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California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

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Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#91

Post by pessimizer »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #86
aric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information, organization, and gathering evidence are fundamental to human rights, let alone to a revolution. Authoritarians naturally wish to ensure it becomes a "dumb idea."

For revolutionaries to assume they can rely on a system that authoritarians control is inherently a dumb idea, and the lack of any good alternatives doesn't change that.

The authoritarians control the streets. Where exactly are you going to go in an authoritarian system where you won't have to rely on something under authoritarian control? The authoritarians control you, that's why you're in the streets.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#92

Post by aric »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #86
aric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Information, organization, and gathering evidence are fundamental to human rights, let alone to a revolution. Authoritarians naturally wish to ensure it becomes a "dumb idea."

For revolutionaries to assume they can rely on a system that authoritarians control is inherently a dumb idea, and the lack of any good alternatives doesn't change that.

Yes, of course.

One should assume nothing. However, an even dumber idea is to advocate for a system to have more control, actively or by remaining silent, and then later stew in fatalism to the point of thinking that using a smartphone in a revolution is "dumb."

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#93

Post by djs123sdj »

This law is intended to mitigate the escalation in armed robberies for smartphones that is hitting urban areas in California.

Armed robbers are aware that many (most?) people of even modest means are carrying around devices that, once stolen by force, can be sold (probably to a fencing operation) for a few hundred bucks.

The ability to render smartphones worthless if stolen would go a long way toward reducing the incentive to commit these particular robberies, which constitute a large part of the recent increase in California's armed robbery (and by implication violent crime) rate.

Recently in the Bay Area, where I live, an armed robber held up several people at once, and took all the phones ... except a feature phone.

EDIT: wording.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#94

Post by anigbrowl »

pessimizer wrote: post #88
andrewfong wrote: post #56

Cross-posting from the other discussion on this topic ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7197416 ): Actual draft of the bill is here: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?... Relevant portions: (1) Any advanced mobile communications device that is sold in California on or after January 1, 2015, shall include a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inope…

>* The hard reset definition is sort of dumb. When a device leaves the factory, it obviously doesn't have any knowledge of whom its proper owner is. A hard reset, by definition, has to nullify any owner-verification system and no technological solution can withstand it. The way that I'm reading this, a limit to what a "hard reset" can be is being set by (1). It's saying: Any process that you have in order to return a…

Rightful owner is the person with title, a concept well established in law in other contexts. I think this is a terrible bill, but the notion that the kill switch is going to be operated by the state seems like a complete misreading of the bill's text to me.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#95

Post by djs123sdj »

crypt1d wrote: post #60

How about you just be a bit more careful with your iphone? No law in world can stop people from being stupid.

It's not about not being careful with your devices. In many places in California, people are routinely having guns pointed at them and their electronics are being taken by force, even when the devices are not being visibly used.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#96

Post by wtbob »

sabbatic13 wrote: post #79
sigzero wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! California can go F itself. They should not be legislating this crap.

And people who willfully confuse a couple dopey activist legislators from the state's goofiest city with the entire state can...what you said. Also, none of that hate for NYC, or did you not bother to read that this BS is coming from both states, or more precisely, from a few dumb legislators based in the most full-of-themselves cities in the country, backed by politicians in law enforcement uniforms who can't stop c…

> And people who willfully confuse a couple dopey activist legislators from the state's goofiest city with the entire state can

We're talking about a state legislature and governor which did in fact just ban lead bullets, a state legislature and governor elected by the entire state.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#97

Post by Canada »

joosters wrote: post #72
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. What happens to this with jailbroken phones? I can see it going two ways: - killswitch is in the OS, and can be removed by jailbreak. Good for user, but means you just have to jailbreak a stolen phone to recover it / prevent it being killed. - killswitch is in the baseband, and cannot be removed. Uhoh.

3rd way: Kill-switch is OS-based. e.g. you tell Apple that your iPhone has been stolen. You give them the serial/IMEI, (or they can match up the device based upon your itunes account). If someone wipes the phone through an exploit or jailbreak, the device is still practically useless as whenever it needs to communicate with an apple service, apple sends back a 'you are stolen' message and the phone locks up again. En…

You can load your own OS on Android, so this would be pretty easy to bypass. The baseband firmware isn't immutable either, just harder to modify.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#99

Post by raldi »

oftenwrong wrote: post #46
kirab wrote: post #3

Nice, a kill switch in every phone. When there’s a big demonstration/revolution we’re just gonna kill all the phones out there with a simple data packet.

That has already happened in CA: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/subway-internet-shu...

Turning off the underground cellular repeaters you own and maintain is not the same thing as remote-bricking someone else's phone.

Re: California Law to Require Antitheft Technology in Cellphones

#100

Post by mhb »

Perhaps they can also consider a cap on the price of cell phones sold in California. If no one's carrying around a phone that cost over $50, that would also reduce the incentive to steal them.

This bill would be a great accompaniment to the next minimum wage increase.

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