Smartphone Kill-Switch Could Save Consumers $2.6 Billion

itwbennett (1594911) writes "Creighton University professor William Duckworth has released a report finding that kill-switch technology that remotely makes a stolen smartphone useless could save American consumers up to $2.6 billion per year — mostly from reduced insurance premiums. Duckworth estimated that Americans currently spend around $580 million replacing stolen phones each year and $4.8 billion paying for handset insurance. If a kill-switch led to a sharp reduction in theft of phones, most of the $580 million spent on replacing stolen phones would be saved. And a further $2 billion in savings could be realized by switching to cheaper insurance plans that don't cover theft."

Comments

Go to hell

[tom229]

Remote wiping is already possible. What they want is centralized control over the functionality for governing purposes. We're not idiots. Well... not all of us.

Re:Go to hell

[Kenshin]

This goes a bit further than remote wiping.

It's already somewhat available with iOS devices, and is completely under the user's control. Basically, without your AppleID and password, the phone cannot be wiped and reactivated by a thief, essentially making it a fancy paperweight. (So it's not really a "kill switch", just a really strong theft deterrent.) The owner can wipe it themselves remotely, for security, but it would still *also* require their AppleID and password inputted directly into the device to reactivate it.

It's been working since September, and no one's found a way to bypass it. (Yet.)

Re:Go to hell

[daem0n1x]

Or the rate of shootings that go up in cities where guns are banned.

Chicago has the strictest gun laws on the planet and they are the murder capitol of the world.

Utter bullshit.

World cities by murder rate

U.S. cities my murder rate

Gun control state by state.

Even in the most restrictive of your states (California) the gun laws are laxer than in most of the developed world.

Sure

[Arancaytar]

There are two ways such a kill-switch could go:

1.) It can be circumvented with sufficient effort and hardware access. Then it is useless as a theft deterrent.
2.) It cannot be circumvented. Then it renders the handset vulnerable to the malice or incompetence of whoever controls the killswitch, and thus useless.

Great in Demonstrations!

[andreas.hummelbrunne]

Instead of sending everyone in a defined area a "registration" Message, you can simply kill all phones of the protesters. That way there will be almost no footage of police violence and such! Let's not forget that the batteries of police cameras are always empty when it comes to such point.

Markup

[WPIDalamar]

>> $580 million replacing stolen phones each year and $4.8 billion paying for handset insurance.

Whoa whoa whoa... If every person got insurance, that's over an 8x markup for insurance. Since many don't, it's even a higher markup.

Here's an easy way to save $4.3B - Stop buying the insurance.

North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia all disagree

[PackMan97]

They think a centralized kill switch would be a FANTASTIC idea! Just brick the phones for anyone who dares challenge the state.

I can really see how this might be useful in the US. Instead of the IRS investigating tea partiers, we could just selectively brick their phones. Or if you swing the other way, disable those iPhones from all those annoying hispter Occupy protesters. Seriously, you have an iPhone and you complain about the 99%? You are the 1% globally.

Re:North Korea, Syria, Iran, Russia all disagree

[Joce640k]

They think a centralized kill switch would be a FANTASTIC idea! Just brick the phones for anyone who dares challenge the state.

I can really see how this might be useful in the US. Instead of the IRS investigating tea partiers, we could just selectively brick their phones.

Huh? A protestors phone is far more useful to a government if they can listen in and/or use it to track your movements.

PS: If they want to stop you making calls they can already do that, but why would they? See above.

Re:Massive Negativity

[ichthus]

if humanity in general was as negative and paranoid towards every bit of technological change

There was a time when the idea that the government would capture and store every phone conversation and email of its citizens was paranoid. There was a time, not too long ago, that nobody would ever have believed that we'd have naked body scanners at the airport -- people like you would call anyone claiming this as a possibility "paranoid." Drone surveillance of the masses? Paranoid. Law enforcement roadblocks for obligatory cheek swabs? Paranoid. National database of private medical records available to unelected government entities? Paranoid

Fuck you and your labels -- you and your naivete. If a new technology can be used for control, obviously, it will be.