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Second Federal 'Kill-switch' Bill Introduced Targeting Smartphone Theft

Posted by timothy on from the there's-a-downside-to-this dept.

alphadogg writes "A second federal bill that proposes 'kill-switch' technology be made mandatory in smartphones as a means to reduce theft of the devices was introduced Monday. The kill switch would allow consumers to remotely wipe and disable a stolen smartphone and is considered by proponents to be a key tool in combating the increasing number of smartphone robberies. The Smartphone Theft Prevention Act was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R. 4065 by Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat, as a companion to a Senate bill that was introduced Feb. 13. The two follow a similar law proposed by officials in California last month."

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. "... as a means to reduce theft." by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, right. What they want to do is be able to shut down everyone's line of communications just in case the hoi polloi get too uppity.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    1. Re:"... as a means to reduce theft." by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I wondered about that. Wouldn't this be a double-edged sword, for theft? Either discourages theft, or encourages hiding the victim's body so nobody will disable the phone?

      I'm not a robber, but if I was, I'm pretty sure that if I was going to rob someone, I'm going to take their phone regardless of whether it can be bricked or not simply to reduce the likelihood of them calling the cops. In essence, it won't prevent the theft of phones, it will merely prevent the thieves from reselling them. Why not a remote kill switch for Rolexes?

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  2. New method of attack against consumers by blandcramration · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's more realistic that poor security measures will be set in place, thereby making it easy for malicious crackers to disable peoples phones remotely.

  3. Central Control by edibobb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This way, the federal government can prevent those irritating demonstrations like this ones in Ukraine.

  4. Iran, Russia, Venezuela approve by PackMan97 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...they all stopped by to give a +1 to this idea. They'd love a way to be able to brick cell phones of protesters and stop videos from getting out into the world.