8 ms·

California Governor Signs Law Requiring a ‘Kill Switch’ on Smartphones

68 points by sgustard 12y ago

sgustard 12y ago
Can someone explain how a kill switch works, and prevents a thief from reinstalling the OS?
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  With iPhones for example, you can't activate the OS without logging-in first with the same iTunes account that was used before reinstalling the OS. Well... this is the intended behavior...
gremy 12y ago
I think that at the moment the kill switch is more for protecting the data on the phone, rather than protecting the phone from being reused. For the common thief, this will be an inconvenience in probably reselling the phone, but there will always be hackers out there who will be able to reinstall the OS. Also as far as I know Carries can blacklist Phones based on IMEI. So the kill switch could also trigger the Carrier blacklisting. I think that iPhones already have something built in for this.
- victorhooi 12y ago
  I believe the idea is that you can't just reinstall the OS to circumvent it. Apple currently does this with their activation - if the phone gets remotely locked by the user, it can't be unlocked without knowing the password, and no amount of reinstalling, wiping, or praying to your deity will be enough to unlock it. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any known vulnerabilities with Apple's scheme - I don't know how long this will remain true. I'm curious how this will be implemented on the Android side (also considering that Google is headquartered in CA - but I don't know if that changes anything). Android phones are known for their open-ness, and on many models, unlocked boot loaders. I wonder how you'd securely lock it down so you couldn't wipe it, like you describe.
  - jordanthoms 12y ago
    Presumably it'd act as an extension of how it works now - the phone is shipped with a locked bootloader, and has to be unlocked by a computer which wipes the phone in the process. So the bootloader could require a code which is generated by Google to do that unlock, and Google could keep a list of 'killed' phones not to generate unlock codes for. The challenge would be to prevent that expanding into a wider scheme to stop users having control over their devices.
lukifer 12y ago
> In May, Minnesota became the first state to require a kill switch on all smartphones sold there. But the California bill is unusual in that it requires manufacturers... to ship smartphones with the anti-theft technology turned on by default. I wasn't aware that an opt-in version of this was already on the books. I'm curious to see exactly how much the user is in control of this "technology" in practice. If the user can (a) disable the feature, and (b) is the only person who can initiate a remote shutdown, then it's probably to the consumer's advantage. But I suspect it's only a matter of time before the FBI/CIA/NSA (or local PD) will be able to unilaterally decide it's in the "public interest" to suddenly shut off every phone in a particular geofence. Cars are also stolen every day, and society manages to get by, through insurance and opt-in theft deterrence tools (both manufacturers and consumers already have plenty of incentive to deter theft). I have a hard time believing that stolen phones are a big enough social problem to warrant a mandate of this scope. Regardless of intent, this power will be abused.
- NickNam 12y ago
  Actually the "immobilizer" (basically a kill-switch) is cited as one of the main reason that cars are less stolen today ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8166698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8166698
  - matt-attack 12y ago
    No, it's nothing like a kill-switch. It's simply a key that that actually works. It simply ensures that the key that came with your car is present for the engine to run. The truest definition of a key. There is no remote kill capability.
    - michaelt 12y ago
      No, it's nothing like a kill-switch. It's alike in the manner "stolen item does not work, reducing its stolen goods value"
      - big_youth 12y ago
Theodores 12y ago
At some stage smartphones will become as cheap and ubiquitous as Nokia feature phones were before the iphone took hold. Sure they will have some secondhand/stolen goods value - $10 - but buyers might be hard to find as, by then, it might cost $30 to buy a new one. When this point happens (and it will), it will be hard to sell $$$ mega-bucks phones as new or into the second hand/stolen market. People used to burgle houses for VCR's once, and for DVD players. Nowadays a DVD player is a giveaway item, nobody gets them stolen anymore.
- NickNam 12y ago
  I think the data that is stored on phones will still make them a target. A better reference would be stolen laptops... I wonder how much they get stolen nowadays. (The TSA seems to have tons of them left a check points, so who knows what that means. http://www.americanownews.com/story/22046003/12000-laptops-lost-in-airports-every-week http://www.americanownews.com/story/22046003/12000-laptops-l...)
parley 12y ago
Could someone with relevant industry insight comment as to why we're not just using IMEI blacklists? From Wikipedia: "For example, if a mobile phone is stolen, the owner can call his or her network provider and instruct them to "blacklist" the phone using its IMEI number." Is it because it's actually mutable/not properly authenticated? Or because global blacklist synchronization isn't good enough and not all operators respect them?
- hobs 12y ago
  As far as I can tell, it is because they are either lazy or the systems are not exposed to the underlings you can actually call most of the time. I worked closely with carriers and they would resist any attempt for you to do anything in their system and insist it wasnt possible unless you had the cops or the legal system behind you.
- tzs 12y ago
  > Could someone with relevant industry insight comment as to why we're not just using IMEI blacklists? They generally don't work across national boundaries. A large fraction of the market for phones stolen from California is overseas.
- buyx 12y ago
  The IMEI blacklists don't work across borders. My sister in law's Blackberry was stolen from her at a mall in South Africa. It was reported and added to the IMEI blacklist. A few months later I accidentally added her old PIN as a BBM contact and ended up chatting to a chap in Nigeria. It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Until they do, IMEI blacklists won't mean much.
  - tzs 12y ago
    > It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Network providers probably don't care about stolen phones in the first world. If they could find a way to ignore domestic IMEI blacklists without too much public outcry, they probably would. In the US, the top four carriers make almost $8 billion per year selling theft insurance to their customers [1]. I don't have a cite handy, but I recall reading that they also make a huge amount selling replacement phones to people whose phones were stolen. Samsung planned to do a kill switch on its phones to fight theft a while ago, and the carriers blocked it. Many believe they blocked it to protect those insurance and replacement phone profits. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_n_4308924.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_...
bcheung 12y ago
This seems like a great feature but doesn't California have bigger issues to worry about? Why not let the market decide?
- dougws 12y ago
  Investigating theft takes up police time, which expends taxpayer resources. The market wouldn't take this into account. Also, "doesn't California have bigger issues to worry about" is just silly, as if the government of an enormous state can only do one thing at a time.
  - icameron 12y ago
    Police don't investigate stolen phones.
    - sbisker 12y ago
      What's to say they wouldn't if they were more uncommon?
    - staunch 12y ago
      They do investigate violent crime. At least theoretically. http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13620775.579218755,4544801.491085874&z=13&mc=world-street&cc=HO,RO&db=6/26/2014&de=8/25/2014 http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13620775.579218755,...
- kalleboo 12y ago
  The market is skewed by the limited competition in the carrier space (caused by limited spectrum allocation), and the carriers have an incentive to not introduce kill switches http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_n_4308924.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_...
tobico 12y ago
Seems like a pretty good idea. It's kinda weird that no such technology exists for cars actually.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  They do, keys are chipped. See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/upshot/heres-why-stealing-cars-went-out-of-fashion.html?abt=0002&abg=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/upshot/heres-why-stealing-...
unethical_ban 12y ago
Cell phone theft cannot be such a large problem that this is a politically beneficial thing to do, much less a legitimate use of power.
- sbisker 12y ago
  You don't take public transportation in a big city, do you? Cell phone theft is a HUGE problem. Huge. People don't like carrying things of large, uncontrolled value on their person when they don't have to. The status quo is the equivalent of forcing people to carry a small brick of gold on them everywhere they go, just so they can hail an Uber or play Candy Crush. People will literally feel safer for this every day - I know I do already.
  - techsupporter 12y ago
    My anecdotal evidence is that neither myself nor anyone I know has had a mobile phone stolen while on public transport or anywhere else. That said, I still agree with you 100%. Even if the risk is small, it still can happen and would suck if it does. The remote-wipe feature of Exchange ActiveSync is why I set it up on my phone plus have the data partition encrypted so that even if it is swiped, all I've lost is the data and at least it's useless to anyone else.
  - big_youth 12y ago
    I hate to be that guy but a phone is not worth a small brick of gold. Half an ounce of gold is about $700 and has the same mass as a nickel.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- michaelt 12y ago
  Cell phones are taken in 30-40% of robberies in major cities, according to the FCC [1]. In Oakland 75% of robberies and burglaries involve cell phone theft, according to the mayor [2]. There have also been changes in crime rates; [3] identifies a 45% rise in armed robberies, and suggests cell phones are the reason. I think even the most libertarian among us would agree it's within the state's remit to reduce armed robberies. [1] http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0410/DOC-313509A1.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012... [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26403692/brown-signs-cell-phone-kill-switch-bill-into http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26403692/brown-sign... [3] http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/whats-driving-oaklands-robbery-epidemic/Content?oid=3750763 http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/whats-driving-oaklands...
spacefight 12y ago
Remember, the revolution will not be televised. And now also not on <your favourite app>. And not on your news channel. No smartphone, no coverage, no action. This feature will be abused.
f3llowtraveler 12y ago
How about a hardware switch that physically cuts the electricity to the microphone, the camera, the transmitter, and even the battery itself? With my own phone, I'd love to be able to switch that off/on. Why is that option not available to me?
- RealityVoid 12y ago
  Short of putting a physical button for it, I don't think there are solutions to doing that in a way that can not be bypassed by software
  - f3llowtraveler 12y ago
    A physical button is what I want.
- smackfu 12y ago
  Can't you just buy a phone with a removable battery?
anonbanker 12y ago
I've adopted JWZ's mindset on cellphones [1] for more than a decade now. Once it became impossible to not have one, I finally relented a bit and purchased a 7" chinese tablet that can do encrypted VoIP over wifi. I have no E911 GPS override (mandatory since '97), and I won't ever have a kill switch either. I had my tablet stolen a few weeks back, and got it back a week later by allowing the thief access to my email and promising a reward (sent messages to myself, so they'd pop up on the main screen). the email server logged all the IP addresses that the thief used to reply to me, and with the help of the local ISP here, tracked the IP to a house, knocked on the door, and asked for my tablet back. they gave it back once caught, and I promised not to press charges. I find this resolution superior to a mandatory kill switch that gives a phone company (that I don't like/trust/respect) control over my property. I seem to be in the minority, though. 1. http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/cell.html http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/cell.html
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Out of curiosity, why didn't you press charges?
  - anonbanker 12y ago
    because they could have made a decent case that they were merely concerned for their own safety, which led to the subterfuge. And they might have been able to claim that I left it on the bus (the video of the bus ride was not conclusive). If he had not given me the tablet, I had people staked at the location, and we would have placed him under citizen's arrest. Fearing his freedom, he phoned his girlfriend who had the tablet, and I let them both go, but kept the video of the conversation with him. We use it for contract class now. :)

68 points by sgustard 12y ago

sgustard 12y ago

Can someone explain how a kill switch works, and prevents a thief from reinstalling the OS?

Aldo_MX 12y ago
With iPhones for example, you can't activate the OS without logging-in first with the same iTunes account that was used before reinstalling the OS. Well... this is the intended behavior...

gremy 12y ago

I think that at the moment the kill switch is more for protecting the data on the phone, rather than protecting the phone from being reused. For the common thief, this will be an inconvenience in probably reselling the phone, but there will always be hackers out there who will be able to reinstall the OS. Also as far as I know Carries can blacklist Phones based on IMEI. So the kill switch could also trigger the Carrier blacklisting. I think that iPhones already have something built in for this.

victorhooi 12y ago
I believe the idea is that you can't just reinstall the OS to circumvent it. Apple currently does this with their activation - if the phone gets remotely locked by the user, it can't be unlocked without knowing the password, and no amount of reinstalling, wiping, or praying to your deity will be enough to unlock it. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any known vulnerabilities with Apple's scheme - I don't know how long this will remain true. I'm curious how this will be implemented on the Android side (also considering that Google is headquartered in CA - but I don't know if that changes anything). Android phones are known for their open-ness, and on many models, unlocked boot loaders. I wonder how you'd securely lock it down so you couldn't wipe it, like you describe.
- jordanthoms 12y ago
  Presumably it'd act as an extension of how it works now - the phone is shipped with a locked bootloader, and has to be unlocked by a computer which wipes the phone in the process. So the bootloader could require a code which is generated by Google to do that unlock, and Google could keep a list of 'killed' phones not to generate unlock codes for. The challenge would be to prevent that expanding into a wider scheme to stop users having control over their devices.

lukifer 12y ago

> In May, Minnesota became the first state to require a kill switch on all smartphones sold there. But the California bill is unusual in that it requires manufacturers... to ship smartphones with the anti-theft technology turned on by default. I wasn't aware that an opt-in version of this was already on the books. I'm curious to see exactly how much the user is in control of this "technology" in practice. If the user can (a) disable the feature, and (b) is the only person who can initiate a remote shutdown, then it's probably to the consumer's advantage. But I suspect it's only a matter of time before the FBI/CIA/NSA (or local PD) will be able to unilaterally decide it's in the "public interest" to suddenly shut off every phone in a particular geofence. Cars are also stolen every day, and society manages to get by, through insurance and opt-in theft deterrence tools (both manufacturers and consumers already have plenty of incentive to deter theft). I have a hard time believing that stolen phones are a big enough social problem to warrant a mandate of this scope. Regardless of intent, this power will be abused.

NickNam 12y ago
Actually the "immobilizer" (basically a kill-switch) is cited as one of the main reason that cars are less stolen today ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8166698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8166698
- matt-attack 12y ago
  No, it's nothing like a kill-switch. It's simply a key that that actually works. It simply ensures that the key that came with your car is present for the engine to run. The truest definition of a key. There is no remote kill capability.
  - michaelt 12y ago
    No, it's nothing like a kill-switch. It's alike in the manner "stolen item does not work, reducing its stolen goods value"
    - big_youth 12y ago

Theodores 12y ago

At some stage smartphones will become as cheap and ubiquitous as Nokia feature phones were before the iphone took hold. Sure they will have some secondhand/stolen goods value - $10 - but buyers might be hard to find as, by then, it might cost $30 to buy a new one. When this point happens (and it will), it will be hard to sell $$$ mega-bucks phones as new or into the second hand/stolen market. People used to burgle houses for VCR's once, and for DVD players. Nowadays a DVD player is a giveaway item, nobody gets them stolen anymore.

NickNam 12y ago
I think the data that is stored on phones will still make them a target. A better reference would be stolen laptops... I wonder how much they get stolen nowadays. (The TSA seems to have tons of them left a check points, so who knows what that means. http://www.americanownews.com/story/22046003/12000-laptops-lost-in-airports-every-week http://www.americanownews.com/story/22046003/12000-laptops-l...)

parley 12y ago

Could someone with relevant industry insight comment as to why we're not just using IMEI blacklists? From Wikipedia: "For example, if a mobile phone is stolen, the owner can call his or her network provider and instruct them to "blacklist" the phone using its IMEI number." Is it because it's actually mutable/not properly authenticated? Or because global blacklist synchronization isn't good enough and not all operators respect them?

hobs 12y ago
As far as I can tell, it is because they are either lazy or the systems are not exposed to the underlings you can actually call most of the time. I worked closely with carriers and they would resist any attempt for you to do anything in their system and insist it wasnt possible unless you had the cops or the legal system behind you.
tzs 12y ago
> Could someone with relevant industry insight comment as to why we're not just using IMEI blacklists? They generally don't work across national boundaries. A large fraction of the market for phones stolen from California is overseas.
buyx 12y ago
The IMEI blacklists don't work across borders. My sister in law's Blackberry was stolen from her at a mall in South Africa. It was reported and added to the IMEI blacklist. A few months later I accidentally added her old PIN as a BBM contact and ended up chatting to a chap in Nigeria. It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Until they do, IMEI blacklists won't mean much.
- tzs 12y ago
  > It isn't farfetched to assume that network providers don't really care about stolen phones in the third world. Network providers probably don't care about stolen phones in the first world. If they could find a way to ignore domestic IMEI blacklists without too much public outcry, they probably would. In the US, the top four carriers make almost $8 billion per year selling theft insurance to their customers [1]. I don't have a cite handy, but I recall reading that they also make a huge amount selling replacement phones to people whose phones were stolen. Samsung planned to do a kill switch on its phones to fight theft a while ago, and the carriers blocked it. Many believe they blocked it to protect those insurance and replacement phone profits. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_n_4308924.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_...

bcheung 12y ago

This seems like a great feature but doesn't California have bigger issues to worry about? Why not let the market decide?

dougws 12y ago
Investigating theft takes up police time, which expends taxpayer resources. The market wouldn't take this into account. Also, "doesn't California have bigger issues to worry about" is just silly, as if the government of an enormous state can only do one thing at a time.
- icameron 12y ago
  Police don't investigate stolen phones.
  - sbisker 12y ago
    What's to say they wouldn't if they were more uncommon?
  - staunch 12y ago
    They do investigate violent crime. At least theoretically. http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13620775.579218755,4544801.491085874&z=13&mc=world-street&cc=HO,RO&db=6/26/2014&de=8/25/2014 http://www.crimemapping.com/map.aspx?ll=-13620775.579218755,...
kalleboo 12y ago
The market is skewed by the limited competition in the carrier space (caused by limited spectrum allocation), and the carriers have an incentive to not introduce kill switches http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_n_4308924.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/iphone-kill-switch_...

tobico 12y ago

Seems like a pretty good idea. It's kinda weird that no such technology exists for cars actually.

Shivetya 12y ago
They do, keys are chipped. See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/upshot/heres-why-stealing-cars-went-out-of-fashion.html?abt=0002&abg=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/12/upshot/heres-why-stealing-...

unethical_ban 12y ago

Cell phone theft cannot be such a large problem that this is a politically beneficial thing to do, much less a legitimate use of power.

sbisker 12y ago
You don't take public transportation in a big city, do you? Cell phone theft is a HUGE problem. Huge. People don't like carrying things of large, uncontrolled value on their person when they don't have to. The status quo is the equivalent of forcing people to carry a small brick of gold on them everywhere they go, just so they can hail an Uber or play Candy Crush. People will literally feel safer for this every day - I know I do already.
- techsupporter 12y ago
  My anecdotal evidence is that neither myself nor anyone I know has had a mobile phone stolen while on public transport or anywhere else. That said, I still agree with you 100%. Even if the risk is small, it still can happen and would suck if it does. The remote-wipe feature of Exchange ActiveSync is why I set it up on my phone plus have the data partition encrypted so that even if it is swiped, all I've lost is the data and at least it's useless to anyone else.
- big_youth 12y ago
  I hate to be that guy but a phone is not worth a small brick of gold. Half an ounce of gold is about $700 and has the same mass as a nickel.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
michaelt 12y ago
Cell phones are taken in 30-40% of robberies in major cities, according to the FCC [1]. In Oakland 75% of robberies and burglaries involve cell phone theft, according to the mayor [2]. There have also been changes in crime rates; [3] identifies a 45% rise in armed robberies, and suggests cell phones are the reason. I think even the most libertarian among us would agree it's within the state's remit to reduce armed robberies. [1] http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012/db0410/DOC-313509A1.pdf http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2012... [2] http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26403692/brown-signs-cell-phone-kill-switch-bill-into http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_26403692/brown-sign... [3] http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/whats-driving-oaklands-robbery-epidemic/Content?oid=3750763 http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/whats-driving-oaklands...

spacefight 12y ago

Remember, the revolution will not be televised. And now also not on <your favourite app>. And not on your news channel. No smartphone, no coverage, no action. This feature will be abused.

f3llowtraveler 12y ago

How about a hardware switch that physically cuts the electricity to the microphone, the camera, the transmitter, and even the battery itself? With my own phone, I'd love to be able to switch that off/on. Why is that option not available to me?

RealityVoid 12y ago
Short of putting a physical button for it, I don't think there are solutions to doing that in a way that can not be bypassed by software
- f3llowtraveler 12y ago
  A physical button is what I want.
smackfu 12y ago
Can't you just buy a phone with a removable battery?

anonbanker 12y ago

I've adopted JWZ's mindset on cellphones [1] for more than a decade now. Once it became impossible to not have one, I finally relented a bit and purchased a 7" chinese tablet that can do encrypted VoIP over wifi. I have no E911 GPS override (mandatory since '97), and I won't ever have a kill switch either. I had my tablet stolen a few weeks back, and got it back a week later by allowing the thief access to my email and promising a reward (sent messages to myself, so they'd pop up on the main screen). the email server logged all the IP addresses that the thief used to reply to me, and with the help of the local ISP here, tracked the IP to a house, knocked on the door, and asked for my tablet back. they gave it back once caught, and I promised not to press charges. I find this resolution superior to a mandatory kill switch that gives a phone company (that I don't like/trust/respect) control over my property. I seem to be in the minority, though. 1. http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/cell.html http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/cell.html

scott_karana 12y ago
Out of curiosity, why didn't you press charges?
- anonbanker 12y ago
  because they could have made a decent case that they were merely concerned for their own safety, which led to the subterfuge. And they might have been able to claim that I left it on the bus (the video of the bus ride was not conclusive). If he had not given me the tablet, I had people staked at the location, and we would have placed him under citizen's arrest. Fearing his freedom, he phoned his girlfriend who had the tablet, and I let them both go, but kept the video of the conversation with him. We use it for contract class now. :)