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

Posted by timothy on Tuesday March 4, 2014 @05:20AM 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."

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"... as a means to reduce theft." by XxtraLarGe · 2014-03-04 05:22 · 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.

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Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
New method of attack against consumers by blandcramration · 2014-03-04 05:27 · 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.