Cellular Repo Man 253
LateNiteTV sends in news of a "kill pill" from LM Ericsson AB that a wireless carrier could use to remotely disable a subsidized netbook if the customer doesn't pay the monthly bill or cancels their credit card. "...the Swedish company that makes many of the modems that go into laptops announced Tuesday that its new modem will deal with [the nonpayment] issue by including a feature that's virtually a wireless repo man. If the carrier has the stomach to do so, it can send a signal that completely disables the computer, making it impossible to turn on. ... Laptop makers that use Ericsson modules include LG Electronics Inc., Dell Inc., Toshiba Corp., and Lenovo." The feature could also be used to lock thieves out of the data on a stolen laptop.
how precsiely will it work? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great malware target (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I predict (Score:4, Interesting)
And another 5 minutes later there will be instructions on how to send the kill signal to any laptop. Have fun bricking the laptops of anyone you don't like.
Compare to Xbox 360 hard drives (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a lot of R&D to put into proprietary interfaces when whole-disk encryption with off-the-shelf components is a lot easier to deploy.
Yet Microsoft put the R&D into the Xbox 360 game console's proprietary hard drive interface.
Re:Great. ANOTHER list... (Score:3, Interesting)
when I go to another company for service, I am informed that the phone I purchased from my previous provider is UNUSABLE on other networks...YEARS after I purchased it.
In the United States, this might be true because Verizon and Sprint use a Qualcomm CDMA stack, while AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM. Besides, contracts in the United States seldom guarantee the customer's right to remove the subsidy lock from the phone once the contract is over.
Re:Used car salesmen use the same thing (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know which satet that is, but I'm guessing that until a large proportion (if not all) of it has been paid off it is "legally owned" indeed - by the finance company.
Re:I predict (Score:2, Interesting)
"Have fun bricking the laptops of anyone you don't like."
It's the only thing I thought about when I read the summary. The target isn't "bricking the laptops", it's permanently destroying that company's reputation. Their competitors are as motivated to crack this as anybody else.
Re:I stand corrected (Score:4, Interesting)
"Usually I see cars outfitted with these devices (either remotely disabled, or requiring the car's driver to enter a PIN every week to month until payments are done) sold by used car dealers who are dealing with people with frighteningly bad credit histories."
The lot I help out at buys cheap cars at auctions, some of which had been repo'ed with the help of these little gizmos.
Dealers who deal with people with no credit often have a down payment that covers what they have in the car, so if the customer smashes it they still win. The guy I help out doesn't even check history or require full coverage insurance! He makes a very nice profit, sells vehicles at reasonable prices, and while he repos some he doesn't get excited about it because it isn't required for him to do well. The downturn may have hurt NEW car sales, but he does fine.
Re:Here's a better idea (Score:3, Interesting)
It was a bit of both, actually. The rural carriers especially were interested in grabbing fat roaming fees ($5-6 a minute was not uncommon!), which is why the lawyers had a field day doing cookie cutter cellular applications for people hoping to win the lottery, build a few towers, and then sell out to a large company later. The large carriers, like the Baby Bells and McCaw were interested in getting as many subscribers as possible, since the lock-in factor at the time (no number portability especially) was pretty high. The larger carriers started selling phones through agents, to whom they paid a bounty for each new subscriber. If memory serves, it was on the order of $500-600. Agents, in turn, would turn a portion of that bounty to the new sub, via a discount on the phone price.
I remember selling Motorola flip phones for $5,000 Cdn for a while, but the price quickly plummeted because of these bounties. At the time, our network was completely saturated in Toronto; it wasn't unusual to have to make four or five attempts to get dial tone. One night, after many drinks, an agent decried our company's strategy of not increasing the bounties. "Cash flow! Cash flow!" he garbled "You can't get a f**ing dial tone anyway! Get as many subs as you can so you can soak up the monthly fees!" Eventually network build-out caught up with demand, but the agent proved prescient; we were losing money, and were eventually taken over by another firm.
Re:You can cancel? (Score:3, Interesting)
Important? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hell, some people drive a car to the nearest gym, then spend the next hour on the exercise bike...