Apple Computers recently filed for a US Patent on technology to help identify by location, by photograph, by voice recording, even by “heartbeat” the person in possession of a stolen iPhone. The patent application can be viewed online here. At Symantec, we’ve long been concerned about what happens when smart phones get stolen, since we all increasingly are storing very valuable information on them. On my own Blackberry, I send and receive my corporate email, I store my contacts and I login to my social network using the specialty applications. Should my cell phone get lost or stolen, I would be very concerned about someone cracking my password and accessing my stored data.
In the press reports about the patent, the implication has been that, instead of this patent being used to aid the user whose property has been stolen in retrieving the device, catching the thief or wiping the smartphone’s contents remotely, it will be used by Apple to punish users who “jailbreak” their phones.
In yesterday’s CNET story, there’s an emphasis on language about “unauthorized users.” Here’s an excerpt:
The company has applied for a patent, titled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device," that covers a series of security measures to automatically protect devices from thieves and other "unauthorized users." Unauthorized users apparently applies to those who engage in jailbreaking, which allows devices to run apps not approved by the company producing the operating system--such as Apple, the main target of such bypasses.
OK, fair enough. It’s hard for those of us outside any particular firm to predict how the patent will be used. It’s unusual for regular consumers to contribute opinions on patents since most of them are obscure, use highly technical language or describe only a very specific achievement or invention that is part of a much larger project. On CNET’s article so far, there are 180 comments, and many hundreds of postings via Twitter, Facebook and Digg. You can’t over-estimate the passion of the Apple fanboy community nor the ire of technology lovers whose fire is lit over figuring out new and better ways to use systems like the iPhone. Most of my friends with iPhones who’ve jailbroken them did so in order to use the device more, not less. They did so out of their devotion to the form factor and their need for customization not found within the protected walls of the Apple App Store.
I’m sure we’ll see more details emerge in the coming months, both about Apple’s plan for the technology and from the user base as to their opinion of the issue. Meanwhile, I encourage the majority of smartphone users to set a password on their device. An estimated 67% of us apparently don’t take even this basic step towards smartphone security.