Smartphone Kill Switch, Consumer Boon Or Way For Government To Brick Your Phone?

MojoKid writes We're often told that having a kill switch in our mobile devices — mostly our smartphones — is a good thing. At a basic level, that's hard to disagree with. If every mobile device had a built-in kill switch, theft would go down — who would waste their time over a device that probably won't work for very long? Here's where the problem lays: It's law enforcement that's pushing so hard for these kill switches. We first learned about this last summer, and this past May, California passed a law that requires smartphone vendors to implement the feature. In practice, if a smartphone has been stolen, or has been somehow compromised, its user or manufacturer would be able to remotely kill off its usability, something that would be reversed once the phone gets back into its rightful owner's hands. However, such functionality should be limited to the device's owner, and no one else. If the owner can disable a phone with nothing but access to a computer or another mobile device, so can Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia or Apple. If the designers of a phone's operating system can brick a phone, guess who else can do the same? Everybody from the NSA to your friendly neighborhood police force, that's who. At most, all they'll need is a convincing argument that they're acting in the interest of "public safety."

Comments

Re:Why such paranoia ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sarcasm aside, turn the idea around and convince me there is any situation short of an emergency where the big evil government would use this power even if they had it? Bricking phones would Streisand effect whatever situation they were trying to clamp down on. And, it doesn't necessarily prevent data from being exported off the flash drives. I can't imagine this being useful to any sort of authoritarian power in any regular way. Sure you could probably imagine one scenario where they use something like this to stop a story getting out -- but it wouldn't always work, and they would never get to use it again.... This isn't an illegal search of someone's phone, there is no point in abusing the power to brick someone's phone.

Conversely there is very real and tangible benefit to crime reduction.

So, yes, why such paranoia?

Re:Why such paranoia ?

[grcumb]

So your situation is something you saw on 24?

Unless the guy is live streaming 24/7 then your goon can brick the whistleblower's phone with an actual brick.

Also, look at real whistleblowers and try to explain how the government would have stopped Snowden with this power? Stop imagining spy drama fiction.

They wouldn't stop Snowden (only) with this. They would, however, be able to keep the story about what's happening in Ferguson, MO (for example) from ever trending on Twitter, simply by killing every phone talking to a particular tower.

To be clear: I'm not suggesting the Feds (black helicopters and all) would do it. I'm suggesting the enlightened minds of the Ferguson Police Department, who have already demonstrated the depth of their acuity, would be perfectly willing to use such a tool, if it were (somewhat) legally available to them.