Microsoft Outlines Windows Phone 7 Kill Switch

nk497 writes "Microsoft has outlined how it might use the little publicized 'kill switch' in Windows Phone 7 handsets. 'We don't really talk about it publicly because the focus is on testing of apps to make sure they're okay, but in the rare event that we need to, we have the tools to take action,' said Todd Biggs, director of product management for Windows Phone Marketplace. According to Biggs, Microsoft's strict testing of apps when they are submitted for inclusion in Marketplace should minimize kill switch use, but he explained how the company could remove apps from the marketplace or phones, when devices check-in to the system. 'We could unpublish it from the catalog so that it was no longer available, but if it was very rogue then we could remove applications from handsets — we don't want things to go that far, but we could.'"

Comments

Before people start in on MS.....

[rwven]

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_activates_android_kill_switch_zaps_useless_apps.php

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10010070-37.html

Both Android and the iPhone have kill switches as well.

Google has actually used theirs.

Re:Before people start in on MS.....

[indiechild]

Never let facts get in the way of a good Apple bashing, right?

http://www.razorianfly.com/2010/07/08/did-apple-just-use-the-ios-kill-switch/

Another Brilliant Microsoft Innovation!

[Yvan256]

Brought to you by Apple.

I'm not as bothered as I should be

[QuantumBeep]

Buying a mobile phone is already such an exercise in trust, I have a hard time worrying about a remote app kill switch.

Re:I'm not as bothered as I should be

[Sloppy]

I don't understand why worrying is what this makes people do. .. [if software does a bad thing] someone has the power to kill it.

The reason people dislike it, is that the normal way for personal computers to operate is that the owner of the device (who is also typically the user), is the "someone" that you mention. And a lot of us are still used to the normal way (I guess that's why I call it "normal" ;-). The evil here is not the killswitch; it's whose hand is on the switch.

If the phone were larger and had a full size keyboard and monitor, a lot of people would say that worrying is the right thing to do. But since we call it a "phone" (or a "game console" or an "ebook reader") the rules are magically different even though there's nothing about how the device is used, which should change who its master is.

That said, while "a lot" of people would object to a desktop PC working this way, maybe some wouldn't. There does seem to be a level of frustration with users (typically Windows PC owners) installing malware, and this isn't the first time someone has proposed giving up and taking the power and authority out of their hands. What's interesting, though, is when you cross the line going down to a certain size (Apple's tablet being the new threshold) it's no longer just an idea, but is actually happening.

Imagine if desktop PCs had evolved like the handheld ones are. Pretty sad. And pretty scary to think that the phone/gameconsole mindset still might infect the desktop. Why can't the next Mac come with IOS or the next Dell come with Windows Phone 7 or the next whitebox x86 come with Android -- and "brick" if the user tries to install something that doesn't suck? Throw in lock-in subsidies from ISPs, and people might actually buy 'em, and then desktop developers who want access to the widest market, might find themselves having to kiss the ass of the repository maintainers (a.k.a. "app store"), not be allowed to write competing apps, etc. This kind of shit would have totally prevented a lot of tech that we all take for granted today. Lame.

Remember, kids...

[kurokame]

If someone else can come in remotely and change what you've got installed, it's not your system and it's not your software.

But we encourage you to think of it as your own - it makes the fees hurt less, and we can always straighten you out on the details of ownership later.

Re:Remember, kids...

[rwven]

You could always root/jailbreak your android/iphone and disable the kill switch.

Re:hmm

[Yvan256]

Commodore, for sitting on their asses and letting the Amiga fall behind the competition?

Re:Thanks for the warning.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, it's time to face reality. This is 2010, not 1990. This is a FEATURE for most people, not a drawback. They are sick and fed up with PCs and malware/spyware and anything that helps avoid this problem is worth more to them, not less.

Apple does the same thing with iDevices and they are doing a brisk business and battling with Google for supremacy in the mobile computing space. The market has spoken, and it wants a safer computing experience which is provided by this ability.

Re:Thanks for the warning.

[amicusNYCL]

Now I have no need to even consider getting one.

Nor an iPhone, nor an Android device, nor a Palm webOS device, nor a BlackBerry (assuming you're on a BES system). Indeed, when your world is black and white many decisions are easy.

We should applaud Microsoft for security

[SuperKendall]

Microsoft has made a lot of poor security choices in the past, so we should praise them when they do something that will improve the general level of mobile application security. All mobile platforms to-date have kill mechanisms, for the average user it's a great thing to be able to shut down a rogue app en-masse and not have to wait for even an update cycle.

Experienced technical users will ALWAYS have the equivalent of Jailbreaking to prevent applications from being removed or modified externally if they so wish. But that is a choice that should be made by a technically informed person after consideration, not a default configuration that the general public has to live with the repercussions from for the next decade.

Re:We should applaud Microsoft for security

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why the right way to do it is with a configuration setting that you help the user select at purchase/installation time and through user training. Yes, people don't want training, but that's the price of using a complicated feature rich application. Give people the option to

    1) enable automatic remote kill
    2) enable automatic remote kill prompting
    3) disable it
    4) enable it on sync
    5) subscribe to push notifications of kill requests

There's lots of ways to handle this--but automatic remote kill is only one of them, and the last tech friendly. Not just because geeks don't like DRM, but because it exposes all applications to a very real Denial of Service risk. What happens when somebody spoofs a remote kill to my VPN adapter or its corporate nameserver? What about remote killing my asset management application that scans barcodes (even if poorly) from the camera?

Hell, doctors have PHI on phones these days--you *need* remote kill on that app, but the consequences of deletion could be medically deadly.

Point us--remote kill isn't wrong because it's remote kill. It's wrong because there's no choice or control without jailbreaking it.

Re:Too grainular

[IndustrialComplex]

You're saying that it's better to disable the entire device instead of remove the one offending application?

It can actually be less intrusive. I have no 'right' to use a network, so if I am screwing up the network because of an app I have, kicking me off the network doesn't do anything to MY equipment.

It means I can install whatever I want on my phone and no backdoors are needed.

Think of it like renting a car to someone. You can do whatever the hell you like to your body, but I don't want you smoking in my car. I refuse you the car, but I don't confiscate your cigarettes.

Re:A baffling non sequitor

[Code Master]

What he's saying is that if MS tests the apps well enough to prevent bad apps from making it into the marketplace, then they won't need to use the kill switch.

So they are focusing on their primary line of defense being the acceptance testing.

Re:hmm

[adisakp]

So who are the bad guys?

Everybody.

I think you've not only figured out big business, but politics as well.

Re:Thanks for the warning.

[YodaYid]

Malware is the justification for the kill switch. The concern is that the technology may be misused down the road for other things. Maybe 10 years from now, kill switches will be used to shut off legitimate apps that are considered a threat for some reason (like Iran shutting down Twitter during the anti-government protests). Maybe they can use the kill switch if you are watching a documentary or reading an article you're not supposed to...
</tinfoilhat>