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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?
a security measure for stolen iPhones.
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Just don't buy Apple products anymore. End of story.
... to hate on Apple and never purchase any of their products on principle.
It doesn't say the countermeasures would be used BECAUSE the phone is jailbroken, just that this is one of the data it could ascertain. Right?
Wouldn't that kind of action be in violation of the recent ruling that made such actions as jailbreaking legal on personally owned devices? I understand its a warranty violation, but that shouldn't mean that it should allow apple to restrict usage, etc.
Reading this it becomes instantly apparent that "unauthorized use" is referring to users of stolen devices.
Jailbreaking is already legal. What use would it be to take a photo of a jailbroken user?
Theft is not legal. It would be VERY useful to have a photo of the user of a stolen device.
Ummm, isn't this probably intended for stolen phones?
'unauthorized usage' means a lot of things. It *could* mean jailbroken, but - to those with a brain - it means the ability to remote wipe your phone, find it if it is stolen, etc. Remote wipe is crucial on the enterprise. While I question the validity of the patent (how long has RIM had remote wipe?), the actions are valid. Jailbreaking is legal, there is nothing Apple can do to that, so get over it.
Library of Congress just ruled on the DMCA that there is no "unauthorized" use of a damn smart phone...
Dont you love it when companies try to re-write laws and claim they are in the green?
This has nothing to do with Jailbroken phones. Where did the "anonymous reader" come up with that crap? From the first sentence in the abstract "This is generally directed to identifying unauthorized users of an electronic device." And nowhere in TFA does it say anything about Jailbroken phones. This is simply a twist on lojack.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
It gets even funnier when you remember their old '1984'-based campaign, they've come full circle.
A school district tried this and barely avoided having officials brought before a grand jury and indicted.
Perhaps we will get to see Mr. Jobs wearing iStripes in the iPrison? Or iPrisonUniform in the iAlcatrez.
make it illegal for Apple & Microsoft and any other company to shutdown or "brick" a cellphone or game console any other product...
now as far as any modded product if someone mods the hardware that is legal but they might void the warranty and apple or microsoft or whoever can block it from their online service but they can not legally sabotage the product when it trys to connect, (just block it from connecting) the owner of the modded hardware are free to use some other service (which jailbreaking and modding was intended to accomplish anyway)
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no, the feds decided not to prosecute, which is not the same thing.
The civil lawsuits for invasion of privacy, taking picutures of semi-clothed teenagers in their bedrooms is proceeding.
This is why we should be able to rate stories -1 Troll.
Nothing in the linked article references jailbreaking. This looks way more like remote disabling for stolen phones - the same way that OnStar customers can call to say that their car has been stolen.
The specific means of identifying whether or not the current user is the one who is supposed to be operating the device is discussed, and in that context:
So in other words, if someone steals your iPhone, they won't be able to thwart anti-theft devices by jailbreaking your phone or yanking the SIM.
That makes it sound like the patent would be some sort of legal precedent establishing law. That makes no sense. Patents don't "allow" actions, they restrict them.
No, the items you keep quoting are obviously merely members of a long list of example techniques for evaluating the likelihood that a phone has been stolen.
There's no conspiracy theory here. Imagine that you were a phone. Someone enters the wrong unlock password a dozen times? Maybe your owner forgot it. You haven't been back to your home a couple days? Maybe your owner is on vacation. But when, IN ADDITION to all that, someone starts trying to unlock you, you'd have a pretty good notion that you're about to be hawked on ebay.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
This technology sounds quite useful if you assume "unauthorised use" to mean "use of the phone by someone who has stolen it"...
After all, at least in the US jailbreaking is explicitly legal, so spying on a jailbreaker could in itself be an illegal act.
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As I posted elsewhere on this forum, the patent specification does expressly mention jailbraking. Do a text search, and you will find it near the bottom of the specification where the patent application discusses potential uses for the claimed method.
Or, you know, the headline and summary is wrong.
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If they had gone full circle they would anti 1984. They've gone 180 degrees.
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If you work on Wall street.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
There are two states, Maryland and Virginia, under which remote disablement of software is allowed under UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act. Even then, bricking, or "self-help" as UCITA calls it, has some limitations, and it's not allowed in "mass market transactions" such as those involving non-negotiated licenses. The intent was to address shrink-wrap licenses, but a cell phone contract is similarly non-negotiable. This sounds like an "invention" that can't really be used in most of the US.
UCITA and its self-help provisions have been an issue for a long time, and a lot has been written about it that's probably applicable here too.
Or you sold it.
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
So just to clarify. If I swap the sim card in my jailbroken phone while I'm on holiday, the good folks at Apple (or my carrier) will start taking photos, sound recordings and GPS records of me.
Are they going to ask my permission first? If so, why not just wait until the user phones up and reports their phone stolen, rather than try to Sherlock Holmes their inputs to determine whether it has been stolen?
I don't really want my carrier randomly taking pictures and sound recordings of me so that some analyst somewhere can have a gaze and see if I look like a robber. What if it takes pictures of it's child owner naked, or records a conversation which discusses bank details, or an employee discussing trade secrets or what not?
Sounds very iffy to me.