16 ms·

Maybe designed to help with anti-theft? I already use a shortcut automation when airplane mode is turned on to lock my phone and turn off airplane mode, as that

by uxjw 2y ago

Maybe designed to help with anti-theft? I already use a shortcut automation when airplane mode is turned on to lock my phone and turn off airplane mode, as that’s the first thing thieves would do.

zarzavat 2y ago
This is a great idea. Perhaps add a moderate delay (say 30 seconds or 1 minute) to confuse them even more. Then they will think that airplane mode is active when it isn't.
ruthmarx 2y ago
Savvy thieves would just use a faraday cage case/bag I guess.
- sroussey 2y ago
  Sure. Or just power down. No FaceID or password code required. Find My may still work though, so thieves do use faraday bags.
- zarzavat 2y ago
  Savvy thieves would probably choose a different occupation. Prisons are full of stupid criminals.
hunter2_ 2y ago
When you say theft, do you mean by someone with interest in the hardware or the data? Assuming hardware, I'm not sure I understand why a thief who intends to wipe it anyway would care about an auto restart versus normal screen lock. Assuming data, that's exactly what the article is about.
- ruthmarx 2y ago
  Are thieves really even stealing phones anymore? You can't pawn or sell them anymore because they can't just be reset and setup with a new account, batteries are becoming impossible to remove...all you can really take is the screen which isn't really worth much either.
  - hunter2_ 2y ago
    > can't just be reset and setup with a new account I know mobile networks keep lists of stolen devices, but they can't be used at all? Like all possible recovery modes demand authentication?
    - ruthmarx 2y ago
      > I know mobile networks keep lists of stolen devices, but they can't be used at all? Like all possible recovery modes demand authentication? Newer phones for, I want to say maybe the last 5 years, yeah. If it's turned off and you don't have the code to boot it, you can't access any kind of bootloader or recovery mode, it just shows a screen with an obfuscated email that is required to unlock it or something similar. Gone are the days of just being able to do a factory reset.
      - sroussey 2y ago
        True, but my iPhone 15 Pro was stolen, powered down, and likely ended up in china for parts.
    - sbierwagen 2y ago
      Apple calls this Activation Lock: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108794 https://support.apple.com/en-us/108794 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120610 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120610 Obviously, the logic board is locked to the owner's Apple account, but so is the display, battery, camera, and selfie camera. Basically the only thing you can reuse is the metal frame of the phone. Phones are still stolen (since the cost of theft is $0) but stolen phones are worth closer to $5 than $1000.
      - avidiax 2y ago
        > Phones are still stolen (since the cost of theft is $0) but stolen phones are worth closer to $5 than $1000. I have read that there are services offered by specialized criminals to unlock stolen iPhones. These basically amount to phishing schemes where they trick the owner into entering their apple ID and password on a site under their control. They can then factory reset the iPhone, but they also get to mine the phone/account for crypto, banking details, identity theft, etc. Potentially the value of a stolen iPhone can be more than the aftermarket price, since draining a bank account has unbounded gain. Low level thieves are getting $300-$600 for stolen phones. https://abc7ny.com/amp/crime-spree-phones-stolen-nyc-migrants-new-york-city/14390546/ https://abc7ny.com/amp/crime-spree-phones-stolen-nyc-migrant... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253640344?sortBy=rank https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253640344?sortBy=rank
counternotions 2y ago
Neat trick. But in what cities do people need to live like this?
- ronsor 2y ago
  San Francisco. Or almost any other big American city for that matter.
  - dangus 2y ago
    When people say things like this what they're actually doing is falsely associating walkable urban fabric in cities like San Francisco, NYC, and large parts of Chicago as being especially dangerous just because it's only practical to be pick-pocketed on foot. They say this while ignoring the generally low crime rates of those compared to peers. For example, Chicago has an almost 20% lower property crime rate than Peoria, IL. Fort Worth, TX has 52% higher property crime rate than New York City. Carmel, Indiana, an affluent suburb with a public high school ranked #354 in the country and 6th in Indiana, only manages to have a 28% better property crime rate than NYC. (And driving a car around is a lot more statistically dangerous to your life than walking around a big city. I'd rather have my phone stolen than be t-boned by a drunk driver)
- brendoelfrendo 2y ago
  Any city with police that might steal your phone. So... all of them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- throwway232423 2y ago
  Latin America cities
Shank 2y ago
You can just disable access to Control Center and Siri when locked. If you have an eSIM device, this is a really great thing to do, as it’ll always connect to a cellular network when available.
- dangus 2y ago
  I think the cool thing about this shortcut is that it'll work even if the thief stole your phone while unlocked.
chatmasta 2y ago
How do you turn on airplane mode when that's actually what you want to do?
- hunter2_ 2y ago
  Personally I only use it for battery savings when camping or similar. It's not the kind of thing everyone cares about. I think we're long past the days where a flight full of phones frantically searching for towers during takeoff/landing would degrade the network for people on the ground, as may have been true way back when (and why) airplane mode was adopted as a standard feature.
  - imoverclocked 2y ago
    It was never about that. It’s about interference with aircraft systems. Look for “5G NOTAM” if you are someone who thinks this is bunk. Specifically, some radio altimeters (which are needed for some IMC approaches) can be interfered with by the adjacent 5G frequency bands due to not being built with a tight enough filter.
    - stephen_g 2y ago
      The 5G issue was more about flying in or over anywhere that had a 5G service using that particular band - it didn’t matter whether anyone on the phone did or did not have a phone on. Hence the whole US aircraft fleet was upgraded (by the end of September 2023) so that band could be used for 5G there and it’s no longer a problem. As I understand it, cellular modems wouldn’t transmit on a frequency if they can’t see a base station (tower) first on that channel, so I expect before the problem was fixed, the temporary solution was just to disable that band at the base stations. If there was any actual known or suspected risk of electromagnetic compatibility issues with any consumer devices, there would be very strict laws about it (it might become a Federal offence not to have your phone in airplane mode, for example - but obviously it’s not)
      - imoverclocked 2y ago
layman51 2y ago
How is this shortcut even possible? Maybe it’s because I have an older model or haven’t figured out how to build good Shortcuts yet, but I thought that every shortcut requires some kind of manual activation. Would you launch the shortcut from an Apple Watch? Wouldn’t iOS require confirmation from the thief to turn off airplane mode? That being said, I have heard of a weird automation someone made where it would open an app as soon as they went to the Home Screen. It took some thinking for them to deactivate it because the shortcut was really fast to activate.
- skygazer 2y ago
  It’s in the automation tab of the shortcuts.app. You define trigger conditions and the shortcut to trigger.
  - layman51 2y ago
    I see how to build it now, thank you. I imagine for this automation to serve its purpose, we also need to make the Control Center inaccessible when the phone is locked so that whoever has the phone can’t just try turning it off again. Well, that isn’t strictly necessary since the automation seems to run anytime Airplane Mode is enabled.
    - skygazer 2y ago
      Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Allow Access When Locked: uncheck Control Center.

by uxjw 2y ago

Maybe designed to help with anti-theft? I already use a shortcut automation when airplane mode is turned on to lock my phone and turn off airplane mode, as that’s the first thing thieves would do.

zarzavat 2y ago

This is a great idea. Perhaps add a moderate delay (say 30 seconds or 1 minute) to confuse them even more. Then they will think that airplane mode is active when it isn't.

ruthmarx 2y ago

Savvy thieves would just use a faraday cage case/bag I guess.

sroussey 2y ago
Sure. Or just power down. No FaceID or password code required. Find My may still work though, so thieves do use faraday bags.
zarzavat 2y ago
Savvy thieves would probably choose a different occupation. Prisons are full of stupid criminals.

hunter2_ 2y ago

When you say theft, do you mean by someone with interest in the hardware or the data? Assuming hardware, I'm not sure I understand why a thief who intends to wipe it anyway would care about an auto restart versus normal screen lock. Assuming data, that's exactly what the article is about.

ruthmarx 2y ago
Are thieves really even stealing phones anymore? You can't pawn or sell them anymore because they can't just be reset and setup with a new account, batteries are becoming impossible to remove...all you can really take is the screen which isn't really worth much either.
- hunter2_ 2y ago
  > can't just be reset and setup with a new account I know mobile networks keep lists of stolen devices, but they can't be used at all? Like all possible recovery modes demand authentication?
  - ruthmarx 2y ago
    > I know mobile networks keep lists of stolen devices, but they can't be used at all? Like all possible recovery modes demand authentication? Newer phones for, I want to say maybe the last 5 years, yeah. If it's turned off and you don't have the code to boot it, you can't access any kind of bootloader or recovery mode, it just shows a screen with an obfuscated email that is required to unlock it or something similar. Gone are the days of just being able to do a factory reset.
    - sroussey 2y ago
      True, but my iPhone 15 Pro was stolen, powered down, and likely ended up in china for parts.
  - sbierwagen 2y ago
    Apple calls this Activation Lock: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108794 https://support.apple.com/en-us/108794 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120610 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120610 Obviously, the logic board is locked to the owner's Apple account, but so is the display, battery, camera, and selfie camera. Basically the only thing you can reuse is the metal frame of the phone. Phones are still stolen (since the cost of theft is $0) but stolen phones are worth closer to $5 than $1000.
    - avidiax 2y ago
      > Phones are still stolen (since the cost of theft is $0) but stolen phones are worth closer to $5 than $1000. I have read that there are services offered by specialized criminals to unlock stolen iPhones. These basically amount to phishing schemes where they trick the owner into entering their apple ID and password on a site under their control. They can then factory reset the iPhone, but they also get to mine the phone/account for crypto, banking details, identity theft, etc. Potentially the value of a stolen iPhone can be more than the aftermarket price, since draining a bank account has unbounded gain. Low level thieves are getting $300-$600 for stolen phones. https://abc7ny.com/amp/crime-spree-phones-stolen-nyc-migrants-new-york-city/14390546/ https://abc7ny.com/amp/crime-spree-phones-stolen-nyc-migrant... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253640344?sortBy=rank https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253640344?sortBy=rank

counternotions 2y ago

Neat trick. But in what cities do people need to live like this?

ronsor 2y ago
San Francisco. Or almost any other big American city for that matter.
- dangus 2y ago
  When people say things like this what they're actually doing is falsely associating walkable urban fabric in cities like San Francisco, NYC, and large parts of Chicago as being especially dangerous just because it's only practical to be pick-pocketed on foot. They say this while ignoring the generally low crime rates of those compared to peers. For example, Chicago has an almost 20% lower property crime rate than Peoria, IL. Fort Worth, TX has 52% higher property crime rate than New York City. Carmel, Indiana, an affluent suburb with a public high school ranked #354 in the country and 6th in Indiana, only manages to have a 28% better property crime rate than NYC. (And driving a car around is a lot more statistically dangerous to your life than walking around a big city. I'd rather have my phone stolen than be t-boned by a drunk driver)
brendoelfrendo 2y ago
Any city with police that might steal your phone. So... all of them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throwway232423 2y ago
Latin America cities

Shank 2y ago

You can just disable access to Control Center and Siri when locked. If you have an eSIM device, this is a really great thing to do, as it’ll always connect to a cellular network when available.

dangus 2y ago
I think the cool thing about this shortcut is that it'll work even if the thief stole your phone while unlocked.

chatmasta 2y ago

How do you turn on airplane mode when that's actually what you want to do?

hunter2_ 2y ago
Personally I only use it for battery savings when camping or similar. It's not the kind of thing everyone cares about. I think we're long past the days where a flight full of phones frantically searching for towers during takeoff/landing would degrade the network for people on the ground, as may have been true way back when (and why) airplane mode was adopted as a standard feature.
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  It was never about that. It’s about interference with aircraft systems. Look for “5G NOTAM” if you are someone who thinks this is bunk. Specifically, some radio altimeters (which are needed for some IMC approaches) can be interfered with by the adjacent 5G frequency bands due to not being built with a tight enough filter.
  - stephen_g 2y ago
    The 5G issue was more about flying in or over anywhere that had a 5G service using that particular band - it didn’t matter whether anyone on the phone did or did not have a phone on. Hence the whole US aircraft fleet was upgraded (by the end of September 2023) so that band could be used for 5G there and it’s no longer a problem. As I understand it, cellular modems wouldn’t transmit on a frequency if they can’t see a base station (tower) first on that channel, so I expect before the problem was fixed, the temporary solution was just to disable that band at the base stations. If there was any actual known or suspected risk of electromagnetic compatibility issues with any consumer devices, there would be very strict laws about it (it might become a Federal offence not to have your phone in airplane mode, for example - but obviously it’s not)
    - imoverclocked 2y ago

layman51 2y ago

How is this shortcut even possible? Maybe it’s because I have an older model or haven’t figured out how to build good Shortcuts yet, but I thought that every shortcut requires some kind of manual activation. Would you launch the shortcut from an Apple Watch? Wouldn’t iOS require confirmation from the thief to turn off airplane mode? That being said, I have heard of a weird automation someone made where it would open an app as soon as they went to the Home Screen. It took some thinking for them to deactivate it because the shortcut was really fast to activate.

skygazer 2y ago
It’s in the automation tab of the shortcuts.app. You define trigger conditions and the shortcut to trigger.
- layman51 2y ago
  I see how to build it now, thank you. I imagine for this automation to serve its purpose, we also need to make the Control Center inaccessible when the phone is locked so that whoever has the phone can’t just try turning it off again. Well, that isn’t strictly necessary since the automation seems to run anytime Airplane Mode is enabled.
  - skygazer 2y ago
    Settings > Face ID & Passcode > Allow Access When Locked: uncheck Control Center.