Apple Patents Remotely Disabling Jailbroken Phones

Posted by Soulskill on Friday August 20, 2010 @02:19AM 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?"

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Re:FUD by ViViDboarder · 2010-08-20 02:30 · 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.