The FCC Wants All Phones To Feature Theft Prevention Features

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Shouldn't stuff like this already be in place without having the FCC to step in?

The Federal Communications Commission’s head Tom Wheeler has issued a challenge to the smartphone industry: he wants them to roll out a range of theft prevention features across the board at “no cost to the consumer.”
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Finally, a ditzy distracted female can walk down a dark alley at midnight with her iphone!
 
All this talk of preventing device theft is fine and dandy until you consider how disposable it makes the hardware in question and the abuse inherent in stating that something has been stolen (when in reality it's just been lost).

For example, iPhones and iPads feature cloud activation. A neat little anti-theft mechanism, right? It is...but, when "stolen", makes the device no more than a doorstop or paperweight.

I'm not going to say where I work, but we receive a LOT of Apple products that our lost & found dept. bags and tags. Anything processed by L&F and not retrieved by the owner is sent to auction after three months. If it's portable, we've gotten it at some point in time (iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks).

To date, we've accumulated three big boxes full of iPads and iPhones that we can't forward to our auctioneer because of the iCloud activation feature. Now, you might be wondering why we don't try to contact the owner listed on the device. It's simply not policy for us to "reach out" in that fashion. Every month, we receive thousands of items that've been turned into us and we simply don't have the time to try to hunt down each and every owner. Ergo, it's the responsibility of the affected person to contact us to see if we have anything that matches a lost item description.

There has been literal talk of bringing in a steamroller and crushing each and every iWhatever that we've accumulated. I think this is a horrible waste of hardware, but what else can we do? Apple itself has been contacted and they've offered zero assistance (and they certainly won't reset the iCloud registration).

Amazon has recently implemented a blacklisting mechanism for their Kindles so that we can now no longer send those devices to auction, either. There have been murmurings from upper management that we should simply destroy anything and everything that might contain an electronic registration somehow, including non-Apple cell phones, laptops, GPS devices, etc. After all, if we can't sell these items, what else is there to do?

I realize device theft is a serious problem, but you have to realize there's a nasty consequence of "hardwiring" these items to their original owners. Plus, I'm sure there's a sizable percentage of people who've simply lost their iPad or Kindle, but have declared them stolen just to be vindictive and mitigate their embarrassment over having misplaced an expensive piece of electronics.
 
As usual, Wheeler hasn't thought it through--attaching remote-wipe/lock capabilities to cell phones is very much a double-edged sword. Suppose a hacker breaks into a data base (for individuals or companies) and begins wiping/locking phones...? It's just the sort of thing an idiot hacker would love to do. How about jealous spouses/girlfriends/boyfriends locking/wiping the phones of the lovers who jilt them? That's also very likely behavior, etc.

Will the government indemnify cell-phone makers who have to replace 10,000 phones that a hacker wipes or otherwise bricks? Somehow, I don't think Wheeler has that in mind...;) And that's exactly why we should all be glad the government doesn't make our cell phones or their networks! (You have to get their permission to sue 'em for damages, don't ya' know.)
 
Should be, but might cut into their 700% profit margin.
 
So the same government that can't keep it's personel records secure is complaining that cell phone makers haven't done enough to secure cell phones from theft? lol!
 
fleggett said:
All this talk of preventing device theft is fine and dandy until you consider how disposable it makes the hardware in question and the abuse inherent in stating that something has been stolen (when in reality it's just been lost).

For example, iPhones and iPads feature cloud activation. A neat little anti-theft mechanism, right? It is...but, when "stolen", makes the device no more than a doorstop or paperweight.

I'm not going to say where I work, but we receive a LOT of Apple products that our lost & found dept. bags and tags. Anything processed by L&F and not retrieved by the owner is sent to auction after three months. If it's portable, we've gotten it at some point in time (iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks).

To date, we've accumulated three big boxes full of iPads and iPhones that we can't forward to our auctioneer because of the iCloud activation feature. Now, you might be wondering why we don't try to contact the owner listed on the device. It's simply not policy for us to "reach out" in that fashion. Every month, we receive thousands of items that've been turned into us and we simply don't have the time to try to hunt down each and every owner. Ergo, it's the responsibility of the affected person to contact us to see if we have anything that matches a lost item description.

There has been literal talk of bringing in a steamroller and crushing each and every iWhatever that we've accumulated. I think this is a horrible waste of hardware, but what else can we do? Apple itself has been contacted and they've offered zero assistance (and they certainly won't reset the iCloud registration).

Amazon has recently implemented a blacklisting mechanism for their Kindles so that we can now no longer send those devices to auction, either. There have been murmurings from upper management that we should simply destroy anything and everything that might contain an electronic registration somehow, including non-Apple cell phones, laptops, GPS devices, etc. After all, if we can't sell these items, what else is there to do?

I realize device theft is a serious problem, but you have to realize there's a nasty consequence of "hardwiring" these items to their original owners. Plus, I'm sure there's a sizable percentage of people who've simply lost their iPad or Kindle, but have declared them stolen just to be vindictive and mitigate their embarrassment over having misplaced an expensive piece of electronics.
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So you are saying security features are bad because the lost and found department can't sell the booty?

I don't understand how that is "nasty" by any stretch.

How is wiping or locking a device you lost vindictive or mitigating embarrassment?

I don't get it, is your theory that if I lose my phone I shouldn't be able to lock/wipe my phone and someone who found it should have access to my email, NFC, passwords etc to teach me a lesson to not lose stuff? That sounds more vindictive than wiping/securing the phone to me. I supposed if someone found my phone I might be embarrassed if they posted my "favre" shots on the internet.

You can recycle the devices.
 
dandirk said:
So you are saying security features are bad because the lost and found department can't sell the booty?
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No, I'm saying that hardwiring a device to a specific person has unique unintended consequences. Consequences that, so far, I've seen NO ONE bring up.

I don't understand how that is "nasty" by any stretch.
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If you love the technology, I don't see how you can call a situation whereby that same technology has to be meaninglessly destroyed anything but "nasty".

How is wiping or locking a device you lost vindictive or mitigating embarrassment?
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You do realize that wiping and locking a device are two entirely different things, right? I would have zero problems with wiping the device so that it could be used again, but locking something like a phone or tablet so that it can never be reused by another party is an absurd waste of material.

I supposed if someone found my phone I might be embarrassed if they posted my "favre" shots on the internet.
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Scenario - you just gave your son an iPad for Christmas. He goes to school with it and forgets to bring it home. Completely embarrassed, he claims it was stolen instead of what really happened to it (he left it on the playground).

Another scenario - while attending a movie, you leave your phone inside the restroom. You don't want your wife thinking you're a dumbass, so you claim someone must've stolen it out of your pocket.

Third scenario - you give your wife a monogrammed iPhone. She leaves it at the gym. Mortified at her forgetfulness, she says someone stole it while she was taking a shower.

Seems like plausible scenarios to me that perverts the concept of "theft". If you lose something, you should be honest about it and not abuse the legal system.

You can recycle the devices.
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Aside from chop shopping the device, how?
 
Android has had the find device / remote wipe / remote lock feature for sometime. I used it to find my phone when I lost it.
 
fleggett said:
All this talk of preventing device theft is fine and dandy until you consider how disposable it makes the hardware in question and the abuse inherent in stating that something has been stolen (when in reality it's just been lost).

For example, iPhones and iPads feature cloud activation. A neat little anti-theft mechanism, right? It is...but, when "stolen", makes the device no more than a doorstop or paperweight.

I'm not going to say where I work, but we receive a LOT of Apple products that our lost & found dept. bags and tags. Anything processed by L&F and not retrieved by the owner is sent to auction after three months. If it's portable, we've gotten it at some point in time (iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macbooks).

To date, we've accumulated three big boxes full of iPads and iPhones that we can't forward to our auctioneer because of the iCloud activation feature. Now, you might be wondering why we don't try to contact the owner listed on the device. It's simply not policy for us to "reach out" in that fashion. Every month, we receive thousands of items that've been turned into us and we simply don't have the time to try to hunt down each and every owner. Ergo, it's the responsibility of the affected person to contact us to see if we have anything that matches a lost item description.

There has been literal talk of bringing in a steamroller and crushing each and every iWhatever that we've accumulated. I think this is a horrible waste of hardware, but what else can we do? Apple itself has been contacted and they've offered zero assistance (and they certainly won't reset the iCloud registration).

Amazon has recently implemented a blacklisting mechanism for their Kindles so that we can now no longer send those devices to auction, either. There have been murmurings from upper management that we should simply destroy anything and everything that might contain an electronic registration somehow, including non-Apple cell phones, laptops, GPS devices, etc. After all, if we can't sell these items, what else is there to do?

I realize device theft is a serious problem, but you have to realize there's a nasty consequence of "hardwiring" these items to their original owners. Plus, I'm sure there's a sizable percentage of people who've simply lost their iPad or Kindle, but have declared them stolen just to be vindictive and mitigate their embarrassment over having misplaced an expensive piece of electronics.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry that useful security features impact your company's profits from selling devices they find for free?

So what if people claim they are stolen when they are lost, either way it is their possession and if they want to disable it that is their prerogative.

I personally love the feature especially more now that banking information is finding itself on more phones. That extra layer is nice to have.
 
Like Wheeler did last December by asking cell carriers to enable anti-theft protections on smartphones which have those features, this is just another request to enable remote wipe and other data protection features, defaulted to an opt-out basis. It's not a regulation and there's no penalty for ignoring it.

Darunion said:
I'm sorry that useful security features impact your company's profits from selling devices they find for free?

So what if people claim they are stolen when they are lost, either way it is their possession and if they want to disable it that is their prerogative.

I personally love the feature especially more now that banking information is finding itself on more phones. That extra layer is nice to have.
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All this.
 
Darunion said:
I'm sorry that useful security features impact your company's profits from selling devices they find for free?
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We are one of the few departments in our organization that has the opportunity and ability to strive for partial self-sufficiency. This isn't about making a quick buck.

So what if people claim they are stolen when they are lost, either way it is their possession and if they want to disable it that is their prerogative.
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So you have no problem with pointless waste? Can you imagine the consequences if this bizarre perception was applied to EVERYTHING one owns (clothes, toiletries, furniture)?

I personally love the feature especially more now that banking information is finding itself on more phones. That extra layer is nice to have.
Click to expand...
Then you can wipe it. There's hardly any justification I can imagine for completely locking the device for future use.
 
fleggett said:
We are one of the few departments in our organization that has the opportunity and ability to strive for partial self-sufficiency. This isn't about making a quick buck.



So you have no problem with pointless waste? Can you imagine the consequences if this bizarre perception was applied to EVERYTHING one owns (clothes, toiletries, furniture)?

Phones can be taken to recycle centers where fiberglass, lithium, and other trace elements are recovered and re-purposed.


Then you can wipe it. There's hardly any justification I can imagine for completely locking the device for future use.
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Yes and No.

Do nothing: Phone is sellable and all financial data can be used. Estimated phone value: $20,000

Just wipe: This protects myself from financial or personal exploitation due to the information stored or accessible by the phone. Estimated phone value: $500

Wipe and Lock: This erases all data and makes the device unusable by anyone other than the owner. Estimated phone value: $5 worth of recyclable materials.


This whole layer is to lower the value of the phone to almost zero so that there is a lessened desire to steal them. Your average phone thief isn't going to be able to flip the phone fast enough.

If you remember any articles where phones and tablets were ripped out of peoples hands causing severe injury. I feel like these scenarios are more important to curb than the 2nd hand value of lost and found devices.
 
I mis-quoted and no edit. One of those lines was my comment in the quote
 
I understand the notion of locking the device so that it can't be reused to help prevent theft. And I also acknowledge that such a tactic is probably working (at least, to some extent).


What I primarily object to is people locking these items simply for the sake of locking them, either to be vindictive, to save face, or whatever. And it gets even more egregious when they're declared stolen when, in actuality, they've simply been lost (and the owner knows this).


Like I wrote, we keep all L&F items for a period of three months before they're finally processed for auction. If you don't have the motivation to call us for retrieval in those three months, then I can only presume you don't really care to retrieve it. And if you don't care, why should you be concerned if someone else takes possession of it for use? For that matter, why should you care if someone makes a quick buck on it?


This is exacerbating the current culture of disposable electronics that started with devices more expensive to repair than to replace. Except it's much worse than that, as these items are perfectly fine, but are disposed of anyway because of notions of rabid personal ownership. The recyclable value is FAR less than what the device is worth untouched.


So, let me ask you this. What would you do in our situation? Could you stand there and watch as hundreds of perfectly good iPads, iPhones, Kindles, and other devices are literally crushed beneath a steamroller? All to preserve your personal definition of what's ethical in the realm of personal ownership?
 
This reminds me of the government's solution to the out of control vehicle thefts in Detroit... ban people from parking their cars in the street and require them to be in garages after dark to cut down on vehicle theft. :D

I still prefer my solution... encourage people to shoot criminals that mug them! Good people outnumber criminals tens of thousands to one, so they don't stand a chance. Dead criminals have seen a statistical 100% drop in crime with a 0% recidivism rate. It simultaneously solves the overpopulation crisis, which frankly is good for the environment. Dead criminals actually have a net zero carbon footprint, and can be recycled into cat food.
 
fleggett said:
I understand the notion of locking the device so that it can't be reused to help prevent theft. And I also acknowledge that such a tactic is probably working (at least, to some extent).


What I primarily object to is people locking these items simply for the sake of locking them, either to be vindictive, to save face, or whatever. And it gets even more egregious when they're declared stolen when, in actuality, they've simply been lost (and the owner knows this).


Like I wrote, we keep all L&F items for a period of three months before they're finally processed for auction. If you don't have the motivation to call us for retrieval in those three months, then I can only presume you don't really care to retrieve it. And if you don't care, why should you be concerned if someone else takes possession of it for use? For that matter, why should you care if someone makes a quick buck on it?


This is exacerbating the current culture of disposable electronics that started with devices more expensive to repair than to replace. Except it's much worse than that, as these items are perfectly fine, but are disposed of anyway because of notions of rabid personal ownership. The recyclable value is FAR less than what the device is worth untouched.


So, let me ask you this. What would you do in our situation? Could you stand there and watch as hundreds of perfectly good iPads, iPhones, Kindles, and other devices are literally crushed beneath a steamroller? All to preserve your personal definition of what's ethical in the realm of personal ownership?
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Like I said these can be taken to recycle centers instead of just destroyed. I do see how you feel about this but also think that your situation is unique and a very small slice of the larger pie.

Also how is it vindictive if I lock my phone after losing it and claiming it was stolen? Should I also not cancel a gift card that I lost because someone who finds it deserves a prize?

Regardless how your company functions in this situation it is nothing compared to the dangers and problems of the high value target of stealing phones and that needs curbed and since it is so easy to do so, it should be done.

I work in consumer electronics, what you throw away is nothing. Just recycle it and you can feel better about it. Apple has dumpsters full of trashed products and returns they send off to recycle as well.
 
Ducman69 said:
This reminds me of the government's solution to the out of control vehicle thefts in Detroit... ban people from parking their cars in the street and require them to be in garages after dark to cut down on vehicle theft. :D

I still prefer my solution... encourage people to shoot criminals that mug them! Good people outnumber criminals tens of thousands to one, so they don't stand a chance. Dead criminals have seen a statistical 100% drop in crime with a 0% recidivism rate. It simultaneously solves the overpopulation crisis, which frankly is good for the environment. Dead criminals actually have a net zero carbon footprint, and can be recycled into cat food.
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Soylent green is people!
 
Also some people are just paranoid (maybe more than some) and locking a device that is lost lets them feel better than just wiping it. I feel that if there was a self destruct option most would use that
 
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