News - California is expected to enforce adoption of smartphone killswitch

[ik9000]

And that, of course, in an option ....for anyone that wants to run the risks of bricking/warranty-voiding a potentially expensive phone or tablet.

My argument is that I ought to be able to lock/unlock such permissions on MY device without having to run the risks inherent in replacing firmware.

exactly. +1

[jim]

How would it work? Linked to IMEI number? Launched by a global server someplace? Your phone gets nicked, you tell your network provider who does the right clicks and kabang. The phone is toast? All well and good but you just need one bad egg to maliciously type out your ISP, or some dimwit to typo one and you could end up with a brick and no recourse.... Fine in principle, but what are the safeguards.

And the paranoid brigade will also point out that if the government went evil they could auto-kill the handsets of anyone they disliked. eep!

But isn't all of that already true with the blocking system?

[crossy]

Thought's just occurred ...

I remember the "tin foil hat" brigade being worried that some black hat could hack your phone and cause it to overload, then melt and/or explode.

Presumably this is not what the Governator (now Jerry Brown) means by "kill-switch" - a big red button in the governors mansion that he can use to 'remove' terrorists, radicals and other "undesirables".

[ik9000]

But isn't all of that already true with the blocking system?

only in the country you're in. Are they talking about a global centre?

[wasabi]

But isn't all of that already true with the blocking system?

Read somewhere the telcos main objection wasn't really technical but that they make a lot of $moolah$ from upselling insurance.

There are various levels of what is generically called killswitch. SIM / phone / remote wipe / user account.

[SineWave]

The solution to this is to just use normal phone. I'm smart enough without a smart phone.

[flearider]

and what if for some reason they do a accidental wipe ? you know it's going to happen ..
whoops .. sorry

[zdn1042]

Interesting idea. Let's hope it's an effective one as well.

[ik9000]

I'm going to assume that you're on Androind, in which case, I was looking at Permission Manager on the basis that SOME control is better than what I've got now (i.e. nothing). I've included the link because there's quite a few Permission Managers on Play which is downright confusing.

One piece of bad/good news was in Engadget "Google says Android app permission manager was released by mistake, removes it from latest update". So basically if you've got Android 4.3 through 4.4 - but NOT the latest 4.4.2 release then you should have that hidden control.

Given Google's been roundly criticised for years about Android's permissions, you'd think that they'd be a bit more eager to give some control, especially if gApps are excluded. Still maybe the best things come to those who wait - and I'm waiting for OS upgrades on both of my Samsung devices!

seems it only runs on 4.2 or younger. my 4.3 says incompatible.