Slashdot Mirror
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?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
For as much as i can agree with you please note that we already delegate much of our security to some kind of 'AI'.
Don't need to be grumpy about it.
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.
Grumpy? Not at all. You wouldn't want to see that; nobody does :)
It's just an example of a solution looking for a problem and thus opening the doors to more potential problems.
They'll have to enter current the code to disable to feature or change the passcode, just like you do now.
As opposed to A I now that considers you a new person every15 seconds?
Very very annoying as my corporate policy is to lock my phone if I want access to their email. I unlock 4 to 5 times an hour!
Why opposed to this option?
http://saveie6.com/
I seriously doubt that it is compulsory. I bet you can also turn it off like most new features.
"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.
because half of the "apps" are malware
Thankfully, I only have the other half installed.
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.
It's just an example of a solution looking for a problem
Is your claim that nobody is frustrated by having to frequently re-enter a passcode? You do realize that most people's "solution" to this problem is to have no passcode at all, right?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think, it is a good idea, from google, because, I have a lot of troubles with my phone in the pocket
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?
This is my solution. I do have not any other password on it, so all I will loose is a maximum of 25EUR if I have just recharged the phone + the phone itself.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
Obviously this is off by default, no one is trying to make any security decisions for you.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
An excellent exercise in risk management, illustrating how security measure are only appropriate when viewed in context with risk. If there's no risk, there is no value in security measures.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Indeed. Most of us just aren't that important. In another post, I suggested a security measure that might work. In most cases, if you get out of a bad situation with only the loss of a piece of small electronics, you made out wonderfully. A low-tech security measure that would work would be to have a hole (like some laptops do) where you can attach a lock. Then you could handcuff the phone to your wrist. I don't suggest this. I once considered getting one of those brief cases that handcuff to your wrist so I could look cool and important. I decided against it. First, I might get the thing stuck in the door of a transit system. Second, it's an invitation to rob me for my otherwise low value stuff. Worse, once the person who robs me sees that I don't have anything of value, they might get so upset that they beat the snot out of me!
Worse, once the person who robs me sees that I don't have anything of value, they might get so upset that they beat the snot out of me!
Just saying: If someone threatens to hit you, there may not be clear case who is stronger, but handing over your phone is less risky, and you might get hurt even if you win a fight, so you avoid it.
But once attacked, you obviously fight back with all you have, and that may not be good news for the attacker. Average desperate druggie is not in good physical shape.
Hands up! And don't drop your phone!
Until every phone has a fingerprint sensor.
Don't install the flashlight that needs access to your SD card and the internet and you'll be alright.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
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