UK Firm To Release 'Screaming' Cell Phone

rubberbando writes "Yahoo news is running a story about a plan by a UK cell phone company to help reduce cell theft. Apparently, this new cell phone can be sent a signal after its owner has realized that it has been lost or stolen. The signal tells the phone to wipe all of its data and begin emitting a very loud and obnoxious sound. The sound will only stop if the battery runs out or is removed, but it will begin again as soon as the battery is replaced or charged. Even replacing the sim card will not help."

Re:So basically...

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Not necessarily. If it writes an "I'm disabled" flag to some place in the onboard NOR flash, and the loader reads this to decide whether to proceed with a boot or not, you'd have to rewrite the loader or the NOR flash in order to turn it off. Pulling all the power wouldn't help since the flash is designed to hold data when the power is out.

If you have the tools to rewrite the NOR flash, then you can indeed turn off the alarm with software. The software will be external to the phone and will have to use some hardware connection to it, though.

Re:Simpler

[cynicalmoose]

But as anybody can locate a SIM in the cell to which it transmits, sensible thieves replace SIMs anyway.

IMEI, Re:Who cares if the phone becomes unusable

[mennucc1]

Actually, if your phone is GSM, then you can already do that.
First and foremost, you must write down your IMEI number [wikipedia.org]. Simply type *#06# into your cell phone. It may look like: AA-BBBBBB-CCCCCC-D . That is the serial number of the phone, and it will not change if the SIM is changed. Write it down into a safe place.
When your phone is stolen, report that number to the police. They will report it to the providers, that will lock down the cell phone [gsmworld.com] for good; moreover, if the phone is ever turned on, they may be able to track the thief whereabouts, using standard cell tecnology; that, and an identikit, may actually help them arrest the thief.
A friend of mine, (who is in IT business) did all of the above, and she really had the thief arrested and prosecuted.

Re:IMEI, Re:Who cares if the phone becomes unusabl

[REBloomfield]

Their are posters from the Met Police all over London telling people to write down their IMEI numbers and report them in the instance of theft. They're making more effort than they were.

Re:How long till...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course its intersting. Low-jacks already do this in some cases. A friend of mine's car, which has a low-jack for 'security' reasons, though i fail to see why anyone would steal that POS, will very LOUDLY complain, lock you inside the car for a good 5 minuites when the bill isn't paid on time. I had the displeasure of this happening to me while driving her to work at 2am on the 1st of the month (before the bill was auto-processed)

Seriously, in about 3-5 years time we WILL see this happening to late billpayers. It serves two purposes, cut down on thefts, and enforce payments. It will happen.

Re:Brilliant application of 'planned obsolecence'

[joNDoty]

The article says the system also automatically backs up everything on your phone once per day. If your phone gets wiped, everything can be reloaded. I'm patting myself on the back now for reading TFA.