Industry-Wide Smartphone "Kill Switch" Closer To Reality 139
mpicpp (3454017) writes "The 'kill switch,' a system for remotely disabling smartphones and wiping their data, will become standard in 2015, according to a pledge backed by most of the mobile world's major players. Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft, along with the five biggest cellular carriers in the United States, are among those that have signed on to a voluntary program announced Tuesday by the industry's largest trade group. All smartphones manufactured for sale in the United States after July 2015 must have the technology, according to the program from CTIA. Advocates say the feature would deter thieves from taking mobile devices by rendering phones useless while allowing people to protect personal information if their phone is lost or stolen. Its proponents include law enforcement officials concerned about the rising problem of smartphone theft."
Re:Yay for government!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how easy it will be for someone unauthorized to force a cellphone off the air. And how easy it will be to get someone authorized to do it through social engineering.
I just hope that however they implement it, they make sure that emergency calls can still be made.
You can bet NSA has the keys (Score:5, Interesting)
What would the govt of some place like Egypt have given for a phone kill switch?
Re:Yay for government!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a royal pain in the ass to get a IMEI blacklisted. I had to fight AT&T even though I sent them the police report and the phone was in their records as my property.
"But it's currently activated" Yes, by the thief, blacklist it.
"but that is one of our gophone customers", Yes the thief blacklist it.
"but but....." Do I need to get a lawyer involved?
"One moment please...."
99% will not force them to blacklist the phone but just let it go. To hell with who they sold the phone to, I was not going to stop until the phone was forever disabled from being a phone.
Re:Yay for government!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
The carriers already can (and do) block stolen phones. Each phone has a unique IMEI number, in addition to the SIM card number.
The carriers are already required to do this in some countries, and do it voluntarily in other countries. They just don't do it in the US.
IMEI blacklists are common in many countries, including the UK. When a device is stolen the IMEI number is put on the list and carriers reject the device and (potentially) notify investigators.
Blacklists are useless.
Steal phone in the UK, sell it in Poland or Hungary where the carrier doesn't have a blacklist.
Or better yet, change the IMEI.
A remote wipe will be equally as useless as the criminals will just learn to immediately turn the phone off and then give it to someone who can disable the remote wipe. There's always someone willing to sell their knowledge/skills with no morals. Why would you think this doesn't extend to people who hack phones.
Re:Standard, mandatory feature? No, thanks. (Score:2, Interesting)
Damm right. Cops beat a pregnant woman in the street and shoot her 6 year old son. Blood splatters everywhere, woman is screaming while cop is on top of her and choking her to death. Civilians are filming the important police work with their cell phones. Officer X picks up his radio and calls in 'Dispatch, need a 10-09'. A few seconds later the dispatcher comes back with '10-09 is confirmed'.
All the dispatcher did was click on the current incident tab on her screen and then on the 10-09 button, but under the hood the backend application sent a command to a hub that connects all cell networks. That command included the officer's exact location. Each cell network in turn received the request and then proceeded to determine what phones were within a 300ft radius of the officer's location 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after the timestamp in the request. The software doing that queued purge requests to a message queue with an application on the other end that communicates with the individual device agents on the cell phone. The device agents received the purge command and the mobile phones locked up for about a minute while the purge was underway. Those that were smart enough to turn off their phones were surprised when their phones were wiped the next day when the application again picked their purge-request off the message queue and passed it on to the device agent.
While all this was underway, also another application running in a data center somewhere in Utah received the same information and increased individual security risk scores on all individuals involved.
The woman ended up giving birth in prison, charged with assaulting police officers with deadly intent and a slew of other charges. Her child will grow up in a foster home. The people who were bystanders had their phones wiped and no further action was taken against them.
All except for one person who had been protesting police brutality for a number of years. He was on a watch list. When the police department automatically received an NCIC message from that data center in Utah advising them of his presence at the scene they knocked one evening at his door. He didn't open, so they kicked in the door and shot him in the face.