, you just need the person with the phone to cooperate a little. You can add this to panic's plist file
Then go to Prowl's folder, find "Redirections.plist" and add this:
Then open Prowl and create a redirection based on the app name "Panic" and select panic from the list.
Send a Prowl notification from home using "panic" in the application field. When the notification pops up on the phone, a person can choose whether to view or close it like an SMS. If they select view, it will run the panic script and hide your files. If they select "close", it does nothing though. You could just as easily rename the panic icon to "Bank Info" or "nekkid chicks" and trick them into running it. I just think it's cool.
Create a text file at /Applications/Panic.app/filelist.txt and list all the files and directories you want to hide. Don't worry about spaces or anything, just make a normal list with the full path to the files/directories like:
/var/mobile/myfile
/var/mobile/my directory
Put this script in /Applications/Panic.app/panic. It will hide the files by adding a dot to their name. E.g.: "/var/mobile/my file" becomes "/var/mobile/.my file"
Code:
#! /bin/sh
while read line; do
dir=$(dirname "$line")
file=$(basename "$line")
mv "$line" "$dir"/."$file";
done < /Applications/Panic.app/filelist.txtPut this script anywhere you want and run it from MobileTerminal to unhide the files.
Code:
#! /bin/sh
while read line; do
dir=$(dirname "$line")
file=$(basename "$line")
mv "$dir"/."$file" "$line";
done < /Applications/Panic.app/filelist.txtFiles will be hidden in the same directory as their original location. If you want to move them all to a different directory, change "$dir"/."$file" to /path/to/another/directory/."$file"
You will need to make these scripts executable and if you want to delete anything that mobile doesn't have permission for, you will need to setuid to run as root. I will leave that to you, I feel bad enough teaching people how to delete things on their phone as a user, let alone as root.
Now this is cool. You could (sorta) run this remotely if you have the Prowl app, you just need the person with the phone to cooperate a little. You can add this to panic's plist file
Code:
<key>CFBundleURLTypes</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>CFBundleURLName</key>
<string>panic URL</string>
<key>CFBundleURLSchemes</key>
<array>
<string>panic</string>
</array>
</dict>
</array>Then go to Prowl's folder, find "Redirections.plist" and add this:
Code:
<key>Key</key>
<string>Panic</string>
<key>URL</key>
<string>panic:</string>Then open Prowl and create a redirection based on the app name "Panic" and select panic from the list.
Send a Prowl notification from home using "panic" in the application field. When the notification pops up on the phone, a person can choose whether to view or close it like an SMS. If they select view, it will run the panic script and hide your files. If they select "close", it does nothing though. You could just as easily rename the panic icon to "Bank Info" or "nekkid chicks" and trick them into running it. I just think it's cool.
Hi,
I dont have a solution for your iPhone but if you're looking for deleting all the data very quickly from your Snow Leopard, just log in and out into your guest account
(sorry for the bad joke
Haha, the funniest part was how little sense that made!
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/snow-leopard-guest-account-bug-deleting-user-files-terrorizin/Haha, the funniest part was how little sense that made!
At least I think that's for only those who upgraded 10.5 -> 10.6... I logged into my guest and I think I'm fine.
I'm glad you said it.
I think it's funny how some want kids to have all these "rights," but somehow they want the teachers to take over for the parents while their kids are at school. No wonder we keep falling further behind the rest of the countries.