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As ineffective as biometric unlocks (TouchID, etc) are in targeted data retrieval scenarios, I'd wager their wider adoption would effectively kill casual smartp
by mieko 12y ago
As ineffective as biometric unlocks (TouchID, etc) are in targeted data retrieval scenarios, I'd wager their wider adoption would effectively kill casual smartphone theft.
Every 5S owner I know actually uses TouchID. I'd guess around half of the 5/5C users I see bother to use the four-digit PIN, because it's a longer process to unlock.
Smartphones unattended on a bar will be a less attractive target when the default assumption is that it's locked, and would be a large undertaking to put it into a state useful for the thief's personal use or resale. Making locking convenient enough that everyone does it (and the phone's physical security strong enough that it's an actual ordeal to bypass) would build a herd immunity for smartphone owners.
- lnanek2 12y agoI don't think any current locks prevent clearing the device for resale, which is the main thing needed by thieves. An iPhone, for example, you just hold down power and home and connect to iTunes in recovery mode. Apple may in the future decide to do this, but I don't think any other OEMs could. They all have romance the carriers to get into stores and the carriers want good serviceability since the way you make money at places like AT&T is by cutting costs down to the bone. More unrepairable, unrefurbishable devices that need to be replaced with new units causes the opposite.
- hrrsn 12y agoIf 'Find my iPhone' is enabled on iOS 7, once it's restored it won't activate without the original owner's Apple ID, marked as lost or not.
- mieko 12y agoYeah, for this scheme to work, a locked phone would need to be a brick, short of desoldering the flash. Unauthenticated recovery modes destroy this. I can see a scheme where each device has a specific unlock/recovery keypair in its keychain out of the factory (or first activation). It could be requested from the manufacturer from the service center. This would at least have accountability ("AT&T Store #451, Employee #8 requested unlock key for Device #123456"). The manufacturer's service could deny the request if the phone was reported stolen, or contact the rightful owner via other channels before releasing it. Or just revoke access to service centers with a history of abuse (e.g., the thieves have an "guy" at a strip mall).