Senator Intros Bill to Help Fight Smartphone Theft

[kyuuketsuki]

Goddamn, you should really be able to at least preview your comment before committing to it... ~_~

 

[gm0n3y]

This seems like it will create more problems that its trying to solve. And, as others have mentioned, stealing the phone is already illegal so this is pointless. This is just one more layer of control.

IDon'tWantToLiveOnThisPlanetAnyMore.jpg

 

[Guest]

We should definitely give more control of our property to the government and the companies who bribe them. What could go wrong? Does anyone even stop and ask "is this something the federal government should even be involved in?" or does the Constitushumuthingy explicitly relegating that involvement to the states and the people just not matter anymore?

 

[Guest]

If this legislation passes, it will obviously be abused by the government and cellular providers. They will be able to prevent a user from accessing cellular networks by simply marking their phone as stolen.

Those that actually do steal phones will just change the IMEI. Unless the providers maintain a database of legitimate, unused IMEI numbers, the criminals won't get caught.

 

[jhansonxi]

[citation][nom]jhansonxi[/nom].Brought to you by the same senator responsible for the .[/citation]
Apparently a URL parse error. Was supposed to be:

Brought to you by the same senator responsible for the Ex-PATRIOT Act.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

By 'The Black Market' do you mean ebay?

 

[delta7]

I bet Mubarak would have loved to have this implemented in Egypt before he was ousted, so much more convenient that trying to shut down the whole internet to disrupt the communication of rebels.
Plus it can be targeted! You see where I'm going with this?
I don't need the government to protect me from theft and me in my cynicism doubt that this is the true motivation of this proposed law.

 

[mman74]

Yes in Hong Kong IMEI numbers are shared among the local service and providers. But this has no effect on the phones being stolen because the vast majority of second hand phones are shipped overseas (mostly China) where they work just fine. There should be some sort of global list as well.

 

[craig_1000]

What is to stop you reprogramming the whole phone os inc the IMEI number and even unbricking it also. This is why no one even bothers to look into this as a law and it is a waste yet more tax payers money on worthless laws, it may have worked a few years ago but then the politicians are not techies. We all know that most smart phones are portable baby computers and there is a lot more that U can do with them. The way to stop theft is to make reselling so cheap that it is not worth while. I am waiting for some one to hijack a brand of phone using the underlying computing power like a bot net....as most people will not be able to remove the bot client on their service provider locked phone.

 

[john_4]

More FED take over, soon j walking will be a Federal offense. Enough already with big brother FED. Cut the FED by 50% and watch our over spending go away. Start by firing the fascist loving Democrat Chuck Schumer

 

[coldwindphoenix]

Seems to me that making the altering of the phone come with a penalty of 5 years in prison isn't going to stop someone willing to kill over a Smartphone. The way I see it make the possession of an altered phone come with 5 years in prison and you’re going to see the market for stolen phones dry up pretty quick. If you go after the people who are only willing to buy a stolen phone and don't have the balls to steal it themselves they are less likely to not care about prison time.

 

[Guest]

as someone who has worked for atnt i can assure you "bricking" a cell phone remotely is impossible. all they can do is blacklist the imei. i have no idea why it took this long to implement. i wanted them to do this back in 2008.

 

[Guest]

As someone who worked for verizon, but on the actual technical side instead of customer service, I can assure you bricking a cell phone remotely has already been done and is a standard feature of pretty much all the prototype samples that go out to approved partners

 

[Guest]

Well, the blacklisted IMEI numbers should be public so that someone buying a used phone can check it out.