Slashdot Mirror
UK Firm To Release 'Screaming' Cell Phone
rubberbando writes "Yahoo news is running a story about a plan by a UK cell phone company to help reduce cell theft. Apparently, this new cell phone can be sent a signal after its owner has realized that it has been lost or stolen. The signal tells the phone to wipe all of its data and begin emitting a very loud and obnoxious sound. The sound will only stop if the battery runs out or is removed, but it will begin again as soon as the battery is replaced or charged. Even replacing the sim card will not help."
It sounds from the description that these phones will become functionally useless once you do this to them. What a fun prank to pull on your friends!
And I thought cell phones were already loud and obnoxious...
There's a hardware GUID. Whoopdy-do; if there's a remote method to turn it on via software, there's a method to turn it off via software.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
And Fark, BBC, Stuff, etc, etc. Yesterday.
The thing I don't get is how exactly they expect this to be any more loud and obnoxious than all these damn ringtones are already!
If cell phones could scream, would we be so cavalier about smashing them on the ground? We might, if they screamed all the time for no good reason.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
The signal tell the phone to wipe all of its data and begin emitting a very loud and obnoxious sound.
Isn't this what happens if Paris Hilton calls you?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
"We also then set a small bomb off, if you like, that completely wipes the data...
As well as the ear and most of the face of the thief? Seems a little harsh.
...and all the legit cell phones go off screaming! was it the final scene of the lawnmoverman? or did they copy the idea from some idiotic scheme for configuring atm machines?
I would prefer if the phone could silently send me a usage report so that I could track who stole it and kick him in the a....
Let's face it, a good proportion of "stolen" phones are people that want a free upgrade from the network. Oh look, they don't make that model any more, and coincidentally I was mugged today. Like the person that rung from the phone that was being reported stolen.
The police used to do this in the Netherlands; when a phone was reported stolen, it would be sent an SMS every five minutes, saying: 'this phone is stolen'. That would require the thief to change the SIM card, which would make his action less than free (gratis).
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Screaming Jay Hawkins... "I put a spell on you, cause you're mine."
And you pay a premium idiot tax of 10 british pounds (that is 14 euros, or 19 dollars) - per month.
How long will it be until something like this is implemented to "punish" those that are late on paying their bill or for people who decide they want to switch service providers?
What kind of business idea is this? What are they gaining out of this? Essentially if a cell phone is lost or stolen then it is as good as gone. If it is this new high tech screaming cell phone and it is stolen or lost its basically as good as gone and doesn't give the theif the satisfaction of possessing a stolen cell phone. In the end, the customer is cellphone-less anyways and the business lost a potential customer (the theif).
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
Given the incredible security with cells these days, I can't wait for the next time I get pestered by some godforsaken ringtone in the movies and being able to replace the audible pollution with something else. Maybe more annoying, granted, but I do trust the owner that he will quickly shut down the phone. If not, he'll be removed from the theatre.
I call that a win-win.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Can you imagine all the chaos that these screaming cell phones would cause in an airport or airplane? Terrorists will no longer need to physically blow up a plane to disrupt air traffic with these screaming babies going off.
So someone stole a phone, and now it is making a very loud unpleasant noise. So they have dumped it near my house and it is still making the noice and I am very annoyed. So I hit it with a brick until it stops.
Question: who gets taken to court? The phone manufacturer, for creating a noise nuisance? Or the thief, for stealing the phone? Or me, for damaging someone else's property?
I know the answer: it will be me, won't it?
I lost my mobile 3 times over a period of a few years. Yes the same one. Every time some saint returned it to the local police station and I'd get it back. Quite amazing considering the inner city area I live in Sydney.
... then suddenly this phone starts screaming like a Blitzkreig air raid, and in the panic they stomp my phone into a fine power and run off traumatised !! Fat lot of good THAT feature would do me :)
But I can just imagine them feeling all gooey inside about the good deed they are about to do
The estate of Edvard Munch plans to sue for breach of copyright.
This isn't innovation! Anyone that lives in the UK will know that not only was this done yonks ago, but it even made it into the Top of the Pops when it came out.
throw new NoSignatureException();
i am assuming that once a cellphone is stolen, they alert the cell provider to send the phone a signal. the provider probably just has a database and a set of commands to send
so can you imagine the mischief if that provider's system is gamed/ hacked? and the mischief makers initiate a "call all cell phones" iteration?
depending upon the percentage of cell phones that have this feature, you could cause mass havoc across the entire country
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
News is supposed to be new.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Screaming not annoying enough for you? The next version will randomly spew a stream of urine.
Old news - I've had an app like this on my cell phone for the last 3 years, it's called PhoneSecure - http://www.wildpalm.co.uk/PhoneSecure.html
First of all...when it can be turned on, it can be turned off again. Simple rule. I have a hard time believing that turning this thing off again is not possible.
Second...why are cells stolen? Mainly because their sim card? I doubt it. Because people call their mobile company telling them the sim got stolen and it should be blocked or something. In other words, the sim card should be rendered useless. Therefore thiefs are after the mobile phone itself to sell it.
Soooo...the only "harm" being done is, that you lost your mobile phone and data. Whereas data might be sensitive you MIGHT think about securing your mobile a bit better. It is the same with laptops in my opinion. If electronical devices care sensitive data, you look after them WAY better!
I think this is just a way to increase cell phone sales!
Why? Simple...if that screaming really can not be turned of easily enough then the cell phone is useless...to the thief as well as the righteous owner. So, beside of playing pranks to "friends" by turning on the screaming and making them buying a new cell anyway...a theft leads to a brand new cell.
Just imaging you lost your mobile thinking it was stolen and you turn that screaming on...you lost a mobile phone.
The way with all the text messages all over you ("this mobile got/is knicked") seems kinda better as the false positivs do not necessarily lead into a buy of a new mobile phone.
Well, I dont like the idea...
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
a time to trot out my connections, and link to my friend's startup that provides a similar solution.
Here's the clincher, though: they even have a beta.
More than mere navel gazing.
If you live in the UK then you can register your phone (as well as other possessions) on a system called Immobilise http://www.immobilise.com/ which is actually supported by the UK police forces and doesn't cost a penny for a basic account. If you report the phone as stolen then the phones serial number is blacklisted and none of the mobile phone providers will provide service to that handset therefore rendering the handset useless. Sure, you might be able to get to the contacts etc with an inactive SIM on some phones but at least no-one else can use the phone to make calls etc. So, shall I spend an extra £120 or shall I use a free system which is endorsed by the police...?
Hi,
Cell phones (GSM at least) Already have a GUID which is transmitted all the time while the phone is switched on.
It is easy for operators to track the position of a stolen cellphone down to about a meter if they wanted to.
They have used this to track down the polish kid who knifed someone to death over an iPod.
If you have a cellphone and it's switched on, it's transmitting a guid and position continuously, always.
This is why I think the spat in the UK about ID cards is silly, most people in the UK own a cellphone and it's freely, continuously and permanently giving away their identity AND position.
Anyways. in short, if someone stole your GSM and you tell the police it's attached to a drum of sarin gas, they *will find it* in no time.
Maybe I'm just cynical, but somehow I am expecting to hear reports of these giving off false positives. For example: The T-Mobile rep who sold me my phone fat-fingered the number while getting everything set up, which resulted in screwing up both my service and the service of the person who owned the "new" number the rep had generated (more proof that typos are not reliable random number generators). Imagine that applied to these Cellphone alarms.
:)
I imagine car alarms sounded just as great on paper, but the number of false positives they generate is incredible (disclaimer: I think car alarms are a great deterrent and use one). If the misfire rate on these cellphone alarms was even a small issue it could face consumer rejection due to the fear of their Cellphone being a proverbial timebomb waiting to embarrass them in public, at work, or (in my case) in class. At least with a car alarm you don't carry your car with you (if you do please reply and explain how you accomplish this feat), so it generally won't be interrupting your board meeting or examinations if it goes off. I'm all about screwing people who steal my stuff, but not at the expense of me facing the same treatment for just owning the darn thing.
Actually, if your phone is GSM, then you can already do that.
First and foremost, you must write down your IMEI number. Simply type *#06# into your cell phone. It may look like: AA-BBBBBB-CCCCCC-D . That is the serial number of the phone, and it will not change if the SIM is changed. Write it down into a safe place.
When your phone is stolen, report that number to the police. They will report it to the providers, that will lock down the cell phone for good; moreover, if the phone is ever turned on, they may be able to track the thief whereabouts, using standard cell tecnology; that, and an identikit, may actually help them arrest the thief.
A friend of mine, (who is in IT business) did all of the above, and she really had the thief arrested and prosecuted.
Is this not a great ringtone?
Speaking as a professional cell phone theif, I tend to take the sims out as soon as I can, and wouldn't wait to check if a phone was this particular model before I lifted it.
This has an effect on theft how?
Excellent! I am writing the number down right now in the memo pad application on my cell phone!
How long will it be until something like this is implemented to "punish" those that are late on paying their bill or for people who decide they want to switch service providers?
That has to be one of the the worst Troll I have seen here in a long time.
...Unlike computer, cell phone hardware and firmware are 100% bug-free and reliable, and wireless connections are digital and therefore perfect with no error rate at all. Therefore, we need not contemplate the possibility of false positives ever triggering this feature accidentally.
Heck, why stop at an irritating noise? Have it trip a little relay that will short out the battery and make it explode. That will show them!
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
And how do you send a signal to your cellphone ? With another cellphone i suppose.
This is yet another one-trick pony. Basically, a few years ago, desperate investors, not yet burnt enough by the dotcom boom, realised they should be backing "mobile" ventures. Anything would do, as long as it was "mobile".
Note that these guys charge £100 / year ($220). Given that the average mobile would cost £200 to replace (tops, brand new) and you get a free one every year or two with a contract - they are suggesting you pay an insurance premium of c. 50% of the phone value, for a phone which you'll probably be getting rid of soon - and which the networks will disable if you report stolen. Oh yeah, and you don't actually get the phone back, it just screams.
To be fair - the real benefit is that it backs up the data on the phone; but if you're sensitive enough to spend £100/yr on this service, you ought to find a better way. The fact that this is "Home Office and Police backed" just goes to show how readily these agencies piss our money on pointlessness.
Leaked picture of the art on the retail box.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
The police will NOT track down stolen IMEIs. This is the problem. Even if it would be quite easy: look who the SIM owner is, look who is he calling, go there and put him in jail.
What happens now? The IMEI (hopefully) is put in the blacklist, the thief changes the IMEI (yes, it is feasible on most phones), the phone works again.
Am I the only person that finds this new 'trend' amongst teenagers on trains antisocial and inconsiderate?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
You should also have to provide a lot of ID to do this.
Just for info... the network 'sees' your phone as a combination of IMEI and IMSI (a similar number on the SIM card). Your phone number is just a human-friendly number allocated by the net. Blocking your IMEI does not block your number, or even render your SIM unuseable. Get a new phone, use the network backup facility (which you nerdily remembered to set up) to restore your settings/contacts etc and off you go.
Just remember, kids, the ONLY way to make sure this works is to fill in that little user survey / guarantee card that comes with your phone and TELL YOUR NETWORK WHAT YOUR IMEI IS. Otherwise forget it.
If every scum-sucker that stole a phone got it disabled within seconds this would soon stop.
OK, so the screaming is a "new idea", but at least some phones have supported "remote brickification" for years. Blackberries come to mind, but there may be other.
However, with any halfway-open phone OS, I'm not convinced that it wouldn't be possible to disable it. With Windows Mobile 5, I know that there is software out there already that claims to do this (although I'm sceptical). Anyone care to comment on how likely this would be with Symbian?
Their are posters from the Met Police all over London telling people to write down their IMEI numbers and report them in the instance of theft. They're making more effort than they were.
From the fabulous article:
The phone is stolen, battery removed and it's taken to the wee booth at the back of the market (where they can already unlock phones, upgrade firmware, backup memory etc) and restored. The loud noise is only ever heard for about 20 seconds, while in the booth in the market (when it's conveniently stuck under a pillow). The owner, who's paid £600 (over $1000) over the last 5 years for the service, more than double the value of the phone, is left with less than if they'd played the old *#06# trick (available for years for free).
Good to see the march of technology being put to good use.
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
steal phone, remove sim card and replace with your own. Text messages are sent to the phone number, which is defined by the sim, not the handset.
Unless this is a feature that works via IMEI number and uses some specialist software at the service provider's end...
Can I do this to my wife's phone. She's always on it. All I would have to do is report it stolen :)
I can imagine if the commands to turn this on got hacked. Everyone who got mad at their boss or former G/F would get revenge by using this feature. Imagine if it went off in an office or crowded building....
This is completely useless. A cell phone in UK is almost free (as in Guiness) if you accept it to be simlocked. Then you go at the cyberspace just above the cell shop, and get it unlocked and voilà : 3G phone with no restrictions for £30.
Then someone steals it. Big Deal. Since it is 3G, you backed up your data... right? Thief has your data... So f*ing what? He knows you cheat on your wife and he's gonna blackmail you? "Hey, I just stole your phone, and..." and at this point he's got your trusty baseball bat in his face. Twice.
It will cost you £30 more to replace the phone, period.
And data get backed up and restored by bluetooth (unless you're too stupid to use such high-tech, in which case WTF are you having a 3G for?).
Oh, just before I forget... How many people are actually unhappy enough with their PSP (Phone Service Provider) that they get it unlocked and switch? Or is it only so that you can pay three times more with a prepaid card?
And, how comes people are stupid enough to steal phones in a country where they all are simlocked by default?
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
What a terrific idea! I hope these guys make a lot of moolah for their efforts. That would be a good idea for ipods, laptops, and lots of other personal electronics that so often get stolen. Its about time that somebody came up with a good idea for how to combat the problem. The cops sure don't have time to do it.
Listen to sample.
-David
Wrap it in aluminum foil after you take it. That way it can't send or recieve signals.
1) I would guess that out of all the mobile phones that their owners cannot find, a nontrivial number are actually found later on, as it was left in a coat pocket, recovered from the bus, left at a friend's house or similar.
Out of these, a nontrivial number of owners are likely to use the 'screaming brick' function when they find it's gone.
At this point their cries for 'permanent wipe of data and loud screaming' gains the suffix of 'but of course I naturally meant so that *I* can turn it off when I get my mobile back, aha'.
2) Let's hope the signal isn't something that could be replicated with those kinds of mobile phone interceptors that send 'end call' signals. Or ungodly mess follows.
3) In many cases, phone thieves have access to fairly sophisticated technology. I had my jacket stolen with a mobile in it once, and within an hour at least something was done to it (the error message when trying to call was neither a busy signal nor the 'the phone is switched off', but something with being not accessible).
The phone will attack the thief's vulnerable spots for massive damage.
http://nerdcartoons.com/
Set the distance on the phone, and then if you happen to leave the phone on the table where you just ate, and walk away, once the distance hits 5 feet or so the phone starts chirping or screaming..
You would not believe how many cell phones I see misplaced like this, and people do not even know they forgot the phone, or where they did for that matter.
For a couple more cents, and possibly even in conjunction with the highly annoying ringtone market, the manufactureres could make the warning customizable.
Me: Finishes the opera and begins to file down aisle exiting crowded concert hall.
Phone (talking in sexy voice after 5 feet is passed): Hey you sexy, do you want me? I want you! Come get me you devil. Don't leave me hanging...
Me: Continues to walk away, unable hear the phone.
Phone: (7 feet away now, and getting louder): Hey you absent minded deaf bastard at number (423) 745-3453 get your ass over here and collect your phone.
Then if I am obviusly too distracted to get my phone this little screaming feature might come in really handy.
Make the world better. Quit hating.
...The Aristocrat!
(Oh, admit it - you knew the punchline before you read it)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In your juristiction, is it illegal to take a brick to a discarded telephone that you found near your house? I would imagine that the police would not involve you at all unless somebody calls the police and can identify you, or the police were to happen by while you were smahing the phone.
Although these days, if the police saw you with a brick and a screaming cell phone, you probably needn't worry about going to court; they would probably just consider you to be a terrorist with a bomb. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4711021.stm
...small vial of acid (or similar nasty substance - chlorine gas, maybe) stored in phone. When phone is stolen, call phone to break vial and whatch the fun begin. OK, I'm not seriously suggesting that, but it *would* be kinda fun, in a sadistic way...
no kidding, if you live in phoenix, they won't even track down a stolen car...
look that up on google. That would be the perfect scream.
... there are also ways to unlock stolen phones. Where I think this screaming phone noise will come in handy is not in catching the thief themselves. No, it'll be more useful in prosecuting reprogrammers. After all, you can claim you didn't know a phone you unlocked was stolen, but you can't really ignore a phone that's making a colossal screaming noise, which makes it as stolen. Any doubt goes right out of the window.
Will anybody notice another 'phone making a loud and obnoxious noise?
Most mobile phones already make loud and obnoxious noises, what with the ring-tones and this new "fad" of walking along with your 'phone playing tinny "music" to all and sundry!
Ah - here's an idea perhaps we can report somebody whose 'phone is guilty of the above by reporting it stolen. Of course for that we'd need their number - any ideas how to get that?
I've tried this. Where I live they don't track them unless the thieves are armed or violent when stealing the phone. If someone snatches the phone from your pocket or car, it won't be a priority and they won't track.
... "Baby Phone" :-)
..and he sais serial numbers are the ONLY way of the police getting your stuff back. Where he works, the police holds a big database of serials of stolen stuff. If they bust a suspected thief, they check everything in his house against the database. So whenever you buy a flatscreen, PC, TV or whatever, ALWAYS write down the serial. I just take a picture of the ID plate, print it on a B/W laser, holds forever.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
I mean, if you've ever ridden the tube, you've learned to live with that already...
I need a new ringtone.
steampunk web design
They should use that atrocious jingle: "Six more days till halloweeen, halloweeen, halloweeen! Six more days till halloweeen, Silver Shamrock!"
Sorry if you're stuck with that tune in your head now.
I think this would leave you with a much higher chance of actually recovering the phone after it's been stolen. And isn't that the point? Maybe you have pictures, numbers or other data that you don't want to lose. And that stuff is almost definitely toast if your phone just starts honking like crazy.
Last I checked, the majority of cellphone thefts are not for the phone; rather they're for the SIM card so the thief (or another related party) can make phone calls at least until the original owner realizes the SIM's gone, or until they manage to run the gamut of cell provider's customer support lines and get it disabled.
Honestly, my phone is not that valuable to me. I don't keep any data on it that I don't back up... and while it would suck to lose my phone (because of the cost of replacement), I'm more concerned about people racking up minutes on my number before I get a chance to cancel.
There's not really a great used market for cell phones... they're pretty much out of date at release these days. Though I agree cellphones are stolen, they're generally not for the phone itself.
I have a Nokia Communicator 9500 and it has an option called Remote Locking, where the owner specifies a password. Later on, if someone stole the phone, the owner sends an SMS message to the mobile and it instantly locks both the phone and the memory card.
It even encrypts the memory card's contents.
Yes, this is useless if the sim is changed, but the phone also employs another option to lock mobile phone if the SIM card is changed.
Is it really necessary to delete all data and pierce the ears of the innocent?
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
Sounds an awful lot like my first wife.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
What about making the battery of the phone explode in the thief's pocket?
Disclaimer: Any Sony reference is purely coincidental. No batteries or global evil empires were harm in the making of this post.
I guess it's an easy way to find my phone when I loose it in the house. I can always re-sync the numbers from my PC. That is, unless you can't turn off the "stolen scream." If that's the case I promise you have at least 2 screaming phones every day standing in line for service at the local dealer because they thought the phone was stolen, but found it under the bed or something. What aout the moron that leaves their phone at the office. Everyone is quietly working and a cell phone that was left at work starts to scream... This sounds like something that is going to be deemed a pain in the ass very quickly, but it will be hillarious while it lasts.
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
You have to call in that your phone is stolen... ;-p
;-p
A real British comedy would be someone getting their phone stolen and then stealing someone else's phone to call in their report which would lead to that person stealing a phone to call in the theft of their phone and so on... and they all get hauled in to the station and have to explain what happened.... all bloody yelling at each other and the cops about what a degenerate society they live in... roll credits
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Please keep me away from dense urban areas where these phones are used. If the signal is ever distributed through a virus...
~psybre
Authority questions you. Return the favor. -- d474
Just wait for the court cases when friends or family are injured by these booby-trapped phones. They borrowed/found the phone, and someone forgot to tell/remind/remember that the loan/find took place, or the borrower/finder tries to call the owner's other line to return it.
[
Fill out a Congressional page application on their behalf.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
The signal tell the phone What you say?
Now imagine if every good samaritan had to put up with the damn thing screaming, and everyone staring at them thinking "thief"... You can forget getting your phone back now! The logical course on finding a misplaced phone will be to smash the thing to smithereens now, so it can't start screaming at three AM and wake up everyone in the neighbourhood.
Of course, this will be good for the cellphone makers and telcos - people will get their phones back less, buy more replacements, and sign on to long contracts in order to save a bit of money on the phones.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
that's because your car is on the way to mexico and the cops don't want to be accused of racism or being insentive to multiculturalism. You see you are occupyng land stolen from la raza and they take your car as part of the reparations. You should be proud to donate it to assuage your part of the collective guilt.
Did you know the federal attorney general is a member of la raza?
Doesn't require intent to kill, just that the result of your actions resulted in someone dying. For example, you grab some lady's purse that has her heart pills it it, and she dies cause you took her medicine. Actually you'd probably have to steal it at gunpoint, because the crime has to be a felony to count.
When you're taking off or landing. That way it's a Federal Crime if you get up to fix it. The loud noise will of course be construed to be terrorism. Old people and soccermoms will freak out. Some swarthy dude will get tasered. A fun time will be had by all. Let's Roll, Bitches.
Of course, that doesn't stop the thief from merely changing the IMEI.
Sure it's an extra step, and on some handsets it will require a bit of soldering, but on most it's doable with a data cable and the relevant software. Here in the UK it's also illegal to change the IMEI, but if you've already stolen the handset...
http://www.unlockme.co.uk/blacklist.html
Lucky friend of yours. In my experience, my cell provider didn't give a fuck about getting me my phone back. They just wanted to help me buy a new handset and plan from them.
T-Mobile: you get what you pay for.
I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
This isn't any different than what Police do with "Lost" Radios If the police agency is on a digital trunked system (Typically Motorola) then they just assign the lost device to a specific talk group (lostRadiotalkGrp) and then constantly transmit a looped message to that talk group ("The radio you have is property of XYZ police, please return the equipment to the nearest station for a $50 dollar reward thank you")
I've seen programs with this sort of functionality before for Symbian several years ago.
However, you end up paying a premium for a function that will at most prompt the thief to through their new phone out the window. If your phone is stolen then you want it back, I don't care otherwise, I don't want to spend money to not have it.
I think this is a great idea... assuming that they make it difficult to trigger by accident or hacking (am I assuming too much?). More than my cell phone, I wish they'd do this with iPods. Even without wireless they could make it only happen on sync. If they did that, I wonder how long it would take for thievery to become less desirable. It would have to be pretty consistant to work.
Cheers.
Ahh, but if stolen mobiles in the UK couldn't work, then there'd be a lot less mobiles available amongst the population. Fewer mobile phones means fewer phone calls made, and as the operators charge by time on the phone, working stolen phones=profits for the operators. I should think that is one of the reasons why an IMEI dbase is not more efficient.
As for returning guarentee cards, no thanks. The phone operators can easily determine your usual phone's IMEI number anyway, and they also have that info recorded anyway: I once entered my SIM's PIN wrong 3 times and locked it out. To undo this, I had to key in the IMEI number. To get this, I phoned my operator (from a friend's phone), gave them my phone number (and maybe some more info, or confirmed info) and they gave me the IMEI number. All this was done in a pub.
Car analogies break down.
They're making more effort than they were. Eek! It's the attack of the ambiguous pronouns!
Maybe I'm just sleepy or suffering from Mt. Dew withdrawal, but I don't get why anyone would buy such a phone unless it were to be used as a gag gift... A really expensive gag gift. And just how the crap DO you disable it when you realise you just dropped your phone in the couch? No longer able to tolerate the shrieking ear abuse, do you just kill yourself? Is there no end?
-- me
first: what if I get my screaming phone back? it won't ever stop screaming so it'll be completely worthless - you most certainly won't even catch the thief, since he'll throw it away... the only effect will be that the thief won't use the phone
second: what if someone cracks the signal? he might send the signal to each and every cell phone, making all those cell phones unusable and worthless...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Sounds like a good way to get UK thieves to throw your cell phone in the thames. Presumably the owner would prefer to get it back.
A better idea might be to lock up the phone and have it display a number the owner can be reached at and maybe a reward amount for returning it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Every generation of the cell phone gets more annoying. And I cannot remember the last
orchestral concert I attended where someone didn't let a cell phone ring.
One of these was a composer's premiere that was being recorded and STILL, someone ruined it with a cell phone... three different times...
I can't wait until we get cell phones that will make a *really* loud noise and cannot be turned off at all.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
thousands of cell phones screamed out at once. Oh, wait... it was just an average day in LA.
And noise pollution is all they've added to that phone.
I just found two cell phones in the past 2 weeks. Both of them were just lying in the road. I returned both of them. One of them I gave to a cop, and, with the other one, the owner called his phone and I handed it back to him. In the second case, receiving his call and returning his phone was easy, SINCE I HAD NO INCENTIVE TO DISCONNECT THE BATTERY; his phone wasn't screeching at me.
I guess you could say the shriek is for cases when the phoneloser calls and the finder hangs up. But silencing the phone is better than that, and possibly more effective. To reactivate a silent phone, make the finder take the phone to a service branch, and, if lost or stolen, the newly-reactivated phone could be mailed to the owner.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
Simply type *#06# into your cell phone
Yeah yeah, nice try. Everyone knows that's the secret "I've been stolen" code to make me disable my own phone, you're not going to fool me that easy!!
Hmm - on a Samsung x427m with Cingular GSM, #06# resulted in "not done."
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Put a star in front of it.
It's daft simple to get a cellphone without using your own real, personal information.
I recommend leaving one of these phones in the bin at the TSA checkpoint in a US airport.
Then call to send the signal to set the phone on scream.
Enjoy:)
The weakest link will still be the human element. Suppose:
*Cell phone stolen.
*Real owner sets off the "OMFG-Screaming-Harpies" function.
*Thief gets annoyed, takes it to 'Brand-X' store.
*Thief 'social engineers' the store clerks, saying it went off "accidently" and needs to be reset.
You can see where this is going.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Phone theft is a fairly high percentage of personal crime, but stolen phones generate a low percentage of revenue for the operators. It IS in their interests to stop phone theft, cloning and other crimes: none of them want the attention of the regulatory authorities on this issue.
...Or maybe this would turn into the best ever practical joke, and you could get your mates' mobiles banned just from knowing their phone number...
For what it's worth, I'm a front end architect in the phone industry. I'm not just talking out of my trousers here.
On your other point, yes, they can get your IMEI and ban your phone based on the number. And, as you said 'maybe some more info, or confirmed info'. There's the ID I said you'd need.
You may already have provided this when you got your contract deal. On the other hand, for a Pay As You Go purchase the only way the opco know this is for you to have sent in the guarantee card (or registration card, or similar). Without this they simply cannot attach you personally to the number, and therefore cannot ban the IMEI which matches the numher.
Sounds like that cell phone's got data to steal - good thing they put that sound on it to alert thieves to its readiness and location.
I need to start designing cell phones... how do so many terrible ideas like this make it to market?