Login Manager

t3st3r t3st3r at mail.ru
Thu Aug 16 00:55:05 CEST 2007


Jeff Andros wrote:
>
>
> simple... display contact info(email, friend's phone number, etc) to 
> return the phone at the login screen... 
This will be a pretty good reason even for quite dumb evildoers (who is 
not willing to return device to you on their own) to reflash device with 
default\empty image to get rid of this info to make device looking like 
their own.And location tracking will stopped by reflashing as well.The 
only way to avoid this scenario is to make such people to believe that 
device is in almost its default state without any restrictions set and 
is not going to act "against" them so they will leave current firmware 
as is and it can still silently track phone's coordinates and report 
them to a real owner, giving a good chances to get your device back even 
if those who uses your device did not planned to return it to you.

> I think my old(~2000 ish) WM PDA had an option to do that... people 
> can't get into the phone itself, but they can figure out how to get 
> ahold of you
Yep, in IDEAL world filled with only good people it can work.But in REAL 
world lots of people will prefer not to return device to you but rather 
to remove stupid lock and use device on their own or sell it to 
someone.It is not too hard to remove lock and hence chances to get your 
device back are not very high and depend too much on who is a new device 
owner.If this is good person with fair intentions who is willing to 
return device, this will help.But if for example some a$$hole has just 
stolen your device, do you really expect (s)he will return device to 
you?Unlikely I guess ;).However, if phone (silently!) reports too you 
locations where "a$$hole" can be found, it is quite trivial to get your 
device back.However this tactic requires that new owner to believe that 
device does not restricts it's usage in any way, etc.Adding info about 
owner slightly increases chances that device will be reflashed to reset 
this info, etc.Setting a "hard" lock will cause quite high probability 
that device will be reflashed\unlocked to get rid of lock.

>
> -- 
> Jeff
> O|||||||O
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