Slashdot Mirror
Apple Patents Remotely Disabling Jailbroken Phones
An anonymous reader writes "Apple yesterday applied for a patent to allow remotely disabling electronic devices when 'unauthorized usage' is detected. The patent application covers using the camera to take pictures of the unauthorized user and using GPS to determine location, and it involves ascertaining whether the phone has been hacked or jailbroken, using those as criteria for detecting 'suspicious behavior.' The patent would allow the carrier or any other 'authorized' party to disable or restrict the functionality of the device. Is this Apple's latest tool to thwart jailbreaking?"
...doesn't mean it's legal, right?
On the contrary, because it's patented, it is now illegal for anybody else to do this, which is a good thing :-)
So, from now on, as long as you avoid the iPhone like the plague it is, you should be safe against the threat of your phone manufacturer spying on you...
Jailbreaking is already legal. What use would it be to take a photo of a jailbroken user?
If someone broke out of jail and got their hands on an iphone, I imagine having a picture and location information would be very useful to the police. But that's probably not what you meant.
I tried that, but due to this new technology I can't successfully steal them anymore.