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US Mobile Carriers Won't Brick Stolen Phones
WheezyJoe writes "NBC News has some disturbing security video of people getting assaulted for their smartphones. Such offenses are on the rise. Police chiefs like D.C.'s Cathy Lanier are asking U.S. mobile carriers to brick phones that are reported stolen, in order to dry up what must be a big underground market for your favorite Android device or iPhone — but right now the carriers won't do it. Such an approach has had success in Australia and the U.K."
Accomplice in theft. The phone would be useless if the carrier was not cooperating. So the carrier is adding value to and encouraging the theft.
Should be a nice massive group action lawsuit in there somewhere.
Make a law!!! get some use for the that congress.
If your phone gets stolen, you have to buy a new phone; most often this is done by people signing up for 2 more years to get the subsidized handset since few are willing to shell out $300+ for a smartphone. And whoever ends up with the stolen phone also signs up for service. So every stolen phone results in a new customer, an extended customer, and a (subsidized) phone sale.
But if they BRICK your stolen phone, then theft of stolen phones decreases, which hurts them because they'll have fewer new customers, fewer retained customers, and fewer phone sales.
That hurts profits, which is un-American. I'm shocked and appalled that someone in the public / government sector would suggest this! It might be time to privatize the police forces... that way the telecoms can stop relying on 3rd parties to enhance their sales and have the cops start stealing your phones directly.
Captcha was endemic. It's like slashdot KNOWS.
I cant speak for the other carriers, but Verizon will not activate a phone that has been reported as stollen. Sure, its not "bricked", but its near useless.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Sprint and Verizon don't need to brick the phones since they are CDMA networks and once those phones are reported stolen they are essentially black-balled from the network any way. T-Mobile, AT&T, and all other sim-card services would have to figure out some type of alternative in safe-guarding stolen phones.
Brick != Wipe
Many smartphones phones have the ability to be remotely locked or wiped... but not in a permanent way that can prevent the phone from every being used again on any cell network.
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As per TFA, we've had this in the UK for years. As the US networks say, it's not perfect as the IMEI can be changed on some phones and they can be exported abroad but its a hell of a lot better than nothing. Most mobile phone robberies are not organised exporters, they're people after a quick profit, often to feed a drug habit.
It's common sense, it works, do it.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
It's quite clear that the Mobile carriers are robbing us blind as citizens and as consumers, not to mention the abuses of our civil liberties. It's no surprise they aren't willing to help curtail similar actions.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Because while you are tracking down stolen phone/ipads you end up tripping over (and stubbing your toe to boot) on that $35M/750lbs of meth just lying around.
Stupid piles of drugs are everywhere and are always getting in the way of real police work, like finding some poor bastard's stolen ipad.
I've worked developing cell phone operator software for almost a decade on 3 different continents (Not in the US though) and many different countries and as far as I know every single cell phone operator that I have worked for use the GSM standard practice of blocking the EMEI number which will cause the phone to be bricked on any GSM network in the world (AT&T & T-Mobile base their network on the GSM standard in the USA) and I was flabbergasted when a few months ago my 2 week old iPhone 4S was stolen AT&T would not do the same here.
Normally the procedure in other countries is that you just bring your cell phone operator the police report and they will immediately block the phone, basically turning it into a big media player (Assuming it is a smart phone). I can't understand how the operators here claim that they need to investigate technical solutions. This was designed and built into the original GSM standard that has been around since the late 1980:s and as far as I know the feature has also been in use since that time.
I totally agree with the article that it is unconscionable that operators here refuse to do this I am assuming to save a few bucks on cell phone subsidies.
If your *smartphone* (not feature phone) is stolen, in particular if it's Android or iOS, there are a number of solutions , other than retrieving it.
And most of those solutions can be easily worked around by a knowledgeable person, at the simplest level by just reflashing the firmware. This is not just theoretical - IMEI reprogramming used to be common place for stolen mobile phones, and there was a whole cottage industry based around cracking IMEIs so that stolen phones could be reenabled (to be fair, there were a few legitimate uses, but the illegal usage far outnumbered that). Now that the manufacturers made it harder to reprogram the IMEI, stolen phones that are blocked by the networks are only useful for export to countries that have the same network technology. So there is still a route to profit, but it requires more organisation than just being able to list the phone on ebay or sell it down the pub, which is what used to happen in the old days.
one could use without having to resort to calling police to "brick" your phone
The police have nothing to do with IMEI blocking, the network operator does the blocking, and will do so when you report the stolen phone to them, which you obviously need anyway to do as you are liable for all phone calls until the theft is reported.
they don't want to because it earns them money. they don't care if the phone is stolen as long as it brings in revenue. a few pissed off people getting odd bills after the phone is stolen doesn't concern them, they can wait out any customer dispute till they just give up and pay.
Actually neither Sprint or Verizon will activate a phone not originally purchased from them. And neither will activate a phone reported stolen by an owner. Honestly this seems like a problem strictly for phones with SIM cards.
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And for the ones that aren't deterred, you think a firefight in the street is preferable to carriers simply blocking the phones and making the mugging less attractive in the first place?
And for the ones that aren't deterred, you think a firefight in the street is preferable to carriers simply blocking the phones and making the mugging less attractive in the first place?
No, but as an adult with full cognitive faculties, I don't believe it's anyone's duty but my own to protect myself and my property... especially considering recent SCOTUS decisions, such as the one that determined that police have no duty to protect citizens.
Expecting others to do what you should be doing yourself belongs in the realm of childhood, IMO.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Instead of bricking, lock the user interface, put them in a periodic beaconing mode, and send the posse after the phone.
DO put the phone in a mode where if the battery dies or is removed it can't be restarted without opening the case and doing vendor magic.
DO store all non-removable-media data in encrypted form and zap the key as soon as the phone is told that it is stolen.
DO give the customer the option of storing data that is on removable media in encrypted form as well.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
So, while Verizon doesn't like people bringing in phones, resellers of Verizon service (Cricket, Virgin, etc.) are more than happy to do so. Verizon isn't in complete control of their own mobile service since a lot (25%? 30%? more?) of it is due to resellers selling access to the same towers.
Oh, an what do you need to use Cricket? A Verizon-compatible phone.
"You just realized that you can be tracked whole connected to a cell network? Really?"
Uh, no, and I don't know how you inferred that. I was saying that, given these set of circumstances allowing tracking, why can't those circumstances be used to support actual law enforcement.
I agree that the device's worth itself is low on the list of priority, but tackling systematic crime and criminals shouldn't be. Chances are that if someone is willing to steal a phone like this, they are likely involved in other thefts or criminal activity which would be worth stopping.
I think the idea is that if criminals know a phone will become a useless hunk of metal and plastic the moment it's reported stolen, it's no longer worth stealing.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The huge majority of police officers in the USA have never worked any cases of that type and never will.
don't buy five hundred friggin dollar phone.
How is the carrier supposed to know that the device was stolen?
It says how right there in the fine summary -- "Police chiefs like D.C.'s Cathy Lanier are asking U.S. mobile carriers to brick phones that are reported stolen..." Presumably a police report has some legal backing.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
First off I think carriers should do this; but that being as it may I will say that this doesn't really work in either the UK or Australia - phone theft has not disappeared or become less common as a result.
It is easy to understand why when you consider how trivial it is to unlock phones and then sell them on to international customers, particularly in Europe where a blocked phone in the UK might still be worth upwards of 300 euro on eBay Germany or France.
Another interesting question is - what, if anything, has Apple done? They could very easily block phones interacting with its iTunes stores if the phone was reported stolen in any part of the world but they haven't. Why is that?
It still can happen if the stolen-car report isn't visible to the car-title-issuing companies due to a snafu.
However, most states require that someone post a bond if they want to get a title to a car and can't show proof of ownership. It's called a "bonded title."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Love the car analogy, wait...
It's completely possible, the problem is neither the carriers nor the police have any interest in doing it.
It's not in the carrier's interest to spend a dime helping to track down your phone - after mine was stolen (and then used to call several local numbers that I could clearly see in my statement!) AT&T told me it would be a waste of my time to notify the police. Unless you live in Mayberry they are just going to take your report, ignore it, and if they are honest tell you flat out they just don't have the resources to track down cell phone thefts.
If the person you are mad at gave you their cellular service account number, then they deserved to get their phone bricked. Otherwise, how is calling the service provider (presuming you know who they get service from), going to result in their phone being reported as stolen? Not to mention that the service providers would probably require a police report before bricking the phone. So now you are going to be charged with filing a false police report as well as wire fraud with malicious intent, depending on your jurisdiction. Smart move.
You could just as easily call the police and say that your car was stolen and give them the license plate of the person you are mad at so that they get pulled over then next time they pass a squad car. How many days have you spent in jail each time you got mad at someone? Maybe you should just stay in your mother's basement.
I know for a fact that Sprint (I worked for them for a while) creates a "lost or stolen" database. If your Sprint phone is stolen you report it to sprint and the "lost/stolen" service is placed on your phone. This renders the phone unusable: No calls, no messages. If you get a new phone, when you activate the new phone on the old number there is a check for "lost/stolen" and the SN/MEID goes into a database and that cannot be activated on sprint again. All allegations of carriers not concerned about the theft of phones is bogus.
My carrier is ATT. I know for a fact that they have exactly the same service although it is applied a little differently.
However, the phone would still be usable after hacking such as cloning. The carriers can only block the phone services on their network; not destroy the phone itself.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
That's why I wired my phone's flash circuit to an alternating stack of my grandma's nitro-glycerin patches and vintage cinema film soaked in 100% proof rubbing alcohol and stuffed between the lithium battery and the phone. Obviously I never use my flash when I take pictures, but I wrote my own self-destruct app that can only be activated by a text message from my other cell phone number, which I will not reveal for privacy and safety reasons.
The hardest part of the project was building the miniature spark plug to ignite the whole thing. I can't wait to get my phone stolen so I can try it out and see if it works.
Wait what? Phones don't have SIM cards? How are you supposed to port your phone to another carrier, or use your account on another phone?