Samsung May Be Adding Kill Switch for Stolen Smartphones

[exfileme]

To fight smartphone theft, Samsung is supposedly one of the first to add a kill switch that will essentially brick the stolen device.

Samsung May Be Adding Kill Switch for Stolen Smartphones : Read more

 

[internetlad]

get your tin hats, boys.

 

[FunSurfer]

"This device will self-destruct in 5 seconds" pfffffftttttttttt... (smoke coming out)

 

[Beahota]

Doesn't blackberry protect allow you to wipe and lock your device remotely

 

[digiex]

The phones can still be sold as spare parts.

 

[lhughey]

Nice pic of the Samsung user, Tom's.

 

[bnot]

better to sell them as parts then since no one will know.

 

[rwinches]

Cool, I can't wait to report my friends new phone stolen, what an awesome prank! Too bad I will have to wait till July.

 

[Vorador2]

Since iOS is adding one, Samsung has to play the "me too" game.

 

[none12345]

Really bad road to go down.

Want to cut off service for a 'stolen' phone sure no problem. But giving them a way to brick a device, makes it way too easy to screw people. From hackers to government, to fake theft reports etc. Its just a bad bad road to go down.

 

[chuckchurch]

Wouldn't all the current stolen phones end up as being sold for parts anyway? I can't imagine a Verizon store is going to activate a Verizon phone when it shows up in the DB as stolen. Or do they electronically change the IEMI?

 

[sonofliberty08]

Manufacturer: is time to make more cash (press the button)
End user: my phone is dead, got to buy a new one......

Government: this fellow are spreading comments against the government, kill him! (press the button)

 

[__-_-_-__]

this is stupid. if a killswitch solution was feasible it was already implemented in notebooks many years ago. all the previous attempts failed. If you invent a killswitch method it is certain that hackers will find a workaround.
also there's already a killswitch method used by carriers. it blocks the imei and it can't be used on nationwide networks. but even this method can be worthless if someone changes (illegally) but easily the smarthpone imei.
also even if it was technologically possible (it isn't) the thefts would still continue because parts can be used. only the soc would be unusable. but all the modules would work flawless like, screen, digitalizer, case, battery, shell, camera, antennas, memory card etc.
so good luck with that but it won't work.

 

[daekar]

Because of course it's fair to hold phone companies responsible for other people's illegal actions with the threat of legal action if they don't do as they're told and put in a brick-me-now button on the mobile devices on which everyone relies. Tinfoil hat or not, it's awfully convenient. After all of the proof that nobody can be trusted to abstain from using illegal access to vital technology, how can people not recognize the danger here? In a state where you can be termed a terrorist for anything at all and promptly lose every right you have as a citizen, how can this kind of power be acceptable in the hands of ANY company or government?

Edit: If I were a hacker or other peddler of malicious code, I would be jumping for joy at this news. You can't get much better an opportunity than remote-bricking masses of phones with the click of a button, so to speak. Talk about creating vulnerability by over-centralization...

 

[belardo]

Should make it expode or turn into a WP7 device... either way, a useless device.

 

[bikeordie1]

I would think a more 'un-hackable' approach to ruining a smartphone would be to remotely trigger the soft/firmware to overheat the phone without any safeguards and with all physical buttons turned off. Just click and know that your phone is melting the Soc into nothingness while the thief is running his hand under cold water.

 

[tinmann]

If you report it stolen the gps should then act like a lojack and be able to lead you to the phone.

 

[funguseater]

It is easy to accidentally brick your device when flashing a new bootloader, all Samsung has to do is have a second rom chip that loads a faulty bootloader/rom. Instant paperweight. And useless for most thieves, It takes skill and ability to recover a bricked device (if even possible), something most thieves dont have, they just want quick $$$

 

[Johmama]

The last thing I want is the government having a killswitch for my phone.

And I'm not saying "Big government is out to get me!", I don't care who has it, I don't want anyone to have a killswitch for my phone. People need to take care of their phones. I take excellent care of my phone, but I'm also running an anti-theft/lost phone app that can do almost everything on the phone remotely. Just don't leave your phone lying around. Treat that phone like it's a stack of cash worth it's value. I shouldn't have to pay for irresponsible people's behaviors.

 

[CheesyHotDogPuff]

Anyone reminded of Inspector Gadget?

 

[eklipz330]

This is a terrible idea... What if someone loses the phone, but the person who finds it tries to return it?

I don't have a good feeling about it, and something tells me this won't solve anything

 

[sharedude]

I can read the headlines now...
"MILLIONS OF BOMBS GO OFF AROUND THE WORLD!"
"Cyber terrorists hack samsung servers, activating the self destruct features on all samsung smart phones. A DOD spokesperson said earlier they are preparing to invade South Korea for harboring terrorists."

 

[InvalidError]

better to sell them as parts then since no one will know.

Since nearly every major component/assembly has a microcontroller on-board, every assembly and subsystem could have its own set of kill-switches with attached behavior.

You could even have a setup where all microcontrollers authenticate each-other at boot time to verify that all components are factory-authorized to work together so repair shops cannot use stolen parts. This makes most of the separable components worthless even as spare parts.

 

[estebanhillcoat]

the thing is not New and copyrighted by nokia

When stolen, the Carrier is going to upload symbian to the Phone.

 

[back_by_demand]

Ok, Samsung news, but not a word written about the huge array of products released at E3 like the W8/Android tablet Q, is it because Tom's hates Microsoft? So far off the pace this site is a joke