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Find My IPhone should allow the owner of a stolen phone to make it so that the phone cannot be turned off by the power switch on the device itself. For non-4G
by chrissnell 10y ago
Find My IPhone should allow the owner of a stolen phone to make it so that the phone cannot be turned off by the power switch on the device itself. For non-4G/non-LTE devices, It should also aggressively look for open access points and attempt to associate with them and phone home to Apple servers with location info. Activating stolen mode should also put the phone into a power conservation mode to keep it alive and phoning home as long as possible.
- ComodoHacker 10y agoHonestly, I won't ever buy a phone which I can't reliably turn off under any circumstances. And I'll think twice before buying a phone whose battery I can't take out with little effort.
- dijit 10y agoThats you, I'm me. My phone is my life and if someone is not deincentivised against stealing it then I'm not going to be thrilled. Personally I've never had issues with iPhones for the battery, I've had three- but then I also spring for AppleCare.
- cstrat 10y agoYeah 100%. This would be ideal, even if it doesn't really contribute to returning stolen phones. It makes the whole idea of stealing an iPhone so much more difficult for thieves. A strong deterrent in my opinion is much better than a solution which returns your phone. I'd rather have it not stolen in the first place.
- duaneb 10y agoHow do you protect against lead boxes or freezers drainig power? it seems trivial to prevent it from phoning home.
- hoppa_liza 10y agoThe practical approach is to make things hard enough to discourage theft in the first place or make life harder for the thief afterwards. You cannot usually cover all possible scenarios for a trained insistent attacker.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cr1895 10y agoIs this standard iPhone thief operating procedure?
- MagnumOpus 10y agoPickpockets usually don't carry freezers or lead boxes on their person. By the time they are home and can drain the phone, their closest WiFi access points would have pinpointed them. (Though a sophisticated thief might have a lightweight faraday cage on them - sleeve lined with aluminium foil might sufficiently dampen Wifi/GPS/cell signals.)
- maccard 10y agoThe same way having a secure password protects you from Brute force attacks - https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/
- flashman 10y agoWhat a great idea - make an iPhone as adversarial towards thieves as possible, so stealing one becomes a huge personal risk. Maybe even add a stealth version of Lost Mode, so the phone works in a sort of guest mode (without access to your data) but is furiously spying on the user in the background.
- zarify 10y agoMy worry about something like this is it's essentially opening it up to be a remote access tool for anyone that can figure out how to trigger it while not being Apple. I would personally prefer to just lose my phone and have robust measures to stop thieves from accessing my data than increase the possibility of bad actors/govt using it as yet another surveillance tool (or at least more than it already is).
- joshmanders 10y agoAgreed. I don't care about my phone, I can get a new one. I care about my data. Apple has great online storage and syncing so I can lose my device and be back up and running again on a new device. I'd rather see something that basically allows me to say "This device is stolen, make it worthless." Where Apple waits for it to phone home once and then they brick it so that it has to be taken to Apple to be reversed, notifying Apple that it was a stolen device.
- markdown 10y ago> Maybe even add a stealth version of Lost Mode, so the phone is furiously spying on the user in the background. Prey (preyproject.com) does this. It'll take pics and screenshots and send them to you along with GPS coordinates at regular intervals.
- sdenton4 10y agoThrow it into low power mode, but with loud alarm noises at random intervals... Annoy the thieves into giving it back...
- 10y ago
- nateguchi 10y agothe best option would be to ask for your pin before the phone shuts down, maybe even at the firmware level to make sure it gets around possibly crashed software.
- Shank 10y agoThe latest version of iOS does turn on low power mode as part of lost mode. I agree, though, that making it super adversarial would be both fun and useful against theft.
- gozur88 10y agoThe problem with those kinds of ideas is thieves will know ahead of time, and they'll be prepared. They'll pull the battery, or isolate it, take the sim. They'll take it to "this guy I know" who has figured a way around the security feature. The people who are really going to be in a bind are the totally unprepared legitimate owners who've been hacked.
- spenvo 10y agoNice thought. The problem is that turning your iPhone off is the easiest way to secure it quickly and completely. Whether it's an overbearing TSA agent or police pullover -- if you want your data to be secure (password protected vs fingerprint protected) you can always just turn off. Anything iCloud-initiated does not benefit from the protection of the secure enclave on the device--so with your idea, you'd be opening a denial-of-privacy attack vector
- sleepychu 10y agoWhat about self-ransomware? "All the data on this is encrypted and there is absolutely no way to flash it without the secret key that is stored in the apple cloud."
- kaybe 10y agoIs that technically possible when facing a sufficiently determined adversary?
- sleepychu 10y agoI don't understand your question. Do you mean is it possible to prevent flashing of iPhones that Apple have ransomwared?
- kaybe 10y agoYes. Is it possible in principle to prevent flashing without bricking the device? How would one do that on a deep level? I don't think it can be done on computers, but am happy to be corrected.
- kkarakk 10y agonot without boobytrapping your phone by adding capacitors etc that would shortcircuit it in case flashing hardware was connected to it
- 10y ago
- hellofunk 10y agoThe problem is that a thief would just turn the phone off immediately, when it is stolen, long before you ever report it as a stolen phone or even realize it was stolen.
- amelius 10y agoPerhaps the phone could turn itself on again intermittently? Not being able to remove the battery could be an advantage in this case :)
- raesene6 10y agoThere could of course be downsides to that. 1) in situations where phones are not meant to be switched on (e.g. some flights) 2) from a privacy perspective not being able to ensure your phone is actually off is not great.
- adrianN 10y agoYou can't be sure that your phone is off already. Phones can be remotely activated and used as eavesdropping devices.
- jhoechtl 10y agoIs this really true or your speculation? Really curious about that but yeah, I am also suspecting that while the phones seem quiet they are actually listening ... sometimes.
- lorenzhs 10y agoWhy stop there? It could broadcast some (authenticated) "I'm a stolen iPhone" message to other iPhones nearby. Maybe a Bluetooth beacon that any iPhone with Bluetooth enabled could pick up and report to Apple servers. I'm not sure how technically feasible this is but at least in high-density urban areas this might work.
- reitanqild 10y agoGood point. OTOH: This opens up a whole new avenue of pranks to pull on iPhone users.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> "It could broadcast some (authenticated) "I'm a stolen iPhone" message to other iPhones nearby." Why not have Siri yell 'Im a stolen iPhone' full volume with the volume switch disabled.
- jhoechtl 10y ago
- Aaargh20318 10y agoThey should add a way to remotely short out the battery and make the phone explode.
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoThere's a cydia tweak that claims to do something similar, I have no idea how well it works: http://repo.ziph0n.com/index.php?method=view&pid=54 http://repo.ziph0n.com/index.php?method=view&pid=54
- PTRFRLL 10y agoYou can also accomplish it with the Activator tweak. On Lockscreen, set Hold Power Button to Do Nothing. Of course you can still perform a hard reset but it's better than nothing.
- fao_ 10y agoaggressively look for open access points and attempt to associate with them and phone home [...] location info put the phone into a power conservation mode to keep it alive and phoning home as long as possible. Isn't there an inherent conflict here? I doubt that you can aggressively scan and phone home, and conserve battery life.
- Razengan 10y ago> make it so that the phone cannot be turned off by the power switch on the device itself. I used to have the same idea [1], having been a victim of theft and robbery myself, but as others in that thread pointed out, it would be trivial for thieves to take out the SIM, or to wrap it up in something that blocks all signals. I think a better way might be to introduce a PANIC MODE; a special state that could be activated with a predefined fingerprint or PIN, different from the ones you use for unlocking. Say your left pinky. In Panic Mode, the device would present a "fake" environment, which allows most operations but: * Keeps the device secretly powered on even after being powered off. * Regularly connects to open networks AND also transmits an SOS to all nearby Apple devices, to use THEIR network and transmit its location to Find My Phone. * If not powered off, defaults to an easy passcode, like 0000 or 1234, and disables lockout protection for invalid retries. * When unlocked, presents a home screen that looks identical to a freshly installed OS, with empty or random Notes, Contacts, Calendar etc. * Allows calls to any local number, but for a duration of one minute only, so the networks can aid law enforcement in tracking it as well. ---- TL;DR: Make the device appear unsecured to the thieves, so they don't have to force the owner to remove all protections, and entice them to keep using it normally for as long as possible while secretly and aggressively tracking them. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12058169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12058169
- chrissnell 10y agoYou're not fooling any thieves. They knew it was a legit stolen phone that was PIN-locked when they stole it. A faked "fresh install" isn't going to trick them into using the phone. iPhone thefts will decrease when thieves know that the iPhone that they just stole is going to get them caught. I understand that some don't like the privacy implications of a phone that can be forced into spy mode with Apple ID credentials. Fine. Give the user the option to disable this functionality on the device (and only on the physical device). Users that don't want it can disable it in their settings and the phone will act just like the phones do today when stolen, regardless of what happens on the iCloud side.
- Razengan 10y agoIt would still make a big difference where I live, where most phones are taken at gunpoint, and later sold for their screen, battery and shell if nothing else, unless you were walking down a particularly deserted neighborhood, in which case the muggers will make you unlock the phone and remove the passcode/fingerprint. However, many don't know about iCloud/Find My Phone yet, and it requires an internet connection to disable anyway, which most people don't have outdoors, here. Some kind of "fake mode," filled with random data, would also help with government coercion in, ahem, the more civilized countries.
- superuser2 10y agoEasily defeated with Faraday bags, no? Works for thieves of opportunity, not necessarily others.