Okay Geek Farm
Apple wants to have a Kill Switch for iPhones - Applies for Patent
Brandon Davenport
The title says it all — Apple wants to have a kill switch to have more control over the iPhones they create. Apple has applied for a sleezy patent on technology that could render iPhones (or other devices) useless when Apple feels the device is being used wrongfully or by unauthorized users. The scary part is that they can also determine infringers through biometric information like a user’s face, voice, and even their heartbeat.
Why should you be worried? Let me put it this way — anything that the iPhone does, out of the box, Apple sees as “legit” — but once you do things, like Jailbreak or unlock the phone Apple usually gets a bit miffed. This is going to get really messy.
Some un-easy news from DigitalTrends
The patent application surfaced last week, and targets a number of behaviors Apple describes as compromising orhacking a device, including removing the SIM card, unlocking, jailbreaking, and even moving a predetermined distance from a synced device.
Other implementations could have the device go into spy mode, recording and reporting the users’ activities, including sending pictures of the current user to a remote service, along with keylogs, location information, and data traffic.
What “good” could come of this?
Well, I’m really going to stretch the horizon here and take Apple’s side for a moment. There’s one thing that Apple could do to change the whole perspective on this “issue” which is, they need to open this to consumers. If they could somehow integrate this into the “find my phone” suite, and allow consumers to “deactivate” their iPhones remotely when they feel it’s been compromised, that would be cool. On the flip side, Apple would still have control over your iPhone. Boo!
