Those of us who use iPhones may have more to welcome this week than Apple’s event to unveil the latest devices.
The computer maker’s stance on guarding customer privacy may be slowing its push to stay ahead of rivals in the race to to develop digital assistants, Reuters reports. If correct, that means the company is upholding its pledge to respect customers’ personal privacy, but more on that in a minute.
At issue is a race by Apple, Google and other tech companies to recruit experts in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that allows computers to anticipate what users want without being explicitly programmed.
The larger the set of data that software can analyze, the more precise those predictions can become. But with a self-imposed privacy policy that causes iPhones and other devices to refresh every 15 minutes, Apple forgoes the opportunity to send the data to the cloud, where the information could be combined with other data, analyzed and, possibly, sold to advertisers.
That benefits users by protecting their personal privacy but can slow the evolution of services such as Siri to anticipate users’ needs. “They want to make a phone that responds to you very quickly without knowledge of the rest of the world,” Joseph Gonzalez, co-founder of Dato, a machine learning startup, told Reuters, referring to Apple. “It’s harder to do that.”
Or not. If any company can reconcile the imperatives of privacy and technological progress in a way that advances both it may be Apple.
The next generation of Apple’s services will depend heavily on artificial intelligence, AppleInsider reports. At the same time, digital assistants developed by Google and Microsoft reportedly are getting better at learning users’ routines.
Apple currently aims to recruit at least 86 more experts in machine learning, according to an analysis by Reuters of the computer maker’s jobs postings.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in June that his company won’t be a party to the exchange that defines the relationship of many tech companies and their customers, in which customers accept free services in return for companies’ selling information about consumer’ searches, shopping, health and more to advertisers.
“They’re gobbling up everything they can learn about you and trying to monetize it,” Cook told a gathering in Washington sponsored by privacy advocates. “We think that’s wrong.”
Edward Snowden, the former government subcontractor who revealed the magnitude of the National Security Agency’s spying on Americans in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said Apple’s stance deserved consumers’ support.
“Regardless of whether it’s honest or dishonest, for the moment, now, that’s something we should… incentivize, and it’s actually something we should emulate,” Snowden told an audience in Spain about two weeks after Cook outlined the company’s policy.
Apple is slated to introduce enhancements to Siri this Wednesday as part of the rollout of iOS 9, the latest version of the company’s operating system for the iPhone and iPad.
Nearly a quarter of a million owners of Apple’s iPhone may be at risk of having their iTunes accounts hijacked or their devices held hostage by intruders.
That’s because hackers have distributed malware that allows users to steal log-in credentials and purchase apps and media from both the App and iTunes stores, according to a report published Sunday by Palo Alto Networks, a digital security firm.
The attack is thought to be the largest known theft of data from Apple accounts caused by malware, the firm said.
The malware, known as KeyRaider, affects iPhones whose users have disabled, or jailbroke, the operating system on their devices to allow installation of third-party apps. As of Sunday, thieves had used KeyRaider to steal nearly 226,000 valid Apple accounts, along with certificates, private keys and other security features, the firm said.
“The purpose of this attack was to make it possible for users of two iOS jailbreak tweaks to download applications from the official App Store and make in-app purchases without actually paying,” Claud Xiao, a security researcher at Palo Alto Networks, wrote in a blog post.
No much ppl realized how amazing the unlocking hook in KeyRaider is, or how crazy its goal is.
As of Sunday, about 20,000 people had downloaded the malware, suggesting at least that many people are misapplying credentials stolen from iTunes accounts. The malware, which also allows intruders to hold phones hostage in return for ransom, has appeared in 18 countries, including the U.S., China and U.K.
Palo Alto Networks traced the malware after members of Weiphone, a community of iPhone fans based in China, discovered unauthorized charges in their iTunes accounts.
The malware offers a reminder that jailbreaking carries risks. “Most security experts discourage the practice unless it’s done by highly experienced people who know exactly what code they’re using to circumvent Apple engineers’ safeguards and, once that’s done, what alternative apps they’re installing,” Dan Goodin wrote Monday at Ars Technica.
It’s Sunday, about 1:30 pm, and I’ve been to three wireless stores since noon.
The journey has taken me from 125th St. in Harlem to 86th and Broadway to 71st Street.
Reason for my trip: to activate an iPhone 4 that I’ve had for the past four-and-a-half years, the last two of which it occupied a shelf above my desk.
My girlfriend is visiting from South Africa. She uses a US phone on this side.
She had a phone that ran on Verizon—one of those clamshell designs—that she lost on a recent visit. She kept the number, which her sister paid for monthly. My girlfriend says she has no attachment to the number except that her boss knows it. He calls her on it.
For a week she went without a phone. To reach her, I texted her via Skype to her MacBook. But today she’s off to Boston, which her employer calls home.
She needs a phone that works. Cue the iPhone 4, which I charged in anticipation of her visit.
I misremembered that I had bought the phone from AT&T, thinking instead that it came from Verizon Wireless. That mistake explains everything that ensued.
The saga began a day earlier, at a T-Mobile store at 96th and Broadway. We brought the iPhone there to buy a SIM card that would activate the phone on T-Mobile’s network, where we—or more accurately T-Mobile—would carry over my girlfriend’s number from Verizon.
The sales representative at T-Mobile snapped a new SIM card off from credit card-sized piece of plastic, inserted it into the phone and turned on the device. We brightened momentarily before realizing the phone would not work.
“It’s locked by Verizon,” the representative told us, repeating the misinformation I had supplied inadvertently. “There’s nothing we can do. You have to take it to Verizon.”
“What’s the lowest-priced phone you have?” my girlfriend asked him. He showed her a phone that runs on Android and cost $20.
“I’ll take it,” my girlfriend said. At least she would have a phone, no matter how little it resembled a phone that she might want.
At home Saturday night, my girlfriend’s sister, a different sibling than the one who preserved the phone number, and I researched how to unlock a phone from Verizon.
On Sunday morning, equipped with the information, I called Verizon. The first representative I reached told me that Verizon cannot unlock a smartphone that ran on its network. That didn’t seem right.
I called again. A different representative gave me two six-digit codes that he said I could use to unlock the phone. “These will cost you money if you go online to sites that sell unlocking,” he offered before directing me to an article in Gizmodo about how to unlock an iPhone 4.
That didn’t help either.
I decided to take the phone to the Verizon Wireless outpost on 125th St. The place opened at noon. I resolved to be first in line.
I arrived at the store, located at the corner of 125th St. and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, about 10 minutes early. While I waited, I met AGR, a rapper who was hawking “King of the Industry,” his latest disc. “I’m working with RZA of Wu-Tang,” AGR told me, without commenting on the symmetry between the number of initials in their monikers.
For $10, I could own a copy of AGR’s latest, which, he explained to me, contains no references to sex or drugs. “But aren’t drugs and sex subjects for art too?” I asked him.
“Yes, but what am I going to do, rap to the kids about using crack?” he replied. Rather than press the point, I forked over $10 in exchange for the disc, which AGR autographed to my girlfriend.
I hope she likes it.
By then it was noon and I saw the manager at Verizon Wireless kneel to unlock the double doors to the store. I construed the gesture as a metaphor for what awaited my phone.
I bounded inside. She asked how she could help.
“I’d like to ask you to please unlock a Verizon phone that I haven’t used in at least three years,” I explained. “I used to have a contract but that was then. I think you can unlock it now.”
“We can’t unlock the phone unless you are on Verizon,” she replied.
“Isn’t the point of unlocking the phone so that I don’t have to be on Verizon?” I asked. “Besides, refusing to unlock a phone unless I’m on Verizon sounds illegal.”
I imagine the last thing someone who works at a Verizon store on Sundays wants to hear is that what they’re doing is unlawful.
“Companies do it all the time,” she said.
As if that would persuade me.
“Tell you what, maybe you can confirm that the phone is a Verizon phone,” I offered. “Maybe my recollection is wrong.”
“But you told me it’s a Verizon phone,” she said.
“Yes, I did, but perhaps my memory is faulty,” I answered. “It can happen to any of us,” I added, gesturing toward the pedestrians on the street outside.
I held up the phone to her while pressing an icon on the display that flashes the phone’s International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI number), the 15-digit number that identifies most mobile phones.
The manager gave a look that signaled a mixture of annoyance and resignation. “Please, just confirm that this is a Verizon phone,” I pleaded.
The manager gazed at the number. “It’s a Verizon phone,” she said. “That’s our number, it begins 040.”
I looked at the IMEI, which began 0240.
“Are you sure?” I asked, repeating back to her the digits. “I’m sure,” she replied. “Verizon phones start with 0240.”
I noted her confusion but attributed it to her wanting to be rid of me.
I thanked her and plopped down on a bench at the entrance to the store to map out my next move. I approached the counter again to ask another representative how much it would cost to activate the phone on Verizon’s network.
“That would be $45 a month, for unlimited talk and texts, plus one gigabyte of data,” he told me, looking up from his smartphone.
“Will the number remain in effect if my girlfriend only uses the service a few times a year when she’s in the states?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “The number cancels out at the end of 30 days unless you renew it.”
By now it was 12:15 pm. I had promised my girlfriend I would be home by 3:00 pm with a phone that worked and that she could take with her to Boston later that afternoon.
At 125th St. and Adam Clayton Powell, I hailed a taxi to take me to the Apple Store at 66th and Broadway. I would buy a new iPhone 6 and give my girlfriend my iPhone 5c. I’ve dithered about whether to go with a larger phone. Now seemed like the time.
As the taxi rolled along Central Park West, I gazed out at the buildings on my right. At 102nd St., we passed an apartment building where seven years ago I took guitar lessons from a musician who lived there. He once played in the band for the show “Rent.” He also liked to play tennis and would regale me with stories about matches he played on the red-clay courts in Riverside Park.
At around 96th Street a better idea came to me. Rather than buy a new phone, I would return to Verizon and activate the iPhone 4 on the carrier’s network. My girlfriend could bring both the T-Mobile phone and the iPhone with her to Boston. She would have to tote two phones but at least one of them appealed to her.
After her business trip, I would hold onto the iPhone 4. That way I could have a phone to use for calls and another—my iPhone 5c—for podcasts, music and all the rest of the things we do with those devices. All for $45 a month, which, while not free, beat the cost of a new phone.
I asked the driver to let me out at 86th and Broadway. Rather than return to Harlem and the manager whom I was persuaded hated me, I would find a Verizon Wireless store on the Upper West Side.
First, I had to use the restroom. I walked north along Broadway, expecting to find one of the Starbucks locations that litter Broadway what seems like every five blocks. Sure enough, I found one after about three.
Inside, a man who appeared to be about 60 years old waited for the restroom, the door to which displayed the red dial that signaled it was occupied. He had close-cropped silver hair and wore shorts and a t-shirt with something that I couldn’t decipher printed on it.
“You’re in line, right,?” I offered.
“I am,” he answered smiling, seemingly appreciating my checking with him.
After about 30 seconds I spoke up.
“The city needs more public restrooms,” I said. “It’s ridiculous that we all wait on line in Starbucks.”
The man brightened.
“I agree,” he said. “You wonder what people do in there. The guy who was in line before me gave up and left.”
“I don’t get why people take so much time,” I volunteered. “The last place I want to be is holed up is in a bathroom at Starbucks.
By then another gentleman, an African-American man who appeared to be about 50, had joined the line.
“We think someone’s taking a shower in there,” I said to him
“It’s terrible,” he said. “The way some people stay in there so long.
“Right, that’s what we were just discussing,” I replied, gesturing to the man ahead of me in the queue.
The three of us waited silently for about five minutes. Then the African-American man walked forward and rapped solidly on the door. No reply.
“Maybe someone should check to see if the person inside is conscious,” I offered.
“This is ridiculous,” said the man, returning to the queue.
“Have you seen the public restroom they installed recently on the east side of Union Square,” I asked them, proud of my offering some information that might be of value in the future. “We need more of that. Or like the restrooms at Bryant Park. Standing in line at Starbucks is hardly a substitute.”
Both men nodded in agreement.
I was on a roll. “I should run for City Council on a platform to add restrooms across the city,” I said.
“You’d have my vote,” said the man in front of me.
Just then we heard the handle of the bathroom door rattle. A woman, about 50 emerged, looking pale and exasperated.
She shook her head and looked at the man in front of me, as if he alone had interrupted her stay.
“I’ll be fast,” he told me.
“I’ll be fast too,” I told the man behind me.
The man kept his promise. He was in and out in what seemed like 20 seconds. I did the same.
“Take care, man,” I said to the African-American gentlemen as I left.
“You too,” he said, cementing our bond.
I stepped outside and onto Broadway, where Google Maps told me there was a Verizon Store at 80th St.
I walked south, glad to be outside on a mild spring afternoon. It was early enough that people seemed happy it was Sunday. They had yet to retreat to their apartments to steel themselves for the week.
A man passed me walking north, carrying an air conditioner that he had purchased at P.C. Richard & Sons, judging by the box. A block later, a young woman drifted over to a shelf of books that a bookseller had pushed onto the sidewalk to attract browsers.
As I approached 80th St., I saw the Verizon store on the opposite side of Broadway. Inside the store, the greeter asked for my name, which he logged on an iPad before telling me that I would be next in line.
I sat down on what I later realized to be the same style of bench that stood near the door at the Verizon store in Harlem. It’s hardly news that parts of Manhattan are being overrun by banks, nail salons and mobile phone stores. I shuddered as I realized that I had experienced the phenomenon from the inside.
In about 10 minutes, a man whose name tag read Jordan sat down next to me, smiled and asked how he could help.
“I would like to sign up for some prepaid Verizon wireless,” I told him, holding out the iPhone 4.
“Great, how do you anticipate using the phone?” he asked.
“For calls, mostly, I think,” I answered, feeling happy that we seemed to be getting somewhere.
Jordan told me the best plan would be one that costs $45 a month. Of course, I knew that already, but I thanked him anyway. By now it was nearly 1:00 pm and I began to calculate how much time I had left before I had to get back to my girlfriend in Harlem.
“May I see your ID?” Jordan asked.
I handed him my driver’s license and hoped that concluding the purchase would be as easy as his swiping my credit card.
“Is this your home address,” Jordan asked, holding the license.
“Yes, it is,” I replied, feeling satisfied with my deciding to update my license after moving last year.
Jordan excused himself to speak with a co-worker, whom I imagined to be a supervisor. I watched the men huddle for about a minute before Jordan returned.
“You say this is a Verizon phone?” he asked me. “Because as far as I can tell it’s not one of ours.”
“But the manager at your other store tells me it’s Verizon,” I replied.
“I’m sorry but it’s not,” he said. “Have you checked with T-Mobile, or with any other carrier. Maybe it’s AT&T or Sprint.”
Suddenly, I remembered.
“Oh, wow, it’s AT&T,” I said as the realization dawned. “Look, Jordan, you know that I wanted to buy Verizon service—you know that I was ready to sign up for prepaid wireless—but if I can unlock this my girlfriend can use her T-Mobile SIM with this phone.”
Jordan said he understood, and that he was happy to help. I wanted to run to the AT&T store, but I paused long enough to thank him again. We shook hands.
Back on Broadway, I headed south, past the Apthorp and Fairway, across the street at Gray’s Papaya, to 71st St., where an AT&T store occupies the northeast corner.
I entered to find two representatives helping customers at the counter while two ladies sat on a window ledge in the far corner of the store that faced the street.
“I imagine you’re waiting,” I said to them, smiling.
“I’ve been waiting for about 30 minutes,” said the younger of the two.
“Have they taken your names?” I asked.
“We think so,” said the other woman.
I approached the counter. “How do we register our visit?” I asked one of the two representatives. She wore a powder-blue polo shirt emblazoned with an AT&T.
She looked up at me distractedly. Just then, a representative in a royal blue polo shirt—a manager I hoped—emerged from the back room.
“How do we register for our visit?” I repeated, this time to him. “There are four of us back here,” I said, motioning to the two women. “We’re wondering.”
“There aren’t four of you,” said the manager.
“I count four—those women, me and this gentleman, here,” I said, gesturing toward a 60-something man hunched over some kind of self-service terminal.
“Have you registered?” I asked a 20-something man whom I had seen when I entered.
“I have,” he said in a European accent, smiling. “Thank you.”
I felt like an organizer. After three wireless stores in 90 minutes, the bureaucracy and procedures started to make sense to me.
The manager asked my name, which he entered into an iPad.
I retreated to the corner to take my place alongside the two women in the queue.
My turn came about 15 minutes later. A 20-something representative—she wore a navy polo shirt, the shades of blue seemed to darken with each representative—approached and asked how she could help.
“I would like to unlock this iPhone 4 that I got from AT&T several years ago,” I told her. “The contract has long lapsed. I don’t even have a phone number of it.”
“You have to put in a request online to do that,” she replied.
“What?” I replied, set back.
“This is the third wireless store I’ve visited today, and now you’re telling me I have to go online? Please, can’t we do this from here?” I implored.
The representative hesitated. Then she escorted me over to an iPad and punched up an online site at AT&T for unlocking phones.
“Go ahead and enter your information here,” she instructed.
I entered the IMEI, my name and email address. Three times I mistyped the captcha, which seemed especially tough to transpose.
After three tries, the representative nudged me aside and entered the phrase.
That produced a message telling me to check my in-box for an email that would confirm the unlocking.
I opened the email on my phone. “Click ok,” the representative told me, enrolling now.
I clicked. A second email arrived telling me that my request for an unlocked phone would be processed within two days.
“They say two days but it can be much faster,” said the representative. “Mine was unlocked the same day.”
That meant I might not be able to unlock the phone for my girlfriend in time for her trip but that eventually we’d get the phone working.
After thanking the representative and leaving the store, I imagined I could ship the phone to my girlfriend in Boston as soon as it worked.
On Broadway, I flagged a taxi to take me home. It was 1:45 pm and I didn’t want to risk the vagaries of weekend subway service.
As the taxi made its way up the West Side Highway, I happened to check my in-box, to see a third message from AT&T, this one congratulating me on my phone being unlocked.
According to the message, to complete the unlocking I needed to connect the phone with its original SIM card to iTunes.
Problem was, I no longer have the original SIM card.
Damn, I thought. Three stores and all that energy and I still may be unable to unlock the phone.
I resolved not to stress about it and to enjoy the ride along Riverside Park on a lovely day.
I called my sister to wish her happy Mother’s Day. I listened to a report by the BBC World Service about the new leader of South Africa’s main opposition.
I settled into the taxi, feeling assured by my effort and the initiative of the driver, who suggested a route that I knew made sense.
At home, my girlfriend gazed up from her work when I entered the apartment. I had stopped at a salad place and brought us both lunch.
I told her that I felt we were close to unlocking the phone, that I needed to try one more thing at the computer.
I went to my desk, inserted my girlfriend’s SIM card from T-Mobile into the iPhone and attached the phone to my computer. I double-clicked on iTunes. A message popped up to tell me that new settings from the carrier were available for download.
That seemed like a good sign. A few seconds after I accepted the settings a screen appeared. “Congratulations, your iPhone is unlocked,” it read.
I ejected the phone, adjusted the brightness of the display and walked into the living room to where my girlfriend sat on the couch, typing on her MacBook.
“Here’s your iPhone,” I said, handing the device to her.
She stood and embraced me. A breeze came through the window
Apple said last week that it earned $18 billion in the holiday quarter, up 38% from a year earlier, further cementing the computer maker’s place in the annals of business.
The Cupertino-based company earned more than nearly 90% of companies in the S&P 500 index each made in total profits since 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Apple could distribute $556 to all 320 million Americans, commented ReCode, which called the results a “blowout.”
Writing in the Times, James Stewart observed that Apple earned “more than any company ever in a single quarter.”
Much of the profit came from sales of the iPhone, which accounted for 69% of Apple’s revenue. “Demand for iPhone was staggering,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts. “This volume is hard to comprehend.”
Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones in the quarter at an average price of $687 apiece, or about $50 higher than a year earlier, according to the Journal. Much of that reflects the love consumers are showing the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. During the quarter, Apple sold 34,000 iPhones every hour of every day.
I’m citing these measures because for the past six months I’ve admired Apple’s creating a phone with a display whose size rivals smartphones from Samsung. As the Journal noted, “strong iPhone sales helped Apple claw back market share that it gave up to Samsung… in the past three years.”
Apple saw Samsung succeeding with bigger screens, so Apple made an iPhone with a bigger screen. I imagine that’s what MBA’s learn to do – to co-opt something that appears to be working for your rival – but the fact that Apple succeeded at it seems like a testament to the smarts, strategy and skill of Cook and his team.
What’s more interesting is the idea that Apple also is making room for the company’s watch, which is slated to ship in April. Quartz cites a tweet by Paul Kedrosky, a financial commentator, who notes that Apple’s introduction of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has created a “portability deficit” that in turn will make room for sales of the watch.
Still, two experiences I’ve had recently point to a problem with the move to macro and the design of smartphones generally. Last weekend I sold my iPhone 6, which proved to be too large for both my hand and my pocket. The phone felt uncomfortable in my hand compared with my iPhone 5c And note, my hand is medium size; I wear a size large glove. Plus, the plastic shell that encases the 5c allows the device to absorb my dropping it, which happens to lots of us, judging by all the cracked iPhone displays you see people holding and the offers by Radio Shack and others to replace glass.
Of course, as Apple’s earnings show, people love the larger phones. Within 30 minutes of my posting my iPhone 6 for sale on Craigslist, at least 15 people contacted me with offers to buy it. Yet weirdly, or not so weirdly, I’m happier with my 5c.
The other anecdote occurred Wednesday aboard the 3 train, where a woman of about 30 sat next to me. She juggled on her person an array of things, including a pink leather handbag and a black bag that she balanced on her lap. In her left hand she held a travel coffee mug, one of those that’s a ceramic version of a paper coffee cup but with a rubber lid that fits snugly. Hers had pink lipstick prints affixed to it. (The print was the same shade as the handbag.)
In her right hand the woman held a white iPhone 5s tuned to Spotify. She might have listened had she been able to retrieve and disentangle a set of earbuds from her left coat pocket without spilling the coffee, which she balanced momentarily between her knees the best one can while wearing a wool coat that extends to the thigh. Twice the woman tried to unbraid the earbuds, dropping them once before giving up entirely and shoving them back into her pocket.
Of course, the subway and, I suspect, every mode of public transportation in America, brims with people tethered by earbuds to smartphones. When you think about it, having to hold a smartphone in your hand while unsnarling earbuds, which looked awesome in those Apple commercials 14 years ago, requires a resoluteness that now makes earbuds seem like something that’s time to jettison. In short, they’re a restraint.
That, I imagine, may be where the watch and other so-called wearables figure. The watch reportedly will work with bluetooth headphones, allowing you to bypass your iPhone completely. If true, Apple may be arranging the market to suit its strategy. Regardless, when it comes to portability, it may be time, as someone once said, to think different.
The Times reported recently on a mission by Sarah Maguire, a 26-year-old yoga instructor who drove 30 miles to Covina, California from her home in Los Angeles to confront a thief who stole her iPhone.
Maguire, who located the phone via the Find My iPhone app on her computer, tracked the phone to a house on a quiet residential street. She knocked on the door. A large man, about 30, answered. “I think you have my iPhone,” she told him. The man produced Maguire’s phone and a second one that belonged to her roommate but not before denying he had taken them and closing the blinds in the living room, a gesture that creeped out Maguire. “When I told my mom what I did, she thought I was crazy,” Maguire recalled.
More people are following Maguire’s lead and resorting to self-help to get their phones back, according to the Times. Not suprisingly, law enforcement personnel advise against the practice. “It’s just a phone — it’s not worth losing your life over,” Commander Andrew Smith, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department, told the paper.
In my case the decision not to track down my missing iPhone was easy. That’s because my phone turned up in Algiers, where it last appeared on April 20, according to an email I received in April from Apple. In the Alergerian capital’s southeastern suburbs, along a highway that parallels the Mediterranean, the phone signaled its location.
I last held the phone, a black iPhone 5, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Paris. My partner and I had used the device to take photos from the back seat of a taxi that drove us from a hotel near the Palais de Congrés that we had checked out of to one in the Marais district. Shortly after entering our room we realized that somewhere along the way we had lost not just my phone but my partner’s iPhone too.
Calls to the taxi company, our former hotel and the organizers of a conference that my partner had attended produced no information about the devices’ whereabouts. That’s when I activated Find My iPhone.
The service turned up nothing. In the months since my partner and I have wondered occasionally what had become of the phones, which seemed to vanish like some pocket-size version of Malaysia Airlines Flight 730. Thus the email that arrived in April startled me. “Allah inoub kho was found near Inter Ouartier Route Algiers at 4:02 a.m.,” read the message. “Your iPhone’s last reported location will be available for 24 hours.”
On its journey from the French capital the phone seems to have received a new name, which translates loosely as “Allah is the greatest.” That’s all the information I have. The phone hasn’t checked in with Apple since then.
We live in world where, thanks to technology, our phones can ping us from anywhere. We can view maps that will pinpoint street corners and outposts where we’ve never set foot. Yet the technology confirms what we already knew intuitively. Our phone is somewhere else, just not where we happen to be.
Phones may be capable of being tracked, but that doesn’t make them less likely to be stolen. More than 3.1 million smartphones were stolen last year, nearly double the number swiped in 2012, according to Consumer Reports. Many of the phones lifted end up overseas where a market for them thrives, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon told Consumers.
Though many owners use Find My iPhone and other apps to block their phones, the barriers provide little protection in the black market. An investigation by the BBC this spring found at least eight shops in London that trade in stolen smartphones. All the phones that trafickers described to the BBC had blocking. Thieves defeat the blocking by changing the phones’ International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, or IMEI, a number that is stamped in the battery compartments of most smartphones.
All the phones used had ‘find-my-phone’ style blocks activated, and in theory their IMEI numbers mean they are not useable once reported stolen.
But Grant Roughley, of Essential Forensics, demonstrated to the BBC how simple it was to get around such features – using only a laptop.
He was able to give a device a new IMEI number – effectively changing the phone’s fingerprint – meaning it could be used as normal.
And restoring the phone’s default software removes “find-my-phone” protection.
Mr Roughley said: “Just a few mouse clicks and the phone is turned from a paperweight back to a useable device again. A phone stolen this morning could be back on the streets by this afternoon, packaged up as a second hand legitimate phone.”
Wireless carriers have said that starting in the middle of next year, smartphones sold in the U.S. will have a feature that enables users to erase the data in their phone remotely. However, even if the service works as billed it won’t address the problem of phones that leave the U.S. and become reactiviated abroad by carriers that don’t participate in the system, Consumers notes.
Some members of Congress agree. In February, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation that would require phones to have a so-called “kill switch” that would enable the owner to erase the device’s data remotely, render the phone inoperable and prevent the phone from being reprogrammed or reactivated without an authorization from its owner.
“Under the requirements of the bill, if the kill switch is activated, there is nothing for international carriers to do because they won’t be able to turn the device back on,” Serrano told Consumers. A similar measure pending in the California Assembly would go a step further by requiring that smartphones sold in the state be sold with the kill switch turned on so that consumers won’t have to do anything to secure their devices.
In the meantime, Allah inoub kho belongs to someone else. My latest phone is a robin’s-egg blue iPhone 5C, which I like very much. Both my former phone and I have moved on.
