http://www.infowars.com/californias-smart-phone-kill-switch-proposal-going-nationwide/
IMO, if this gets a foothold, the slippery slope is going to get real slick.
I hope the ground swell of opposition is large enough to convince the politicians that this is a bad idea. 
The State can have my phone when they pry my hands from its cold, dead touchscreen.
“Infowars”? As I recall that site is a conspiracy nut site; they claim things like school shootings are orchestrated by Obama in order to justify gun control. And that Obama is a shapeshifting alien lizard man.
Not exactly a reliable source.
The opposition doesn’t seem to be in possession of all the facts. Or simply doesn’t care.
Cell phones can already be locked out of the network on demand. All of them, not just smart phones. Don’t believe me? Just skip your payments for a few months.
All this legislation is doing is ensuring that a phone can be remotely bricked so that it can’t be activated with another carrier who doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the ESN is flagged as stolen.
You believe anything infowars spews out?
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/illinois&id=9442115
An Illinois lawmaker wants to make it harder for stolen cell phones to be sold on the black market.
State Sen. Toi Hutchinson has filed legislation that would require cell phones sold or purchased in Illinois to have a so-called “kill switch” that would make the phone inoperable if it is lost or stolen.
The legislation by the Democrat from Olympia Fields would also prohibit wireless telephone service providers and equipment manufacturers from charging extra fees for such phones.
Hutchinson says the bill will help reduce an incentive for thieves to steal smart phones.
The bill is SB3539.
The most folks with smart phones believe themselves immune to police abuse - the trendy technocrats in their high-rise condos.
If the target audience doesn’t object (and they are probably supportive) it will sail through and, just as some more schmuck finds himself on the “no-fly” list, some techie is going to find his phone inop.
Too little info to make a call (pun intended).
Who could trigger the kill switch? Under what circumstances? What happens if my phone is stolen and switched before I could report it - could it still be killed? What happens if my phone is killed in error (mine or theirs)? Can it be reinstated?
I have no respect or support for anyone that thinks they can tell law abiding citizens what to do and how much to charge for it.
Why don’t they just make it illegal to steal phones? - Answer; they already have… and you see how successful that’s been.
Where is there anything in the article I linked to that says anything about telling law abiding citizens what to do?
Infowars is one of Alex Jones’s sites. He’s a nut job CT wacko.
This.
People seem to be looking for reasons to be outraged. The cell phone companies want people to be outraged. The cell phone carriers have very close ties and profits with the cell phone insurers, they essentially benefit from peoples phones being in jeopardy of theft because it insures people need to carry the insurance. If they are required by law to be able to remotely brick a stolen phone it makes stolen phones a less lucrative market. It also means that they don’t benefit from a secondary market of users pursuing new accounts with phones that have been previously stolen and/or resold.
Carriers already have lost-stolen lists, and they work so-so right now. What is going to happen, however, is that the kind of “kill switch” these mandates are demanding will cause a lot of grief down the line. Carriers usually cannot brick your phone permanently, although they can bar you from their network and in some cases of limited-hardware models this may stop the phone from working as it’s unable to connect to any network. They are the ones who might gain from insurance, and they are also the ones who would gain from having less theft. But they’re also the ones who have to somehow make this work, but not destroy people’s phones. Which is probably only one reason they’re very leery of this. They’ve already been developing blacklist data and sharing it.
Manufacturers don’t care, because they’re not likely to be liable or held accountable for it. In fact, if idiot customers and fat-fingering clerks brick thousands of phones a year, it’ll be good for business. And in all likelihood, it’s Microsoft, Google, and Apple who have to do all the work. But leading on from that, what if the customer doesn’t want this feature? The people proposing it are demanding it as a requirement - yet consumers aren’t the ones screaming for it. Politicians are.
Third, theft is often not actually the case, or isn’t provable. People more likely lose their devices, and theft is often traced to employees, not random members of the public. Which makes it much harder to stop with bricking, since they are not likely to report their thefts.
I think this is a good idea. I’d want the ability to brick or make useless anything that gets stolen from me. I think its paranoid to think the government will do this on a widespread population to quash dissent, unlike the NSA, they can’t do this in secret and people will know. Plus, the first person who get injured by an accidental or maliciously bricked phone will sue and win.
Or a very savvy business man who has found a niche and is making money off of people’s paranoia. I haven’t decided yet. Either way, using one of his websites as your cite automatically invalidates your argument.
Oh well, it is 10:00 O’clock twice a day.
I learned something, maybe.
I did provide an opportunity for those who like to insult. That always helps fight my ignorance & provides me with entertainment.
I am heartened to find that I now have absolute knowledge that this can never happen nor any entity could get this enacted anywhere in the US of A… Whew!!! What a relief. :dubious:
Consider my ignorance fought. :rolleyes:
Since I am now without any future chance of credibility because of this posting, I can assume that none of the above posters will ever bother with any thread I start or participate in… right??? ( hope hope )
I was making an argument? Hummm, I just thought I was stating my opinion on something I read.
Looks at section of SDMB I am in… Hummmm
It doesn’t invalidate all of your arguments (or statements). Just the current one. I guess reading something like that might make you curious about the topic but just know you are using one of the least credible sites on the web to express your opinion. If you want anyone to take the topic seriously you may want to verify it from at least one other source. At least when posting here. I’m sure there are possibly some people who believe what Alex Jones says. Maybe his mother. Just one man’s opinion of course. Do what you want.
In San Francisco more than 50% of robberies involve smartphones. Cite. So the goal of this is to help keep some thief from making your fingers and touchscreen cold and dead.
I’d hope that you’d be able to bring a phone bricked by hackers in to have it fixed if you can prove ownership. Hacking is about the only downside I see.