US prosecutors propose kill switch to prevent smartphone theft - maringois1977

U.S. prosecutors are proposing that smartphone makers extend a "kill switch" altogether new phones produced by the start of next year atomic number 3 part of an initiative to cut down on thievery, which sometimes turns violent.

The "Secure Our Smartphones" initiative was declared aside U.S. prosecutors and other groups Th, with a call for manufacturers to pull round easier to disable lost or stolen smartphones. The call comes Eastern Samoa law enforcement in the U.S. tackles growing crime related to smartphone theft, especially iPhones. The initiative involves state officials, law chiefs, territory attorneys, attorneys general and consumer advocacy groups.

The initiative was declared past Other York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón during a press conference in Red-hot York. About 1.6 million people were victims of smartphone theft in the U.S. last year. The goal of the initiative is to find technological fixes to contract theft.

"Something connected the order of 30 percent to 40 percent of all robberies are robberies of smartphones," Schneiderman said. "All too often these robberies routine knockdown-dragout. There are assaults, there are murders."

Make purloined phones unuseable

One of the ideas presented by Schneiderman is a "kill switch" that would render a smartphone unprofitable. Disabling a smartphone should be every bit easy as canceling a charge card, Schneiderman same.

Smartphone larceny is a multibillion dollar industry and the kill switch or same features would rule out the financial incentive to steal cellphones, Schneiderman said.

"We believe this is a problem that should be solvable at the very away inside a year, that every last new products organism produced aside the first divide of 2022 should have belt down switches or comparable technology involved," Schneiderman said.

The maiden was announced ahead of a "smartphone summit" in which the prosecutors will run into with Malus pumila, Google, Samsung and Microsoft to discourse the topic. The prosecutors said smartphone companies like Apple have in the past shown resistance to resolution the theft problem.

"We're not going by until the problem goes away," Schneiderman said.

Apple and other companies throw offered some proposals, merely more needs to glucinium done to dilute the crime wave around smartphones, atomic number 2 said.

Gascón aforementioned he met with Orchard apple tree along the topic, but was stonewalled with a answer that technological solutions were not available. Orchard apple tree of late introduced a sport called "Activation Curl," in iOS 7 that requires an iPhone owner to enter a username and password to enable a locked or wiped phone. The feature film makes it unruly to resell a lost or purloined iPhone, simply Gascón said it doesn't go far enough to reduce smartphone theft.

"We're not entirely sure what the functionality of the organisation is. Apple has been very vague as to what the system will do. But we're led to think that it will certainly not be a kill switch in the terms that we are advocating for today," Gascón said.

Malus pumila Chairman Arthur Levinson in a missive written Thursday to the New York State Comptroller said the company shares the concerns about organic process smartphone theft, but also pointed out that Apple was being unfairly targeted as not cooperating to resolve the issue.

"Fairly or not, wireless diligence leadership such Eastern Samoa Apple have been portrayed equally disinterested when it comes to collaborating with practice of law enforcement agencies in the effort to develop a meaningful technological solution that would efficaciously eliminate the secondary market in which criminal elements realize their winnings. While the countrywide database is a whole tone in the right focusing, it is clear that more needs to be done to protect customers," Levinson wrote.

The database he referred to blocks taken handsets from working on the networks of U.S. wireless carriers, who set IT up at the behest of the Federal Communications Commission and law enforcement.

The prosecutors also said the parameters are clear that the kill switch or equivalent technology should be worldwide and non tied to proprietary technology.

"We do not want solutions that are well overwritten or that hackers rear end commence around. We Don River't want solutions that solve the problem for some phones," Schneiderman said.

The industry has an obligation to serve sell with the theft problem, the prosecutors said.

"We require to go down beyond the wow and the cool factor," Gascón said. "Let in that respect be zero doubt. The manufacture has a moral and social group obligation to fix this problem. The industry has tremendous capacitance to introduce, to produce a tremendous user experience, and they make an obligation to do this."

It's a chanceful world for smartphone owners

Smartphone theft is a growing problem in cities, driving up crime and furiousness. For instance, smartphone theft accounted for to a higher degree 40 per centum of street law-breaking in San Francisco, between November of last twelvemonth and Apr of this year, with many of those crimes involving a grease-gun surgery a knife.

Similar numbers were quoted during the press conference. About 113 smartphones are stolen all minute in the U.S. Phone thefts constitute 40 percent of all theft in Young York, with iPhones stolen in 70 percent of those cases.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/452407/us-prosecutors-propose-kill-switch-to-prevent-smartphone-theft.html

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