Tracking Stolen Gadgets — Manufacturers' New Dilemma

heptapod sends in a story from the NY Times about a growing problem for the makers of high-tech gadgets: deciding when and how it's appropriate to track a stolen device. With the advent of ubiquitous GPS and connections to services like the Kindle book store, the companies frequently have a way to either narrow down a user's location or impede use of the device. But some, like Amazon, are drawing a hard line when it comes to establishing that the device was actually stolen. "Samuel Borgese, for instance, is still irate about the response from Amazon when he recently lost his Kindle. After leaving it on a plane, he canceled his account so that nobody could charge books to his credit card. Then he asked Amazon to put the serial number of his wayward device on a kind of do-not-register list that would render it inoperable — to 'brick it' in tech speak. Amazon's policy is that it will help locate a missing Kindle only if the company is contacted by a police officer bearing a subpoena. Mr. Borgese, who lives in Manhattan, questions whether hunting down a $300 e-book reader would rank as a priority for the New York Police Department."

Comments

I think they should track

[IMNTPC]

Last year I absentmindedly left my GPS and Cellphone in the car (was running late to work). About an hour later I realized I didn't have my Cell on me and went out to the car to retrieve it. Lo and behold my TomTom 920T GPS, and my Motorola Q9c were both gone and the window in my car was smashed out. Rough retail value of the phone and gps together were around the $1000.00 range. The police came and took a report, I even actually still had the boxes for both units with the serial numbers. I've not heard anything since.
          What really irks me is that I know for certain that the Cell Phone should be traceable. At least the police could have called Verizon and checked to see if it showed up in any of the 50-100 pawn shops in town. We're not talking major investigate work here, we're talking about what should be a 10-20min call. I called TomTom and also asked them if they could at least make it where that unit will never get an update.. they said it was a feature that many have requested, but at this point in time they didn't offer that.
          I know that there are more important things like murders, etc.. but hey they had to take the time to take the report, could at least do a little diligence.

Their reluctance is bunk!!!!!

[onyxruby]

I used to work for Polaris (Snowmobiles, ATV's, Motorcycles etc). They actively tracked and helped out with stolen equipment on a routine basis. Working these issues was my responsibility at the time. Worked with law enforcement, took reports from civilians and similar things.

You know how much work this took on my part? Very little - this fell under "other duties" while I worked there, and I was the only person at the time who worked these. The vendors like Amazon are refusing to help seeing only an expense and a loss of sales. This sheer and utter greed on their part with justifiable reason. If they can't do this because it's the right thing, than somebody needs to legislate good companies morals on their part.

Re:Street justice?

[mysidia]

Ideally they should just force you to authenticate with your existing account before you can disassociate/re-associate the device.

E.g. the moment you click 'disassociate', the device actually becomes bricked until the device password is entered.

When you associate with a new account, the password you type becomes the 'device' password.

There ought to also be a way to password-lock the kindle as you can with cell phones. And they should take care to make sure a thief can't easily defeat the device password.