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Making your iPad worthless to a thief.
- Thread starter rkahl
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Or just get it engraved, that way you can guarantee no one else will want to own it, steal it, or buy it off you when you want to sell it. 
Or just get it engraved, that way you can guarantee no one else will want to own it, steal it, or buy it off you when you want to sell it.
That wouldn't stop a thief from using it.
wow
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The problem here is, I don't have a clue what this means, and i'm a bit of a geek.
Apple want to keep things simple and intuitive, and this doesn't appear to be either.
It's kind of having your PC's bios password protected. If someone steals your iOS device the thief doesn't even have to turn your device on. He/she only needs to connect to the computer and do a dfu restore. Apple has made nice restrictions in the settings of iOS and requiring you to use a password to utilize it. If you disable dfu mode on your device thief will not be able to restore... While the thief thinks he is doing a restore, the ipad is still sending off gps coordinates where you are buying more time for you and the cops to get there.
By doing this your iPad can most likely always be found in the end.
Cars aren't even theft proof and they've been around for more than a century and cost a whole lot more than an iPad.
The only protection you've got is to keep an eye on it.
The only protection you've got is to keep an eye on it.
Or just get it engraved, that way you can guarantee no one else will want to own it, steal it, or buy it off you when you want to sell it.
That is a Great idea. Just wow!
The whole point of a DFU mode is to have a way to get in to reset the iPad in case of a catastrophic software failure. By it's very nature, you can't have a software switch to override DFU. I suppose it's possible to build iPads without a DFU mode to begin with, but then there'd be no way to recover from OS corruption, and a lot more iPads would have to be switched out when the OS freezes, or a restore/update goes wrong.
Not enough of a geek apparently!
This feature, though it would prevent thievery, pretty much ends apple's method of being able to ensure your device will always work with anything less than a hardware failure.
So if you turned it off and managed to contract a virus from some iOS exploit or an app that got passed apple's screening, you're screwed.
Not to mention if you are jailbroken it would just be a matter of time until you need DFU mode.
Or just get it engraved, that way you can guarantee no one else will want to own it, steal it, or buy it off you when you want to sell it.
Maybe if you get something like this engraved:
"If [owner's full name here] or an acquaintance of [full name] does not have this iPad in possession, it may be in the hands of a really bad person that has broken the law and that person should really think about they have done. Don't be that other person"
Removing the DFU doesn't make any sense.
First, it's not there to let thieves use your iPad. It's a feature that allows you to restore your device if needed, which means it has to run without anything non standard on the device (read: no custom data, so no passwords for example).
Then, don't forget that as long as you can put your hands on it, there will always be a way to access it, doesn't matter the efforts even Apple can put into this.
First, it's not there to let thieves use your iPad. It's a feature that allows you to restore your device if needed, which means it has to run without anything non standard on the device (read: no custom data, so no passwords for example).
Then, don't forget that as long as you can put your hands on it, there will always be a way to access it, doesn't matter the efforts even Apple can put into this.
Best way to protect your investments, get insurance. Pretty typical home owners/car insurance covers stolen items. Sure this won't stop thieves, but then again not much really does. Get a loud dog and good insurance.
I think that would just start a lot of problems for Apple. Maybe if you need a password to do a DFU restore (and apple could have a special dock that can bypass any password).
I think that if Apple used some of the features from Cylay, that should be sufficient.
I think that if Apple used some of the features from Cylay, that should be sufficient.
Except that any competent computer technician or computer savvy person should be able to bypass a BIOS password.
Even better than this, you could write the carriers and ask them to allow free gps/cell data temporarily for devices that are reported as stolen (provided that you can accomplish this next step.) You now write Apple and have them program into the OS that if any device is reported as stolen, the device automatically tracks locations and submits it to the police, behind the scenes without the user knowing.
If this was done in an invisible fashion, then the thief using the device wouldn't know anyone is tracking them (so you wouldn't want to make it so that they can't use the device, just that they can't track private info). The police could roll up and bust them. It would be cool if such an automated system was built-into every device and integrated with the police network. This would seriously reduce electronic thievery. You could have a dedicated police officer just roll up on one thief after another.
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If it's done right, then it would take a hacker to do it. If you could isolate theft to hackers, great. There aren't many car thieves due to the heavy sentences and difficulty of the job, but stealing an iPad, iPhone or computer is incredibly easy for any moron/drug addict to do. I don't see the harm is eliminating the incentive for those people to steal by instituting a system that makes it very hard to get away with the theft.
If this was done in an invisible fashion, then the thief using the device wouldn't know anyone is tracking them (so you wouldn't want to make it so that they can't use the device, just that they can't track private info). The police could roll up and bust them. It would be cool if such an automated system was built-into every device and integrated with the police network. This would seriously reduce electronic thievery. You could have a dedicated police officer just roll up on one thief after another.
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If it's done right, then it would take a hacker to do it. If you could isolate theft to hackers, great. There aren't many car thieves due to the heavy sentences and difficulty of the job, but stealing an iPad, iPhone or computer is incredibly easy for any moron/drug addict to do. I don't see the harm is eliminating the incentive for those people to steal by instituting a system that makes it very hard to get away with the theft.
The cell carriers have cell tower triangulation but I am not sure if they have access the the GPS data on the device. I can understand them being able to triangulate the devices position because of the information that they have but I would not want them to have access to my specific GPS data.