US Carriers Said To Have Rejected Kill Switch Technology Last Year

alphadogg writes "U.S. cellphone carriers were offered a technology last year that supporters say would dramatically cut incidents of smartphone theft, but the carriers turned it down, according to sources with knowledge of the proposal. The so-called 'kill-switch' software allows consumers to remotely wipe and render their phones useless if stolen. Law enforcement and politicians believe the incentive for stealing a smartphone or tablet would be greatly reduced if the technology became standard, because the devices could quickly be rendered useless. A proposal by Samsung to the five largest U.S. carriers would have made the LoJack software, developed by Canada's Absolute Software, a standard component on many of its Android phones in the U.S. The proposal followed pressure from the offices of the San Francisco District Attorney and the New York Attorney General for the industry to do more to prevent phone theft."

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[Dan East]

You can still part out a phone and make at least a hundred bucks off it. I'm sure they would continue to be stolen just for that amount of money alone.

Re:That's a great plan...

[joaommp]

It's not like it couldn't be done already, at least up to some point. Don't forget that the baseband chip on the cellphone "blindly" trusts the cells.

How are ANY of these people getting involved?

[Sloppy]

I don't get why I would want my ISP to have a say in whether or not (or how!) I disable my personal computer. But I also don't get why I'd want my government to have a role in that discussion either.

Re:That's a great plan...

[Ksevio]

I like how every time a new piece of technology comes up with integration into devices we have (phones, cars, toasters), the immediate response on /. is always "But what about the hackers!" as if there's a group of malicious hackers just waiting for the technology to appear so they could exploit it. There are plenty of vulnerable technologies out today (SCADA systems for one) but hackers aren't so interested in disrupting these systems because they're pure evil. Most systems get hacked because there's some profit to be made out of it or someone is trying to put a message out there. While beeping people's car horns or shutting off their cell phones might send A message, it's not sending a useful one, and unless T-Mobil or HTC is doing the hacking, there isn't a profit to be made from it.

Re:Why not just add it Samsung?

[JohnFen]

There's no need for Samsung to do it -- this capability is already in every Android phone that uses Google Apps. It's enabled by default, although users can disable it. You can even disable the two things independently of each other: phone location and phone wiping.

I, for one, would absolutely object to this capability being included if I didn't know about it or I couldn't disable it. I don't want my carrier -- or anybody else -- to be able to locate my phone and disable it. The inclusion of this ability with no way to turn it off would prevent me from buying the phone.