Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
San Francisco District Attorney Impressed by iOS 7's Activation Lock Feature
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
While i admit I am not a fan of any politician soapboxing, and that I think these initiatives are more about getting reelected than anything else, I'm glad to see that Apple as a company has decided to implement this strategy to make their phones less desirable to thieves and that after market. I have some reservations about the how's, but I am sure there will be a process that will enable me as the original user a method to sell my phone to a third party, or even give it to a spouse/child/family member. The one thing that I a leery about, is that there will be a fee involved for this. Here in Canada, after you have fulfilled your 3 year commitment when you purchase an iPhone on contract with Rogers, they charge you a $50 fee to unlock your phone should you wish to use it on a different carrier. I contacted them about this fee, and the representative explained to me it was a "value added feature" that they offer to their customers. $50!!!! Value for who???
Activation Lock is a good start to bricking an iOS device if it is stolen but how about going one step further and installing homing beacon to track the device?
I got my idevice stolen once, and i tought exactly about this, getting a lost mode at a lower hardware level not just software. Hope they get it right this time, because clean restoring a phone is really a child's play for theifs..
Lost/Stolen mode was only effective to get it back if the theif was really a noob at it. Mine was in plane mode out of the country, so forget about it..
Good news.
Lost/Stolen mode was only effective to get it back if the theif was really a noob at it. Mine was in plane mode out of the country, so forget about it..
Good news.
Not really. The phone has always checked back with Apple's servers (note the "Activating device, please wait..." screen after signing in to WiFi). It's just always been more of a check in for statistics as opposed to used for anything consumer-facing. Now, the phone's serial (or IMEI) is locked by Apple, so it catches that during the activation process and prompts for the login. Nothing super complex about it, but it's still one hell of a nice thing to have.
It's dumb that it took this long for something so friggin simple. The concept should have been used years ago:
- Make device require connection to <provider> when turned on and every X minutes
- If <provider> shows it as locked - block device.
- Device unblock hash stored on <provider>'s servers so cant be unblocked without modifying the firmware.
People still think that the likes of Apple and Google log into your respective devices just for kicks. iOS connects to Apple and sends significant amounts of data back to it pretty often (run wireshark and take a look).
- Make device require connection to <provider> when turned on and every X minutes
- If <provider> shows it as locked - block device.
- Device unblock hash stored on <provider>'s servers so cant be unblocked without modifying the firmware.
People still think that the likes of Apple and Google log into your respective devices just for kicks. iOS connects to Apple and sends significant amounts of data back to it pretty often (run wireshark and take a look).
1) Way to state the obvious. I'm sure you've never lost anything in your life.
2) Wrong, most thieves are stupid. Most thieves will not be able to get around the activation lock. Apparently this has been validated.
3) Maybe they should?
4) I envision you lighting cigarettes with hundred dollar bills....the full cost of a smartphone is no small chunk of change for the average person.
5) Guess we'll all need to make sure we buy from reputable sources.
6) You are a true savant.
You appear to live in Boston, I would think you would be smart enough to know that in the USA, there are people that follow you just because they saw your white headphones and deduced that you likely have an Apple product (not as true as it used to be, but perhaps they just saw you flash it on the subway). My friend witnessed a group of guys jump a girl in the Canal St subway just to steal her phone just a couple of weeks ago.
The point is this, we cannot do anything to prevent the theft of jewelry and such. However, smartphones are technology items and technology can be employed to prevent their theft. So why not do it? There's no reason not to, despite all of your (invalid) arguments.
Yeah the phone companies should be responsible for fixing this. That way we don't have to prosecute the criminals as usual.
What an asinine comment. Do you realize that theft has reached such a high, it is impossible to investigate and prosecute the backlog of cases, let alone any new cases that come up?
It is much easier for the manufacturers to implement measures at the software and hardware level to deter theft. It's called being proactive, not reactive.
I suppose in your world of thinking, cars would still be as easy to hotwire and steal as they were in the 70s... screw car alarms and coded keys?
Am I the only one to think there should be an option, depending on how this works, to disable/setup the functions for someone you sell your device to?
Because buying a phone from someone just to have them report it stolen will definitely increase the crime rate..
Because buying a phone from someone just to have them report it stolen will definitely increase the crime rate..
I agree in principle, but car alarms and coded keys actually prevent theft, this does not. This prevents somebody from using it after it's stolen, but it doesn't do anything to prevent the theft in the first place.
Why don't you google the points you made, then you'd see you've jut posted your own opinion, which according to actual evidence, is wrong.
Happy to help educate you
I am not a dev so haven't used this. As far as I know, thief can still turn off iPhone and prevent tracking. Apple needs to modify software to not allow iPhone to be turned off if user has a passcode on it. One of two conditions need to be met to turn device off: 1) Input passcode to unlock phone and then power down or 2) input apple ID and password used to setup phone, then unlock device and allow power down.
This way, when phone is stolen, it can be tracked until battery dies. This I would think would almost stop theft in it's tracks or at least catch thief so they can be arrested.
This activation lock is cool, but would love to see it where you can recover iPhone. Also, make sure iPhone phones home anyway it can (i.e. jumping on un-secure wifi automatically if thief removes SIM card for GSM iphones. I know this won't happen, but would be awesome. So many things could be done in this area.
This way, when phone is stolen, it can be tracked until battery dies. This I would think would almost stop theft in it's tracks or at least catch thief so they can be arrested.
This activation lock is cool, but would love to see it where you can recover iPhone. Also, make sure iPhone phones home anyway it can (i.e. jumping on un-secure wifi automatically if thief removes SIM card for GSM iphones. I know this won't happen, but would be awesome. So many things could be done in this area.
It's actually better because once you get around a coded key or car alarm, you have full control of the car. Not the case for activation lock. Once thieves begin to realize that they can't resell the smart phones, theft will go down because they will no longer be worth the effort.
That's the point! If you make something unusable, people won't steal them alleviating the need to steal them in the first place..!
You're pretty clueless, aren't you? Actually, if you would read the news every once and a while you would see that there are bands of roving criminals who are victimizing people for their phones (mainly iPhones). In most major cities (NY, DC, SF, etc.) there are people who snatch phones from people sitting near the door and run.
I had a friend in SF who was sitting at a nice sidewalk cafe last summer. A thief ran up and sprayed pepper spray in her face, snatched her iPhone 5, then jumped in a waiting car.
Innocent people are getting hurt and dying for the scumbag thieves stealing phones. I don't think that government should be mandating companies put these measures in place. But given that it's a known issue that's getting worse, I feel that it's appropriate for a company like Apple, that is obviously making a ton of money from the product to come up with an elegant solution.
Under your scenario number 5, BTW, once you've activated the phone under your Apple ID it's no longer possible for them to punk you for stealing their phone.
Maybe, I think that phone theft is too easy for it to make a lot of difference. It isn't like a lot of these guys are getting caught so what does it matter if only 1 out of 3 don't have the activation lock, you toss the ones that have it and sell the ones that don't.
Government didn't tell the automakers to do something, they did it as a selling point. If Apple wants to make the changes based on a selling point that is fine. I'm not okay with government telling a company to fix a problem that is not their responsibility to fix.
There will still be plenty of thefts of iPhones, the parts are still worth money.
That's a very uninformed and ignorant statement. As long as you save the ipsw file you can go back to iOS 6 anytime from iOS 7, unless or until they update the baseband.
The idea is that eventually most or all smart phones would have some sort of theft prevention.
----------
Not true, without the shsh blobs, once iOS 6 is no longer signed you will not be able to restore to it.
That's a very, very, very dangerous game to play. If there is enough evidence that the accusation is wrong, and in the eBay case that would be very very clear, then in the UK you would go to jail for trying to pervert the course of justice.
----------
To achieve this, Apple would have to add a much much bigger battery to the iPhone, because every iPhone will turn itself off automatically after a few days when it runs out of power.
Interesting ideas, but not likely to ever happen. Especially that last thought of jumping on unsecured wifi... think of this from Apple's standpoint. They open themselves up the the (almost certain) possibility of being sued for "unauthorized use" of unsecured wifi in order to track the stolen devices.
The Activation Lock is an elegant solution that Apple is implementing to help reduce the attractiveness of theft of iDevices. There is little to no additional infrastructure that Apple will have to implement beyond what they already have. Since every wiped iDevice has to contact the activation servers in order to be set up and get running, there is no need to create new infrastructure or, in fact, significantly change the user experience of users who are setting up new devices (or resetting up existing devices).
Tracking of a stolen device has security and privacy implications because of the need to do something like real-time tracking of all devices to accomplish it.
I think of this as being like "The Club" for your car - if you make it less attractive to steal iPhones, the thieves will go try to steal the Galaxy S4 or other android phones... until Samsung or Google come up with an improvement on their phones - at which point Apple will volley back with their next evolution of theft prevention.
I don't think there is a realistic way (i.e. relatively inexpensive and relatively effective) to recover a stolen smartphone... the best inexpensive option is something very much like what Apple is doing - reduce the attractiveness of stealing the phone by making the phone useless once it is stolen.
An Apple news concerning a lawyer that isn't about patents? Bravo!
(Disclaimer: I read the title and the post very quickly)
(Disclaimer: I read the title and the post very quickly)
Yeah the phone companies should be responsible for fixing this. That way we don't have to prosecute the criminals as usual.
Lol. Prosecuting people robs tax payers of the scarcest of city resources, money. Seems like a smart financial move if you ask me.
----------
Ahem, people have been murdered over the theft of these devices...this is just a single example
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2818488
----------
There is no gov mandate to do this. They just hired a private security firm to test the claims of the new software. There is no law on the books.
As a side note, the iphone costs that much on a new 2 year contract. It's not the true cost of the phone.