Someone stole my Neo Freerunner... :(

[Yorick Moko]

i'm assuming we don't want to brick it, because the thief is not very
likely to return the phone if it doesn't work, nor can we track it if
it isn't charged. He'(ll just dump the phone.

sending gps location (if available), cell tower information and SIM
card info (contacts, own number...) in the background to a predefined
cellphone number/upload it to a server or e-mail it (when internet is
available) seems to me the smarter choice.

y

On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 6:14 PM,  <bburdette at comcast.net> wrote:
> If you don't want to risk being sued for a booby trapped phone, how
> about at least a way to render the it useless to thieves?
>
> For instance, you could make it unbootable from a zero power situation,
> and then combine that with a rapid power discharge.  If the thief leaves
> it uncharged for even a day, its bricked!
>
>
> Jeff Sadowski wrote:
>> Oooh :-) Idea: Make it shock the user if its not the right user. I
>> smell smoke I think it is coming from over there. Hey look there is my
>> phone. next to a flaming POS.
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Lothar Behrens
>> <lothar.behrens at lollisoft.de> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> sorry for you all that lost your phone, stolen or lost anyhow by being
>>> careless. I also had lost a phone, but not my FR :-)
>>> I read the thread, and think about my contract. I have no gprs as of my old
>>> phone didn't let me opening
>>> web or wap pages.
>>> I have some questions and ideas that are in my brain :-)
>>> Is there any way to use analog modem connections ?
>>> I don't know how much CPU power is needed but when possible a phone could
>>> send more data to a dedicated
>>> number we could provide for that.
>>> If a real modem connection couldn't be used, what about creating a tone
>>> modulation for the data to be send
>>> as a 'spoken' message to be send back to a number as a voice recorder.
>>> The voice recorder then (a Linux PC :-) could decode the data and store the
>>> data.
>>> All the data could be collected on a web service to probably get the bad
>>> guys behind to give that information to
>>> the police.
>>> The web service also could provide information about stolen devices, thus
>>> when a phone gets any wlan connection,
>>> it could check for stolen state. This is not that spoof able I think,
>>> because the web sevice may be as usual password protected.
>>> But the server could provide sms, mms or phone gateways for fallback
>>> options. More gateways could be provided by us.
>>> The new gateway information could be uploaded by interacting with the user
>>> (software updates :-)
>>> If a phone didn't have gprs, sms, mms, or wlan, sending prepared 'data
>>> voices' would be an option. It didn't need to send much at first to get
>>> an answer about the stolen state in that way. I think the recorded data
>>> could be decoded in both directions, you don't need
>>> much cpu power, because it will be unidirectional, or let the 'protocol'
>>> enough time between packed sent and anser packets
>>> for decoding.
>>> Doing an active voice call may save us the cost of callbacks or sending back
>>> sms. With a proper longtime protocol with long pauses or a
>>> better solution a lot could be done.
>>> Usually you could activate this when the sim card get's changed without any
>>> notice to the user. He should still use the phone a while
>>> to collect information. We then could start a preinstalled application to
>>> authenticate the sim card change. If not options are many.
>>> The PIN entry of the normal card could be replaced by the PIN you
>>> provide. The user then wouldn't realize it, but claims to enter
>>> the correct, we simply accept, but start the timer for the above actions.
>>> Or we leave the user in claim that the documentation of it's sim card
>>> provider doesn't seem to be correct and he/she must issue
>>> a call with the service provider.
>>> At that point, the service provider couldn't help for that special phone.
>>> The new 'user' HAS to contact the manufacturer and so on
>>> you probably get your phone back, because the manufacturer should request
>>> for sending back the phone.
>>> Getting the state of stolen, the phone could anyway send a message to a
>>> police station near the user with spd-say, after
>>> the 'anti-theft' server has located the next police station's telephone
>>> number with any of the above options sent back to the
>>> phone. (Maybe with manual data entry of the phone numbers by us users with
>>> POI collection, hehe tangoGPS :-)
>>> That way the phone could help actively. Not only 'data voices' could be
>>> sent.
>>> Also the collected wlan, phone towers, GPS, voice, phone numbers and what
>>> else could help to locate the guys behind,
>>> as the phones will walk up to the key guys before it would reselled. (Where
>>> they all are located would be very nice POI data)
>>> With that data, we could help the police.
>>> A note about the attack to people currently having your phone: They may not
>>> know, that they have a stolen phone, thus
>>> you get to be a 'criminal' and beware, you may also get reatacked by the
>>> person :-)
>>> Giving the police the collected data, would propably help much more.
>>> What about all my stupid brain stuff ?
>>> Discuss about the possibilities - even stupid ideas as the old 'acustic
>>> coupler'. You don't really need all the modern GPRS stuff :-)
>>> If that is possible also the cost of operation is not very high I think -
>>> even you change your card (you know to start a separate unlocker)
>>> Lothar
>>>
>>> -- | Rapid Prototyping | XSLT Codegeneration | http://www.lollisoft.de
>>> Lothar Behrens
>>> Heinrich-Scheufelen-Platz 2
>>> 73252 Lenningen
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
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