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California Bill Proposes Mandatory Kill-Switch On Phones and Tablets
alphadogg writes "Politicians and law enforcement officials in California will introduce a bill on Friday that requires all smartphones and tablet PCs sold in the state be equipped with a digital 'kill-switch' that would make the devices useless if stolen. The bill is a response to a rise in thefts of portable electronics devices, often at knife or gunpoint, being seen across the state. Already half of all robberies in San Francisco and 75 percent of those in Oakland involve a mobile device and the number is rising in Los Angeles, according to police figures. The trend is the same in major cities across the U.S. and the California bill, if it passes, could usher in kill-switch technology nationwide if phone makers choose not to produce custom devices for California. California Senate bill 962 says all smartphones and tablet PCs sold from Jan. 1, 2015, should have 'a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in possession of the rightful owner.'"
dice trying out kill-switch on /.
Boycott!
Already half of all robberies in San Francisco and 75 percent of those in Oakland involve a mobile device and the number is rising in Los Angeles, according to police figures.
Really, what we need, is a kill switch for Oakland, San Francisco and LA.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
It will be used against you. Next "bigger" protest they will kill switch the entire area. Record away ...
If you start making phones with kill switches, that is going to be a very attractive target for hackers.
Imagine if you could wholesale destroy thousands of phones in one go?
And since legislators only barely understand their intended outcomes, and not the unintended consequences, they won't be mandating any proper security with this -- and it will be badly implemented.
But, really, what black hat isn't going to be giddy with glee at the prospect of wiping out a whole bunch of phones in an area?
Yeah, yeah, offtopic because I didn't say 'fuck beta' ... I'm just tired of the nerd rage, it gets old after a while.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Isn't this what IMEI blocking is supposed to do?
...but so enterprise people might hack all way to kill, say, all the phones in California in a mass attack.
I'm sorry. A remote kill-switch is unacceptable. The big time thieves already put your cellphone in a Faraday cage when they swipe it. The real purpose of this device remote kill switch is to allow a more target approach to the Internet kill-switch -- Which as we've recently seen is what oppressive governments do to silence public opposition. Keep in mind that the USA has a long history of silencing public activism, and they are actively planning to ensure their capability to silence activists.
It's quite telling indeed that this would be made mandatory, and not present at the user's option. Why not let the market decide whether this feature is wanted? This mandatory oppressive non-feature creep is anti-capitalism, anti-freedom, and anti-American.
This would be a disaster. Even if the objective is noble, there's an ugly architectural fact: as with any other DRM scheme, you can't have effective control unless the 'owner' of the device is no longer the most privileged user of the device. Whether you bake it into the OS, some sort of hypervisor, the firmware, or whatever, there has to be an agent one level higher to enforce restrictions on the user.
The only exception (in this bill's case, not in that of DRM generally) would be if the control mechanism were cryptographically keyfilled by the user, leaving them as the root of control but still providing for strong lockout of third parties. I'm just guessing that that concept won't be a big hit in consumer electronics, though...
In practice, this would make it illegal to sell a tablet or smartphone that isn't tivoized and locked down, since anything that lets you reflash the firmware would be overwhelmingly likely to allow a modestly competent attacker to neutralize a killswitch. Fan-fucking-tastic.
why?
This perfectly covers the need of police and secret agencies for a simple "switch off method" for mobil phones and devices in particular areas of interest in which officials, independant of reason, want to shut down public spread of information at all cost. Censorship at its best, Orwell would have jumped of joy ^^.
... you can all count. If you want information to leave an area in which you are active, just switch off any device thats not yours. (Good I still can make photos with my analog camera).
The device list for such a maneuver is easily obtained through the telecommunication companies which already give free acess to NSA & Co.
Spawning from riots which have to be covered up.
To civilian killings + shut down of areas.
Etcetc
The idea is good but the use for others is terrifying.
Between the gov. possibly abusing this, hackers having a field day, etc. wouldn't it just be easier to use the ESN and not provide service to a reported phone?
#fuckbeta
You just have to drop the phone from higher than 3 feet. I have had 8 smart phones in the past 10 years. They are all designed to fail. The last decent phone that I had was a Nokia 6200 series.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
Someone tries to rob or kill you for your phone, you switch from "Safe" to "Fire."
Better solution: create a database of stolen IMEI numbers. In that way it can be reversed if/when the eventual screwup occurs.
People who have their cell phones stolen were just asking for it. They shouldn't be flashing their bling around like some technoslut. It's not the thieves fault. They can't help themselves.
Die Beta.. die...
You can nuke your iThingy remotely if you've enabled that.
Best Slashdot Co
1) I could know that all phones/tablets have a kill-switch and decide it's not worth the bother to steal them anymore.
2) I can steal your tablet, then you can go home, report me to the police with my description, etc., which has a low chance of resulting in my arrest, then log-in to a website and tell it to kill the tablet, making my free tablet worthless.
3) I can take the tablet and kill you, then you won't go home and report me to the police with my description, etc., you won't log-in to a website to disable my tablet, and I can play Angry Birds.
I'm not sure adding a kill-switch to a device is going to have the effect on sociopathic criminals that these lawmakers think it will.
iPhones/iPads already have this option, has theere been studies done that show that iPhone/iPad theft is less than that of Android based devices (no one will steal a Windows device)?
I think we should leave this up to the market since we have a choice already (if you want this feature you can get an iPhone/iPad), and I'd rather not give criminals any additional reason to kill me while they are committing other crimes (theft) against me.
Already half of all robberies in San Francisco and 75 percent of those in Oakland involve a mobile device and the number is rising in Los Angeles, according to police figures.
Some missing stats here: How many robberies is that, how many were there five years ago, and what percentage of robberies involved a wallet? Is this a sign of increasing crime due to cell phones, or are cell phones just a thing of value that most people carry that is taken along with the victim's wallet and watch? What percentage of these crimes will be prevented if a kill switch is implemented?
Without that information, this is just another case of, "Bad things happen, therefore we need more laws!" Effective laws do an excellent job of reducing crime. Crime stats in the US have been on an impressive and near continual downward trend, and that is an excellent thing to achieve. Ineffectual laws do not solve problems, however, and they weaken the system.
Also: Fuck beta. I am not the audience, I am one of the authors of this site. I am Slashdot. This is a debate community. I will leave if it becomes some bullshit IT News 'zine. And I don't think Dice has the chops to beat the existing competitors in that space.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Since this bill would make Find My iPhone's "Activation Lock", which I would bet money is patented, a requirement for Android and Windows devices.
Best Slashdot Co
It sounds very much like some kind of DRM to me.
It's a digital lock - which can be activated remotely, so certainly can be activated (and deactivated) locally. It may be hard to unlock, but it will be possible.
Like DRM, it'll inconvenience the casual offender, who has limited technical ability. And sooner or later people will get accidentally locked out of their genuinely owned devices. Indeed maybe due to a ransomware type malware, maybe due to a simple error at the manufacturer's server, whatever. It can happen, so it will happen.
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.
Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system. If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta
Commentors - only discuss Beta
http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention. Links of note:
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415
Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441
Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org
IRC Discussion: freenode #slashdot-refugees
IRC Discussion: slashnet.org #slashdot
A "kill switch" will just brick devices the first time they connect to the network in California or a network that transmits "kill switch" orders outside of California. I wouldn't expect it to work if the thief dropped the phone in a metal-lined bag until it was safely outside of the country.
Blacklisting the ESN is just as effective and doesn't require special phones.
Besides, if the phones are being bagged and stripped for parts in a shielded room, neither blacklisting nor a kill switch will do much good.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
These are the people who gave us Dianne Feinstein, the old witch who would put a camera in your toilet.
'Cause it's round-up time, a-way out west
When the cactus is in bloom...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
... when they can just locate it and make it connect to a fake tower instead?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Criminals have to eat too.
Don't forget to boycott Slashdot entirely for the week of the 10th thru the 17th!
Even if people did, the extra traffic generated by the I hate the Beta fanatics this week has shot their analytics through the roof. Maybe they are hoping all the haters will boycott next week. With reduced traffic, it would make it much easier to roll out the beta.
"...can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in possession of the rightful owner."?
Well the rightful owners of our phones are technically still Samsung / Apple / LG /
Does that mean they can arbitrarily decide which phones to disable remotely whenever they'd like?
It's already there you moron. If you would read the posts instead of posting crap, you would know that you can turn the beta off by going to classic mode at the bottom of the screen.
Malware couldn't possibly brick massive quantities of consumer electronics this way could it? Nah, that's as far fetched as Slashdot forcing us all onto a buggy "Beta" no one likes.
Oh, I get it, 25% of all /. viewers are infected with malware that DNS-poisons *.slashdot.org so they land on this fake "Beta" site. Wait until Dice's technical team locates the malicious crackers and sics the legal team on them. There will be hell to pay, I tell you, hell to pay.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nobody buys Playboy for the articles. They do it for the hot, nude women (sadly, sans grits). It just so happens that /. is exactly the same. No one reads /. for the articles. The articles were news two days ago. And no one reads /. for the summaries. The summaries are almost always wrong.
Everyone reads /. for the comments. The comments are the /. equivalent of Playboy's naked chicks, with one crucial difference. Without the gentlemen at Playboy, there will be no naked chicks to look at. The service they provide is, for the most part, finding women that will agree to pose nude for pictures, which they most graciously distribute to their readers.
But as for Slashdot -- the good people at Dice and their "editorial" team do diddly squat around here to generate content. The articles, old as they may be, are submitted by the users. The summaries, mistaken as they may be, are provided by the users, not by Timothy, Soulskill, et al. The comments, trollish as they may be, are written by the users.
/. is of the users, by the users, for the users. The only people at Dice who deserve their paycheck are the IT people. The rest of you -- what is it that you do for our benefit? Why the hell do we need you clowns? Your music's bad and you should feel bad!
Beta delenda est!
Beta makes Taco cry.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Suppose this is implemented. Then imagine a new escalation in the patent wars: say, a phone model is found infringing, and judge mandates not only to stop sales, but to remotely destroy all devices sold in the US.
This already exists and the rest of the world uses it. It's called the IMEI number. Simply report the phone stolen and the carriers can kill the IMEI and put it on a list so that it can't work on any of their networks. Yes, thieves could still use the phone offline, but it puts a HUGE dent into reasons for stealing a phone. But carriers continue to fight against this, IMO, because stolen phones means they get to sell the customer another phone (and at non-subsidized prices). We don't need a new kill switch for the phones, we just need to legislate that the cell companies uses what is at their disposal.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/12/19/2113235/proposed-california-law-would-mandate-smartphone-kill-switch
Stolen phones cannot be used withouy the acquiesence of phone companies in providing service to the phones and their new "owners".
So fine and jail phone CEOs for designing a business model that incorporates, deliberately, the laundering of stolen property.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Why not turn off Classic by going to the bottom of the screen?!
That doesn't really work. It takes me to the classic front page and then when I click on an article I'm back to beta. Scroll down, click on classic, and go back to classic front page. Google recursion for a similar experience.
That would be fine, except Dice has stated its clear intention to eliminate classic mode. If classic mode weren't going away, most people wouldn't care.
Beta delenda est.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Because the ./ boycott doesn't start until Monday...
Kill switches for phones worth over $200? If the only resell-able phones thieves nabbed were flip phones and Blackberries, this law would have almost the same effect. And the rest of us paranoids can keep buying the $199 phone, or even my $11.50 (Free Shipping) Nokia off eBay.
And for all of those arguing that the government, with this new kill switch, would only NOW be able to massively shut down communication: What makes you think they can't do so today with broadcast tower and network control? And why would the NSA kill-switch the phone of a "person of interest" who they are actively listening in on?
How are they going to kill it if the device is off or only does wifi? I suppose it is less likely that people will run around town with a wifi only device.
Also, why not let the market decided? The manufacturer can make it an optional feature and if the user wants it, they can pay for it. No need for even more legislation, which attempts to control what some manufacturer in China builds.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
What's to stop the thieves from just killing the owner outright so it can't be reported before the SIM is changed?
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Rooted device? Disabled.
To the overlords: you're not being so dense as to think this is mostly about the look, are you? Read between the outrage: peoples' complaints about losing most of the expected UNIQUE commenting functionality IS CENTRAL. Do you really think this will be just like any other awkward change, people will grumble but return?
Do you think we're just a minority you can do without?
HEY YOU: some INDIVIDUAL overlord: you're wondering "hey, maybe they're right?" Afraid to go against the groupthink? Better add this to your resume: "assisted in the destruction of slashdot, a unique online community".
As one example of lost functionality: we can't link to individual comments. Or bookmark them for later reference - my biggest complaint. I'm not the first to point this out.
under ITAR, the government classifies software as arms, which are not restricted to the 18th century, thus the right of individuals to keep & bear software is covered under the 2nd amendment as well as the 1st. but to bear s/w it must execute on h/w; thus any mechanism to remove h/w from the control of their owners is in violation of the 2nd...i don't understand why the tbaggers aren't all over this, but i imagine it's because it's more compliucated to undersand than burning snow;-}
Why wait? Start the boycott now! You, you who was planning to post something critical of Beta in an unrelated article, stop what you're doing, log out, and never log in again, in, uh, protest, that's it!
I know, it'll be hard when you occasionally revisit and see that only people who like the new look or who are interested in actual on-topic discussions are left, but you'll feel better.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Simple technical solution implemented in my country without insecure remote kill switch: force telephony providers to share stolen phone IMEI numbers, and block those phones on their networks. Changing IMEI number is possible, but it is beyond most thiefs knowledge, and if they know how to change it for a particular phone model, they will now how to remove the killed flag on the phone
The problem here is not the phones. Are they really playing the scantily clad rape victim game with phones?
The problem is that the People's Republic of California has already written the laws which encourage this. The law-abiding citizens have no way to protect themselves against the armed thugs who unsurprisingly don't care about laws about force and weapons.
Now they are trying to make rape less likely by ordering the wearing of chastity belts. Next will it be burkas? Nobody can have a hot new phone because it makes them a target? If there's still a land of the free, some Californians may want to move there.
That would be fine, except Dice has stated its clear intention to eliminate classic mode. If classic mode weren't going away, most people wouldn't care.
Beta delenda est.
True, but they have also admitted they won't change over until what is broken in the new version is fixed. As such, it won't be the current beta, either.
Just curious, on the course this boycott is currently taking are you seeking to kill the beta or kill /. ?
I doubt there is going to be anything or anyone left here to come back to when its over, win or lose.
This coming from a 5 digit UID, not some recent arrival.
@de_machina
It's already there you moron.
It's already there for the time being. You - moron. There, FTFY.
This
File a police report with the stolen phone's IMEI#. Forward police report to Phone carrier. Phone carrier shares this stolen IMEI# with other carriers. Phone is blocked from being used as a telephone but can still be used on WiFi for games.
Europe and Australia already block reported stolen phone's IMEI# from their networks.
Isn't this a better more effective method that can be undone if the phone is recovered?
This is just governments attempts to silence the public and has nothing to do with thefts.
If the carriers consulted a "stolen phone database" before allowing activation then you couldn't use a stolen phone. The market for stolen phones would disappear. Of course, scumbags would still try to sell them, but the buyers would be pissed afterward.
Somebody would need to house the DB, but it's much like the Do Not Call list - so the logistics are already in place. They would need to use the unique phone id, not the sim card id (obviously easily bypassed on sim card phones).
This would also not require some new special piece of hardware raising the cost of phones (and probably creating some artificial boon for the company that makes it).
I refuse to sign
Because they didn't learn from that....
According to whose definition of "what is broken" and "is fixed"?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
hit it and the robber goes !BOOM!.
Or, are the robbers just trying to delay your calling 911?
In which case, a kill switch won't really matter.
This story was ran a couple of months back.
And it was already shown/proven that the ability to remote kill stolen phones is already possible. All current new phones have this ability. Its the CARRIERS that do not want to enable it. They make money off you buying a new phone and off selling service to whomever stole your phone.
The Carriers are the only ones fighting against this.
The NSA, CIA, FBI, OSBI, and Mayes County Sheriff's department have agreed not to turn off cell phones of undesirables.
What we really need is a kill-switch for a certain Slashy website that has a new version between alpha and gamma coming out this month.
I for one, DON'T welcome our new robotic post-deleting censorship-embracing overlords!
See you all after the boycott. Actually, I probably won't. Auto-deleting posts is pretty much the last straw for me here.
make the devices useless if stolen, or if California declares martial law to arrest all firefighters.
Seriously, a CHP arrested a firefighter while the firefighter was assisting injured people at a car crash site because the firetruck was blocking traffic.
I think that whatever kill switch mechanisms they put in place will be compromised to let attackers remotely trigger them to brick phones at a distance in a week and a half.
On the down side, script kiddies able to permanently disable phones from dozens or hundreds of feet away is a scary thought.
On the up side, interrupting people who are paying more attention to their phone conversation with their friends than to controlling the several ton hunk of metal and plastic they're driving at 60/80/90+ miles per hour down the road may not be all bad.
This bill proposes to put the kill switch under the control of law enforcement officials. That's asking for abuse from an oppressive government. Look how Obama has used IRS, ATF, OSHA, and other agencies as political weapons to intimidate political enemies.
If the government were REALLY concerned for the public good, they would put the kill switch under the control of the CONSUMER. We already have it for credit cards - we call up a phone number, report it stolen, and wala credit card becomes an instant brick. There is no reason this couldn't be done for mobile devices.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
But it's obligatory:
"What could possibly go wrong with this?"
Wow, a lot of these posts imply that 'a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in possession of the rightful owner' must be a kill switch.
A decent technological solution might be to sense some unique component of the rightful owner's smell and not work if that isn't present.
If you want to solve this problem you might start with educating those who elect to move about care free in public advertising their expensive wares everywhere they go.
"This device will self destruct in 10 seconds..."
I would suggest using thermite.
How can I boycott the whining about beta? What's the problem with it (please construct a valid sentence without using variants of 'sux'.)
Requiem for the American Dream
And fuck beta
(name withheld by request)
This is never going to work. Thieves can just turn off the phone until they can get it into a wireless enclosure, such as the one Ramsey's makes. Then you can jailbreak, root, or whatever, whenever you want while the device is in the enclosure. Until standards require authentication of the user, on a device, to a network, and authenticate the network to the device, you are going to have mobile theft. I have proposed solutions for this to numerous entities in the past and have greater with brick walls every time. And this bill is just going to result is a piss-poor implementation of a kill switch that will quickly be circumvented by hackers and will cause more problems than it fixes.
oh fuck off
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
So, California passes the law. Then they will create a roster of approved tables/phones that vendors will have submit to for testing. If you don't have a device that is CA approved, you can't sell your device in the state.
It's for the children, you know....
This all seems strangely familiar.
Voila.
Never try to write a word you've only heard spoken - you'll look like an idiot if you guess wrong in a spectacular way.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This would be nice if you could disable the device completely when the police confiscate it for no legal reason.
In brief, it breaks the Slashdot discussion system.
A robbery involving mobile devices doesn't mean that the robber robs a mobile device from the robbed.
For example, if robbers use phones to coordinate an assault, then a phone is involved. If a robber steals cash to buy a phone, a phone is also involved.
Just saying that with words like "involve" it is easy to create misleading statistics.
There won't be anything left if the new version becomes the only version anyway. Game it out.
Voilà
Please post this to new articles if it hasn't been posted yet.
On February 5, 2014, Slashdot announced through a javascript popup that they are starting to "move in to" the new Slashdot Beta design.
Slashdot Beta is a trend-following attempt to give Slashdot a fresh look, an approach that has led to less space for text and an abandonment of the traditional Slashdot look. Much worse than that, Slashdot Beta fundamentally breaks the classic Slashdot discussion and moderation system. If you haven't seen Slashdot Beta already, open this in a new tab. After seeing that, click here to return to classic Slashdot.
We should boycott stories and only discuss the abomination that is Slashdot Beta until Dice abandons the project.
We should boycott slashdot entirely during the week of Feb 10 to Feb 17 as part of the wider slashcott
Moderators - only spend mod points on comments that discuss Beta Commentors - only discuss Beta http://slashdot.org/recent [slashdot.org] - Vote up the Fuck Beta stories
Keep this up for a few days and we may finally get the PHBs attention. Links of note:
Discussion of Beta: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=56395415 Discussion of where to go if Beta goes live: http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=submission&id=3321441 Alternative Slashdot: altslashdot.org IRC Discussion: freenode #slashdot-refugees IRC Discussion: slashnet.org #slashdot
Thanks for the good work!
Apple has ALWAYS had the ability to make a stolen phone useless, they choose not to. Cellphone carriers have ALWAYS had the ability to blacklist a phone's ESN, but they shine hard when you ask them to do it.
It's because a stolen phone = more revenue for them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
my vhf/uhf units may not have the flash and dazzle of smartphones, but no way to kill or hack my units.
mfwright@batnet.com
Stop whining about the whining about Beta.
(hint: I'm off work recovering from surgery, so we can play this game as long as you care to)
"Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters"
The nerds apparently feel that the beta being forced on us is 'stuff that matters, so learn to deal with it.
After 'beta only' goes live(April), it will probably be plenty quiet for you.
Hmmm...you may even end up having one of the lowest UID's then!!! WOOOT!!!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
It already is. Simply call your mobile carrier and they black-list the IMEI.
So many devices phone home when you try to set them up or flash them to verify the device or software that the lack of an IMEI number doesn't seem like a problem. It would take vendor desire to opt in for wifi only devices, and maybe they just wouldn't bother if the device was from a family that had no cellular option at all.
But AFAIK, Apple phones home before you can flash a wifi-only iPad or iPodTouch. I was setting up an old iPhone 4 as an iPod only (no cell service) and I had to have a SIM inserted, too, even though the SIM I used was deactivated and invalid. But these devices all have cellular models in their product families, so it's not hard to see a vendor S/N match block list in addition to an IMEI block list, too.
Eliminating cash would eliminate lots of crime,...
I think I disagree with you on this one.
I think you are correct it will reduce or eliminate certain types of crimes, but the overall number of crimes, or attempted crimes will not significantly drop.
I'm not arguing against eliminating cash as a crime deterrent, but it would be less than honest to say crime would be reduced or eliminated because the criminals have moved to a less visible(to the avg. public) method or area.
Or maybe we are alluding to the same thing? (if so, then ignore my comment above-not looking for a fight:)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Why bother with this? The only reason people steal phones is they are easy to steal and have good resale value.
But if you put a kill switch into the phone it won't lower crime... they'll just go back to wallets and watches and jewelry.
In the end, isn't it the consumer who bears the loss, or an insurance company ( which is ultimately the consumer )
So.... why should the government do something to protect my personal property when I didn't ask them to?
What is their motivation...
Will the government rally to put into law that if someone steals my lawn mower, it will have a kill switch too?
I somehow think that will never happen. Maybe there's more to this "white knight" that could be abused.
Maybe...
I do not embrace change for its own sake, but I am genuinely surprised how much emotion some folks show every time Slashdot makes a change. I do not see how the new look breaks the discussion and moderation system. I am replying to a post, and I see rankings like Informative and Offtopic. It looks different, but that does not mean it has been broken.
I do have a comment. The wide column to the right is great for hosting side-bar issues, but these end long before a typical discussion thread, resulting in a significant amount of wasted screen space.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
We the people can install Kill-Switches in politicians....
Because that way, even if it's recovered, the original owner has to buy a new one since the killswitch rendered it a piece of trash....
I really despise how often this "they are just stupid" perception is passed off as true. No, they are not stupid. They may not tell you the _real_ reason why they are doing something, but you can bet your ass they have considered major aspects.
It should really hurt your head to believe that all of these laws and rulings are accidental. No, they are not. Someone has considered most of the consequences. How they are selling it to the general public probably has little to do with the result they are actually looking for. Used car salesmen love people like you!
I have covered the state legislature in three different states. I can say that actually, they really are that stupid. Though stupid is a bit over broad: most of the state legislators I've known lack perspective and experience. They also tend to be either a) ideologes or b) careerists or c) both. And many are indeed just stupid.
When you think of state government, picture a half bright real estate hustler in wayyyyy over their head, overscheduled and floundering as they try to pander effectively for the rich people back in their district. If it wasn't for leadership and lobbyists, they wouldn't know which way they're supposed to vote most the time. I almost wish they were competent enough to be the sort of Machiavelian politicos you're describing.
Ressurrector - bringing to life killed equipment
Nope. None. This is for your own protection. Please return to your regularly scheduled re-education.
California's response to Slashdot Beta:
California EPA discovers Slashdot Beta web site.
Analysis reveals too much electricity wasted to display white space on users monitors.
Also too many "FSCK BETA" post wastes electricity to spin hard drives on server needlessly.
California bill proposes mandatory kill switch on Slashdot Beta.
I mean, certainly no politician or local police "authority" would ever silence an entire area just to stop the public from filming the latest police atrocity. Heavens, no.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Our society now runs on technology that requires extremely intelligent people to design, build and maintain it.
The politicians who want to regulate or even use this technology are elected by the lowest common denominator of Americans. Moreover, most of those politicians are scientifically illiterate and therefore, incompetent to do so (e.g. Sebellius and the healthcare.gov site) .
It's nice to think that in a democracy, anyone can get elected to office without regard to IQ or education. How's that been working out lately?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
As others have stated, this is exactly how Apple's iCloud lock works. If the owner of the device remotely locks it or it is factory reset through iTunes, it will be useless except for displaying a screen prompting for the owner's Apple ID and password. So far, all it has really accomplished is giving some extra headache to businesses that accept phone trade-ins and slightly lowering the value of lost/stolen iDevices on eBay. We also already have a national IMEI blacklist, which mostly seems to have succeeded only in increasing the number of scam artists re-selling unusable phones to gullible people (in most cases, they're generally not stolen - the sleazy cell phone companies here in the US are happy to block a phone's serial number if the phone was associated with a service contract or handset financing plan and the previous owner defaulted on it).
Besides, what's to stop a thief from taking a page out of the trade-in services' books and simply demanding you turn off/sign out of your phone's remote kill switch feature? If they're threatening someone at gun/knife point, it's not exactly like the victim would have much choice in the matter.
If people are being robbed, your city has a crime problem that needs to be solved with good, old fashioned police work.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
In one country / for one provider. Doesn't quite prevent it from just being shipped overseas and then sold.
... that all the ludites, 'stay off my lawn'ers and other chronic whiners will boycott /. as promised, making it easier for the rest of us to read thoughtful commentary on the articles for a change.
In what way?
Requiem for the American Dream
>equipped with a digital 'kill-switch' that would make the devices useless if stolen
Let's put a truthful spin on that, shall we?
"... equipped with a digital 'kill-switch' that would make the devices useless if people use them to post free speech"
California is somewhat unique in that law abiding citizens do not have the right to keep and bear arms. Criminals have no such constraint, so they need another deterrent to violent crime and robbery. I guess they'll start with killing cell phones, at least until criminals need money again and find something else to steal at knife point. In the end, California will just give criminals tons of money to remove the need to commit robbery.
these mobile devices already have unique identifiers, the phone companies can already lock out particular phones from the network, forcing phone companies to lock a phone off all networks should be possible at the request of the phone owner.
US still has enough diplomatic muscle to get other countries to go along with a these phones are stolen don't let the phones with this serial number go on a phone network.
the Only reason for state law making may be some enabling laws so a police can be a one stop shop when barring a phone (a bit unnecessary)
When the hackers & the govt figures out how to use the kill switch, you'll be carrying a whole lot of dead plastic/metal in your pocket. Poof...your money is gone, try again.
I thought it was just the 29th, 30th and 31st.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
... make it connect to a fake tower instead?
It isn't the cell tower. It is the camera/mic.
Scenario: Cops are abusing people, violently.
A cop calls headquarters and says, "Report of a phone stolen at Trucker and 4th; shut down everything in the neighborhood!"
Suddenly, any witnesses to the police abuse find they cannot record either video or audio.
Abuse gets verbally reported, but without any 'evidence', is dismissed and quickly forgotten.
Uh yea, but if you continue actively wrecking the site for as long as you are proposing, if they do cave, there wont be anyone left here to use Classic anyway.
If you login in they aren'ty forcing anyone to New Coke anyway. I've never actually seen it. Its mostly only the anonymous cowards who are suffering with it.
It would be better if you declare a cease fire, you guys stop trashing comments, they leave the Classic mode switch in permanently. Then people vote with there feet for the one they prefer. If everyone votes for Classic and they can't fix New Coke then eventually they give up.
The comment section is what made this place great in the 1990's when I joined. Its already a pale shadow of what it once was with the insightful being swamped by a rising ride of pointless and stupid. With you guys completely trashing it with the boycott there is seriously almost no reason to bother coming here any more.
@de_machina
I've found twice now that, on reporting stolen devices (to the UK police), even if we know exactly where they are (trackers, phone home etc), there's no way to get the police to react (promptly) to go and get it back. If the police would quickly go and retrieve stolen devices, the problem would vanish.
Except their comments to date indicate that giving the users any sort of choice between the two is the last thing they're going to do. If Dice.com would make a credible (or, indeed any) statement that they do intend to give readers and posters a choice between formats I suspect much of the hullabaloo would rapidly evaporate.
I also can't help but wonder if there's some common experience of running into the evils of corporate-speak among those of us strongly reacting to the Beta.
They understand the technology just fine. What your missing is that what they're saying this is for is NOT what its really for. They want a kill switch to quell communication in the event of some uprising. The fucking corrupt ass government gets more control over us.
Fonts change randomly between posts for no obvious reason.
There is huge chunks of white space after you scroll down (basically about one third of the screen is set aside for ads, and after you scroll past them (maybe 2 comments in?) it is empty white space.
Line spacing has increased.
The two fonts that randomly appear are ugly condensed fonts that don't read well (if the font was all they changed I don't think people would be that upset.
The reply comments box is really odd, you now are forced to your a subject in, you cannot post unless you put in a comment subject.
The actual reply to comments box is poorly sign posted. The subject box had the text "reply to comment" in it, as a guide. But you don't reply to the comment in the subject box... The comment body has no guide text (looks kinda like a preview window)
Finally every comment has about 20pixels worth of margin/padding. If you zoom in, the margin and padding zooms also. The wire space on the side stays at approximately 30%. If you resize the window the white space eventually re shuffles away.
The front page of the site condensed the first three (or three, I couldn't tell exactly) stories to just a headline superimposed onto an image. It was hard to tell what was intended as the middle of the three photos was horribly off centre.
The Slashdot page header is now a permanent bar up the top. If you use a smaller screen or a tablet there is now another 50+ pixels you can't use.
Basically, it's just bad. Changing fonts, awkward interface, unreadable fonts, huge unrecoverable white space and margins. I'm not one of these ACs spamming comments with fuck beta, but I an in agreement with their base sentiment.
Ps. Wit don't you go and have a look at beta yourself? There's a link at the bottom of the page.
'a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in possession of the rightful owner.'
From an abstract perspective existing built in lock functions on all phones already meet this definition.
just stop trying DRM. you're hurting civilization.
It doesn't require a kill switch. It doesn't require a change in hardware or an upgrade in the software. All it takes is a central database of the unique codes (I forget what they are called) each cell phone has that all reported stolen phones would be placed on and the legal requirement that a cell phone can not be activated if it is on the list.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Slashdot beta is insulting my intelligence... I do not need to see a close-up image of a kill-switch-button in order to understand the context...
It makes me feel dumb..... its like the dramatized sounds in MTV programs
Fuck Beta!
All well-reasoned points which show that the redesign doesn't consider what is important to users - including efficient use of screen real-estate.
It seems that these days, everyone wants to waste as much space as that wasted by [Twitter] Bootstrap.
Yes, I realise that some design guru might jump forwards to explain that space is as useful as content but there needs to be a consideration that screen space is limited.
Requiem for the American Dream
Either that or you are all just really good at doing ptich fork weilding mobs, an Internet tradition since 1999.
If you want to boycott it, then boycott it which means stop using it, not defacing it. What you are doing is a DDOS.
Its their website since Cmdr Taco sold out. If they wanna trash it then, tell them you don't like it, stop using it and let them wipe out their investment if they are that stupid. It would probably be better if someone with a heart and a sole started a new version anyway. Slashdot has been pretty much soulless since Taco sold out to VA Linux anyway.
If the people that run the site have are as malevolent and clueless as you say, this little mob isn't going to save it in the long run anyway.
@de_machina
How about allowing law-abiding citizens the ability to carry firearms to activate the kill switch on criminals. SF, and Oakland/Alameda County are among the most impossible places for anyone to get a CCW in California.
Already there... nothing required but having the service vendor shut down that account and put the EIN/ESN on the stolen list.
"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)
I'm not a fan of LBJ, but he had it right on this one!
Sorry, simply not in favor of kill switches which make a device inoperable, especially kill switches that are not operated/controlled by the owner of the device, far too great a risk in legitimate owners being locked out of their own device(especially one that is "connected" to the Web, what is connected can be hacked).
This is a stupid bill by a stupid state. We need to give California back to the mexicans. They have a bigger population than the Americans do. Then they can keep their stupid laws.
One had better hope that their dumb ass little law doesn't inactivate the tracking capability of the device; so that, it is now impossible to track down the THIEF. Unless the law's purpose was to protect the THIEF in the first place! Kind of makes you wonder who is lobbying for this law, doesn't it?
Be careful, CA. Tablets and cell phones with solar or manual backup power could become important by providing a gigabyte or so library of disaster survival and recovery information -- easily portable, and available to the owner even if all electricity and Internet are out indefinitely.
In case the problem involves a cyberattack, the attackers could hijack the kill switch, making this scalable, mass survival tool less reliable.
ROTFLMAO @ "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)
You aren't even on the level of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!
You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))
(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)
* :)
(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)
APK
P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...
... apk
ROTFLMAO @ "Chumpy" -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...
(You sure "talk a good game" -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm... but you can't even produce a MERE SCRIPT!, windbag...)
You aren't even on the level of a "script kiddie", & full of HOT AIR!
You certainly won't reply there in that 2nd link I posted either, as that would remove your downmods to my posts like this one you can't validly disprove or justify your downmod on -> http://games.slashdot.org/comm...
Oh, I suspect that IS the case here (simply logging out of a registered account & trolling by ac is a common troll trick around here OR using alternate registered 'luser' accounts sockpuppets to do the job will also, & Lumpy is LOADED with those & trolling - which doesn't matter: He PROVES he's all talk, no action (or skills, OR brains, lol))
(You're all TALK, & NO action "CHUMPY!)
* :)
(You know it, I know it, & so does anyone reading AND laughing their asses off @ you now... lol!)
APK
P.S.=> Answer the question in the subject-line Lumpy - since you had to "eat your wrods" in the 1st link above flavored with your FOOT IN YOUR MOUTH + the "bitter taste of SELF-defeat", lol...
... apk