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Android's Smart Lock Won't Ask You For a Password Until You Set Your Phone Down
jfruh writes Nothing confronts you with how addicted you are to your phone more than constantly taking it out of your pocket and entering your passcode over and over again to unlock. But without fanfare, Google is releasing an Android update that might solve the problem: a "smart lock" that can figure out if your phone has been set down since the last time you unlocked it. As long as it stays on your person, you won't need to re-enter your password.
If your are carrying your unlocked phone, and you get mugged and hand over your phone, then the mugger now doesn't have to enter a passcode until he/she puts it down.
Q. If your Android phone is unlocked, how easy is it to change the passcode?
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I'd rather make my own security decisions. I don't need the 'AI' in my phone deciding if it's me or not.
...when it's on my person, what then? Seems to me like it would be unlocked, ready for them to disable that feature (as well as any self-destruct mechanism, etc.). No thanks!
So the locking in the pocket is stop pocket dialing.... Most of us want that feature.
So in other words, you'll be pocket dialing EVERYONE because now you don't have the lock screen to protect you.
Anybody who puts private information on an Android device is an idiot anyway, because half of the "apps" are malware and the OS can be pawned in no time.
"It can also recognize faces and remain unlocked when it sees a trusted face." I would choose that 2 seconds entering my pass over facial recognition anytime.
...clearly none of you have used an android smartlock. It already has smartlocks, e.g. if its in presence of a paired Bluetooth device, it can be "configured" not to ask for password. If its in contact of an NFC, say that on a charging station or in a watch, it can be "configured" to not ask for a password.
I don't see why this will be a default, for those who want it, it could be "configured". I would want it.
I mean, imagine, a pedo steals it and makes a movie of children playing in the park... oh lord... think of the children.
On the Nexus (and possibly other phones) this is disabled by default. You need to go to Settings->Security then "Trusted Agents" in "advanced". It will then be enabled but still won't do anything until you go to "Smart lock" in the Settings->Security "Screen Security" section and enable one or more of "trusted places", "trusted devices", "trusted faces", and "on body detection". I think the "Trusted devices" will be useful to stop it locking when in my car and attached to the hands free.
I think, it is a good idea, from google, because, I have a lot of troubles with my phone in the pocket
This feature is totally unnecessary with good fingerprint detection like on iPhone.
If it only takes you 2 seconds to enter your passcode, your passcode is insufficiently secure.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Already most of the comments indicate that this is less secure than having to reenter a pass code after a half a second of inactivity. Different users have different levels of security needs. My guess is that most people don't even need a pass code. It really doesn't provide security against anything other than casual eavesdropping. If you have *real* security needs, you have to have tamper-reactive devices. What *would* be a good solution (probably effective against all but state actors) would be a way of detecting proximity to a smart watch. If the phone gets too far, it automatically shuts down. With full disk encryption (now optional but available) this would solve almost all cases. In a mugging you could also be required to hand over the watch, but that's easily solved too. If the watch is taken off, it has the same effect. No need for fancy biometrics. Just a watch band that conducts electricity when on the wrist. If the clasp is opened or the band is cut, same as the phone going out of range.
I might actually consider a passcode if I had this feature. As it is, I don't have a passcode on my phone because it's too big of a hassle. Any passcode which is sufficiently secure will be simultaneously too complex to enter every time you unlock your phone. I struggle with this using my password manager. I had to simplify my master password just to make it usable on my phone since typing in a 24 character password with upper/lower/numerical/specials on a phone is annoying at best. I'm back down to a 10 character pw, and even that has some "patterns" in it to simply entry.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Tasker and Secure settings.
Tasker keeps my phone unlocked IFF I'm at home, or in my car. Once my phone leaves those areas, it automatically locks, it's super easy to program, and super easy to use (since I don't have to do anything at all).
I also have tasker shut the phone down at 7% energy if I don't push a special notification button, this way if I need to make a call, I still have enough juice to power up, and get 20 min. of talk time.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Attention muggers! You are hereby instructed to shake the hell out of victim, before snatching phone
Hands up! And don't drop your phone!
Until every phone has a fingerprint sensor.
If you don't want to have to always type know your pass code yet still need some security, I have yet to see a better solution that SkipLock. Simply set up one or more trusted wifi networks to keep your phone unlocked when within their range and your phone locked otherwise. Best investment made so far on the play store.
When I'm talking on the phone, the timer for the screen-lock should NOT be running. I frequently have calls that last more than 15 minutes, often set the phone down and use headphones during the call, and it's really annoying that after I hang up, the phone's locked. (If somebody else calls me when me phone's locked, locking when the call's done is fine, but not when I'm the one who made the call or the phone was unlocked when the call came in.)
I'm running 4.4.2 on a Samsung. The phone is provided by $DAYJOB, so they specify which locking options are available (face-unlock isn't), but otherwise it's pretty vanilla. The code used to require 8 digits, now it seems to be text-input instead; both require me to put on my reading glasses to unlock the phone, especially because the numerical unlocker was really bad at touch-screen control, so I had to look at every digit I pressed and count how many actually got detected. Keypress beeps help, unless you're trying to unlock the phone after silencing it, which I often do, but those have a non-zero time lag after the keypress before it notices it should beep, and you can't always tell 1 beep from N beeps. I can now use Swype, which I couldn't when the requirement was all-digits, but it's not much of an improvement since my password isn't a dictionary word, though I suppose I could set it to "qwertyuiop" or "asdfghjkl".
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Android Lollipop has a new SmartLock feature that bypasses the use of PINs and Pattern drawings. It uses the NFC which is so much easier.
All you need is a standard conventional wristwatch with an NFC coated sapphire glass like those now being used onf branded watches like Omega, Tag Heuer and such. If you do not have such a wristwatch, then you have to figure out a way to store your programmed NFC pairing with your Lollipop smartphone, onto something wearable.
I'm using this method with a cheaper wristwatch with NFC embedded. No more hassle with PINs, password or whatever. I just place my smartphone against my wristwatch, and voila!!