How do you usually unlock your smartphone?
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- By the end of 2026, how useful do you think agentic/multi-agent AI systems will actually be in your daily work or personal projects? Posted on March 11th, 2026 | 35 comments
I don't use a smartphone, you insensitive clod! (Score:2, Informative)
I don't have a "smartphone". I have a "dumb-phone" (for calls), a tablet (for casual apps) and a laptop (for work).
And ... each one has better battery life than a "flagship" smartphone, without the tablet or laptop skimping on the processing power.
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What is a smartphone? I don't use smartphone.
-Sent from my iPhone
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Hahaha that reminds me of a friend of mine who replied to me in an email he sent that he didn't have internet and therefore wasn't able to look at the pictures I sent him by email.
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I don't have a smartphone either. Don't want to be on the signature drone strike capable list. Just kidding, so please don't flame me. But I really don't have a smartphone.
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Obviously the smartphone keyboard isn't doing you any favours either.
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Uron /. and u don't have a phone? Really??? I tried going back to a feature phone and the keyboard just about killed me...
I recently tried going back to a dumb phone. I lasted about three months before I gave up.
Overall I was much happier with a phone which just did calls and SMS, but the critical limitations were: I often couldn't view pictures people sent me; I couldn't see emoji's in TXT messages... (which can be quite important when you are starting out on a relationship); the keyboard was 50/50 for me - the longer the message the more irritating it was; and the killer - it had a software bug which made it not send about 3
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Similar to me, the reason I don't have a wife is she wouldn't make my life better. They're quite expensive to have in Canada and I'd rather spend the money on something I value more.
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Similar to me, the reason I don't have a Canada is it wouldn't make my life better. They're quite expensive to have on Earth and I'd rather spend the money on something I value more.
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Also I HATE touchscreens. I just fat-finger everything due to fine motor control issues and I also hate the look of a dirty screen. I would lose so much time just cleaning screens all day long and not for OCD but because I don't like having smudges and such obscuring my view just like with my windows at home or on my car.
Another upside is that nobody wants to steal my old phone either.
If only they could make an invention for you fat fingered folk. Like a little pen type thing that works with the screen, maybe use a little piece of string to attach it to the device so it doesn't get lost. They could call it...a dialing wand...no that's shit, come back to me on the name.
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subway for voice conversations
I use Subway for lunch sometimes.
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Oh yeah? Well, I don't even have Internet!
Kidding aside, no smartphone, dumbphone or landline either. But I do have a MagicJack account. I think of them as the Netflix of phone services.
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It does count, but only if you're building a computing museum.
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Then what else do you do in the bathroom? At this point, I couldn't poo without one.
I tried going back to books, but it just ain't the same.
Work Mandated Method (Score:3)
My work mandates a MDM (mobile device management) system installed on my personal phone in order to access work calendar and email. The company MDM requires a password of at least X characters. Unfortunately accessing work email and calendar plus 2FA isn't a strong enough reason for them to provide a dedicated company phone.
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I use an 8 digit pin. I had a 4 digit pin, but I upped it to 8 to make brute force hacking into it probably too difficult for a crook to do.
I wish I could easily make android more secure by having a long device decryption passphrase that I type in when I turn it on and then a pin for when it's on.
I am not typing in a long device decryption passphrase every time I unlock it. But it would be nice to be able to shut your phone off quickly and know getting in there is impossible for anyone before the sun burns
Re: Work Mandated Method (Score:2)
I could be wrong, but I had the impression that the higher-end Android phones store the encryption key in a secure subsystem that deletes the actual encryption key after 10 or so attempts.
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If the spooks ( 3 letter agencies ) can get your phone, then they can copy the data. Then they can try however many times they want. You can't rely on hardware to function when they can physically open your phone and get at the wires and have the expertise and determination to do it.
It'll keep out crooks but not the spooks. The only thing they can't physically break is math.
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When those "wires" are baked into silicon and can basically only be seen using an electron microscope it's going to be really really hard and possibly physically impossible to cut the right wires without destroying the whole device in the process.
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Yea my work did the same thing. But I don't want them to have access to my personal device so I bought a second phone just for work. I deduct it on my taxes as a business only device.
[John]
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I don't have a "work phone", but if I needed one, and my job didn't provide one, that's what I would do. I'd get the cheapest crap I could get away with, and use it strictly for work. There's no way I'd let them do anything to my personal phone.
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My company finds personal phones are not secure enough and requires dedicated company phones to access e-mail via a phone. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I'm not important enough so I just don't access work e-mail outside of business hours.
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Tealdeer, this is a minefield.
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I know, that's a bit easy to say for someone who never had much of a trouble to find a new job ;-)
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Sounds defensive, though. They could find even then issues to blame you for a toxic attitude or something.
I use the same the response at my work; my personal phone is just that, I will not use it for company usage until I have a written contract stating they are responsible to maintaining my privacy and a list of things they may do and NOT do. One VP (no longer there) stated in the meeting that they could simply make the usage of a personal phone a requirement of the job. This kind of arrogance that they can claim usage of your personal property is why corporations need smacked down. There would be a difference
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Let me clarify, receiving a phone call is one thing, its the company usage of being connected to their MDM and being required to sync email and have them push apps down to my device. That is what I get for not paying attention ;)
Re: Work Mandated Method (Score:3)
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Tell them that you don't trust having their network connected to your personal cell phone, as it opens additional attack vectors on your cell phone that you don't feel comfortable with. If they want you to use it to access their email systems, then they will need to install some SDM software on their servers that will allow you to manage the connection to your phone and will also give you the ability to upload/install on their server whatever apps you feel are necessary to ke
PIN? (Score:2)
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Re: PIN? (Score:3)
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Once, when they only had 4 digit PINs, I tried one that spelled a word. However, one of the "letters" was dangerously close to the "Emergency" link, so I changed it.
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Not even always: the default for our nationality wide accepted smartcard (which are horrible, but it is what it is), is 6 digits.
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The more digits they have to oversee and memorise in one go the harder it gets to do so.
No multifactor option? (Score:5, Funny)
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No smartphone (Score:3)
Re:No smartphone (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't do social media - unless /. counts.
Slashdot membership counts more as anti-social media.
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I needed private e-mail access while at work (and work blocks all forms of webmail) while working on my thesis (and I got somewhat addicted to smartphone games). Otherwise I'd be right there with you.
Faraday cage (Score:4, Funny)
Once a week I take it out of the Faraday cage to check if there is any news on slashdot.org.
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Once a week I take it out of the Faraday cage to check if there is any news on slashdot.org.
Haha! Yes
Don't really understand (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't really understand why people need to use anything more than swipe. My phone always travels with me, so others won't have access to it.
Swipe the phone (Score:3)
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That works great until the TSA confiscates it. We usually average three or so lost phones per year because of the TSA.
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I don't really understand why people need to use anything more than swipe. My phone always travels with me, so others won't have access to it.
Because swiping occurs too frequently by itself, often followed by inadvertent messaging or dialing. I use a pattern, only because of this. It is not a complex pattern, but complex enough to avoid happening "be accident". I would never use a pattern for actual security, if only because it can be easily observed and leaves a trace on the screen.
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You don't really need the 5th unless you have commited a crime. While you might need to protect yourself from government overreach and snoopy police, the 5th literally only applies when you have commited a crime.
".... only applies when you are accused of a crime" might be more accurate. Or "only applies when you MIGHT be accused of a crime".
If you have video of a fake murder on your phone (like maybe you were planning on pitching a movie idea), and the actor winds up dead in the same manner, and you are called as a witness, and they ask for your phone data, you might want to "take the 5th", even without having committed or even being suspected of a crime. Of course, talk to a lawyer before doing anything else.
would rather not (Score:3)
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I'm also surprised there's no setting on the phone to say "fake out the server and tell it you have a lock screen." I'm sure if I bothered rooting my phone I could do it
You are correct, there's Xposed modules for that [xposed.info]
I'm sure if I bothered rooting my phone I could do it, but that seems like such a PITA
You can use Mailwise's Exchange security bypass [mail-wise.com] to do it without root (I think it uses office365)
For a long time, I just wished I could (Score:3)
For a long time, I really wished I *could* lock my phone. I mean, it had the function, and I used it, but I had a young son, who would take my phone out of my pocket while I was sleeping. But the phone was locked, which meant that there were only two things he could do:
He could keep trying to put in passwords until my phone decided it had been stolen and completely wiped itself (*fortunately* there was a stop halfway to there where it would say "type in this word to try another password", to keep you from butt-dialing yourself into oblivion, and he wasn't quite old enough to read, comprehend, and execute that part)
*OR*, he could dial 911. I had way too many experiences (well, like 3, but one is too many) waking up to my phone ringing, and answering to "Hey, this is 911. You called us but didn't say anything intelligible and then hung up. Did you have an emergency?"
While I understand the value of always being able to call emergency services, that's a huge pain, and the only solution would be to keep my phone physically locked up... which completely defeats the purpose of being able to call emergency services.
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I had a young son, who would take my phone out of my pocket while I was sleeping.
My kid loves to swipe my phone as well, though he loves that you don't need to unlock it to access the camera. So once I retrieve it from him after a fair amount of time, I find a thousand selfies on it.
I'll take that over the 911 thing though.
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This was a very long time ago, and I don't believe the phone in question even had a camera. (I *think* it was a reasonably early blackberry)
Nose print (Score:2)
I'm a dog, you insensitive clod!
Why bother? (Score:3)
trusted device (e.g. smartwatch) (Score:2)
If my phone is connected (bluetooth) to my smartwatch, I need not enter any password to unlock my phone. As soon as that connection is lost, a password is required.
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You might want to consider your risk tolerance on that one, if someone gets your phone, and you haven't noticed, you'll find the range allows them to sit in the next room and do anything they want with your phone.
My preferred compromise is an easy unlock method such as fingerprint when your wearable device is connected, coupled with a strong password when it is not.
NUTZ (Score:2)
Tethered Biometric Device (Score:2)
My SmartBand 2 keeps my phone unlocked as long as it's active and tethered through Sony SmartConnect.
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My SmartBand 2 keeps my phone unlocked as long as it's active and tethered through Sony SmartConnect.
Do you look at your SmartBand2 while using your Sony Bravia television to watch Sony Pictures Entertainment produced movies purchased from the Sony Playstation 4 Store?
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No but I'm sure they'd integrate as seamlessly as my phone and the biometric tracker do. I'm quite satisfied with how well this works.
BTW, I rarely watch movies and I don't own a PS4. My TV happens to be a Bravia but I don't have it linked to anything.
Should have allowed multiple answers (Score:2)
Not a well crafted poll, though I didn't mean to break it. I have three Android devices using three different lock mechanisms, so I was forced to pick one and I used the primary phone device... However, the security I liked most was the camera using my face, though it wasn't secure enough (and wasn't even included as an option on the poll). The face recognition option was actually removed from my device when the OS was upgraded a while back.
The system I would prefer doesn't seem to exist. Some kind of chall
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I use the "face unlock" on Android, too; but it falls back to {another method}, which is a pattern in my case. It also auto-unlocks on Bluetoothing to the car.
I've also noticed that it always requires the pattern after powering up or after a long time (e.g. overnight).
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They got rid of face unlock after it was shown that it worked equally well with a picture of you as it did with your actual face.
Nice try, NSA! (Score:2)
I will never tell you how I do unlock my smartphone. I do not have a smartphone, neither!
QR code (Score:2)
Bluetooth device (Score:2)
Usually, if not on me, fallback to something else.
Hammer (Score:2)
NFC ring (Score:2)
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... I can't really stand wearing rings.
That's quite the balance problem you have there. Have you seen a doctor about it?
Fingerprint doesn't work. On anything. (Score:2)
Pin? (Score:2)
I am surprised people use pin. Sounds like the most inconvenient method, and it's not as if a 4 digit pin was more secure than a pattern.
Other (Score:2)
Dirt simple lock code (Score:2)
I don't even clean the screen, hoping if I'm disabled some smart EMT will look at the screen and notice the horizontal line of smudges.
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You do realize that you can make the ICE info a message on your lockscreen, no need to avoid locking the phone to get the benefit.
As an EMT myself, it doesn't matter how simple your lock code is, if you're in rough enough shape that you need me to figure out your phone, I've got better things to do than guess your lock code, even if there are smudges on the screen which may indicate what it is, (or may just indicate what you last swiped on facebook). If it's not already unlocked, and doesn't have a message
HYPOCRITES (Score:2)
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It's a compromise. We could develop 100% unbeatable security, but it's no good if the user can't beat the security to log in. Or we could make it easy for the user to access everything and have no security at all. You need to pick something in between.
Phones tend to be used dozens, or hundreds, of times a day. Secure 2 factor authentication combined with long complex passwords are simply not feasible for such a device, even though it would generally be recommended for any device containing the amount of sen
Cowboy Neal (Score:2)
Which one? (Score:2)
Which phone? My Samsung is hardly ever protected because it is cheap garbage and I can remote delete it if stolen (it sells for $25 used right now). My iPhone and Galaxy S7 provided by work are PIN protected and the iPhone also has fingerprint within 24 hours. Yeah, I need both - hard to support them if I don't have one of each :D
Want to use pattern, forced to use PIN (Score:2)
Since I have to use a long PIN due to the restrictions in place thanks to the work account on my phone, I have set all the lock timeouts to the maximum allowed. Reason being, unlocking the screen while driving (using for GPS or music) is unsafe with a pin compared to swipe. Thanks work, instead of needing a swipe instantly, it needs a pin after 25 minutes of inactivity. I'm sure this is certainly more secure :rolleyes:.
Real security (Score:2)
Retinal scan -> DNA scan -> biometric scan to verify identity, and that I'm not under duress, and finally a 4 digit PIN, "1234".
I wanna make sure no one gets on my phone and plays Candy Crush.
Flip phone. (Score:2)
I use NPC (Score:2)
Buy an RFID tag for $3, Android/hardware does the rest.
Armed Guard (Score:3)
My cellphone is guarded by two armed guards. To use it you have to provide a retina scan, password, fingerprint, and a quart of blood.
I don't use my phone that much.
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Fingerprint authorization doesn't necessarily mean it gets uploaded, though in most cases it probably is.
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Fingerprints have many issues, but uploading them to a corporation isn't one of them. On most devices it is kept locally, not on a server, but even if it were uploaded, it doesn't allow you to re-create the fingerprint, and there's a good chance that the same detected points that were used on your device wouldn't actually unlock a different device that you locked with the same finger, as different detected points may have been stored.
The real issues with fingerprints are:
- you leave them everywhere, includi
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Only assholes would unlock phones that way.
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It's a trade-off. It would be more secure if I didn't have access to any of my own sensitive information, but it's not very convenient.
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I see. This the story where the kid then used the Pokemon to dial 911 or whatever it is in UK, isn't it?
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Your mouse has a "double-click" button? Where can I get one too?
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Windows, come back! I want to play Star Trek Armada 2 again! I'm one of those old people.
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Those pigs aren't going to knock themselves over, dude. What do you do, just let 'em sit there unmolested, while the birds burn up inside, consumed by their rage?
And when an enemy air defense is down due to being upgraded, how do you dragon them?
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On my android watch I found the lock pattern to be too intermittent to be useful. It's too much effort to use it every single time you want to see the screen, but the other option of only doing it when the watch detects it was removed from the wrist was just too hit or miss, sometimes it would ask for the pattern even though I'd been wearing the watch continuously, however more often, I'd pick it up off my nightstand and it wouldn't ask for the pattern.
Any security system as intermittent as that one is usel