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Apple Patents Remotely Disabling Jailbroken Phones

Posted by Soulskill on from the trying-to-put-the-break-in-jailbreak dept.

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?"

3 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Re:FUD by ViViDboarder · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Key points from TFA backing me up...
    • Claim 4 mentions jailbreaking but looks like they refer to it as a method of potential vulernability
    • Claim 10 refers to transfering sensitive user information to a remote site and then clearing the device of said information
    • Most glaring is claim 13 which refers to comparing heartbeats of the current using a heartbeat sensor and comparing it with a library of AUTHORIZED USERS

    This whole post is straight FUD.

  2. Re:Just because it's patented... by digitalchinky · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is indeed a ton of prior art. There are quite a few Symbian applications that enable the 'owner' to do pretty much what the apple patent describes. Also my N900 has a fairly sophisticated script that sets up a reverse tunnel over 3G automatically if the SIM card is changed - once logged in I can do sudo rm -rf /* if I feel destructive - though in reality I'd grab a few good GPS fixes and then retrieve my property.

  3. Re:Just because it's patented... by T+Murphy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maybe there is a legitimate use for this patent, but I'm sure Apple would love to make people believe their iPhone will get disabled if they jailbreak it. I wouldn't be surprised if this patent is in part for scare tactics like this.

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