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UK Firm To Release 'Screaming' Cell Phone

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.

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."

6 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Brilliant application of 'planned obsolecence' by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  2. loud and obnoxious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    And I thought cell phones were already loud and obnoxious...

  3. Who cares if the phone becomes unusable by Vihai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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....

  4. Re:So basically... by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not necessarily. If it writes an "I'm disabled" flag to some place in the onboard NOR flash, and the loader reads this to decide whether to proceed with a boot or not, you'd have to rewrite the loader or the NOR flash in order to turn it off. Pulling all the power wouldn't help since the flash is designed to hold data when the power is out.

    If you have the tools to rewrite the NOR flash, then you can indeed turn off the alarm with software. The software will be external to the phone and will have to use some hardware connection to it, though.

  5. Re:Who do the police arrest? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The brick manufacturer for making an unsafe product.

  6. IMEI, Re:Who cares if the phone becomes unusable by mennucc1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.