Does anyone know how to prevent Celluar Data and WiFi from being turned off, or is this a huge oversight by Apple? All a thief needs to do after stealing your iPhone is to turn both these off and the iPhone can't be found.
I'm not trying to argue, Michael, but I never mentioned this as an issue of security. The "oversight" that I mentioned is not something that would have been purposely left out because it would interfere with convenience. I know there is no absolute protection, but little things like this seem simple enough that I'm surprised Apple hasn't noticed them. Another example, would be that if you had your auto lock set to any amount of time, anyone who picks up your phone before it autolocks can go to settings and change that to Never without being required to enter your passcode.
Not arguing, just discussing, I thought.
The passcode lock does have the option of kicking back in within a minute though, which is pretty short. Or, you can just get in the habit of every time you put the phone down, pless the on/off/sleep button to activate the lock (assuming you have it set to lock immediately).
Limiting access to wifi or cellular data though adds a layer of inconvenience I think most people would complain about. And it doesn't get past the issue that the thief/finder just needs to press and hold the power button and slide to turn off. Then turn it on later long enough to wipe it and restore as new. Either way, find my iPhone will have been completely negated, so why bother with restricting wifi or cellular data settings? I just see no gain to Apple even paying their iOS developers to bother implementing it.
Just my opinion, but some things are just not worth bothering about, and in this case I think that applies. The inherent limitations of the find feature just make it pointless (they even caught some kids in NYC who had foil pouches in their pockets, the heavy guage kind for long term food storage use, for dropping stolen iPhone's, Blackberrys and others into to block cell reception until they could take them out somewhere with no signal and ransack them). Its just so easy to defeat a network based location system that it gets silly trying to protect it's functions when many simple ways to defeat it will always exist.
Just my way of saying I don't think it was an oversight by Apple at all. I think they just deliberately ignored it as it there was no gain to implementing any such restrictions.
Actually, all a thief needs to to is to turn the PHONE off, or remove the SIM. As Tim said, if you have a passcode on the phone a thief cannot turn off cellular data or WiFi. But that is irrelevant to solving the problem.
geekjon wrote:
Does anyone know how to prevent Celluar Data and WiFi from being turned off, or is this a huge oversight by Apple? All a thief needs to do after stealing your iPhone is to turn both these off and the iPhone can't be found.
Or, they could just turn it off until they can get to a computer and restore it as new.
As mentioned, use a passcode lock, and even use another lock in settings->restrictions to disallow changes to accounts or location services (in case someone snatches it while unlocked and has time to use it before it autolocks again).
Find my iPhone is NOT a security feature - it is a convenience feature for those who misplace their iphone. The primary security feature on an iPhone is the passcode lock feature.
Yes, the passcode is the obvious answer, however there are times when the phone could be swiped before it has locked itself. Also, by not turning the phone off, but instead just disabling WiFi and Cellular Data, the thief would then have a working phone and could make calls without being tracked.
Michael
Michael Black wrote:
As mentioned, use a passcode lock, and even use another lock in settings->restrictions to disallow changes to accounts or location services (in case someone snatches it while unlocked and has time to use it before it autolocks again).
This is the point of my question. Accounts and locations services can be restricted, but not something as simple as WiFi and Cellular Data.
if you set up the passcode lock to require the passcode immediately, and with autolock set to the minimum of 1 minute, then the odds of someone grabbing it and having enough time to disable wifi or go into airplane mode is pretty slim.
There is no way to have any kind of absolute security, and the tighter you want your security, the greater the inconvience in use you will have to tolerate.
Again, I think anyone who actually views the find feature as a serious security feature views the world through rose colored glasses. There is no security associated with the find feature at all - it is a mere convenience that may be useful to some people under some circumstances and nothing more. Making the changes you suggest would do nothing at all to make it any more of a security feature - it would still be nothing more than a convenience feature.
Maybe I'm just not thinking like a thief 😉 , but I'm sure not all phones are stolen with the intent to sell, but instead to use temporarily. In order for the phone to be used, it must be on, and "on" and "untraceable" gives a thief more time in this case.
geekjon wrote:
Another example, would be that if you had your auto lock set to any amount of time, anyone who picks up your phone before it autolocks can go to settings and change that to Never without being required to enter your passcode.
No, because to change the passcode lock setting you must enter the passcode. Give it a try.
Lawrence Finch wrote:
geekjon wrote:
Another example, would be that if you had your auto lock set to any amount of time, anyone who picks up your phone before it autolocks can go to settings and change that to Never without being required to enter your passcode.
No, because to change the passcode lock setting you must enter the passcode. Give it a try.
Not so for the autolock time.
The iPhone is so well known though, that I suspect most thiefs know they just need to restore it as new and they can use it forever themselves with no risk, or sell it (and there is a huge market apparently for stolen smart phones, or so the news articles I've seen say).
Assuming you are aware it has been stolen (which is presupposed in the first post) a call to your carrier will disable the phone immediately, so the thief won't be able to make many calls.
You are now imagining that a thief will steal your phone while it is unlocked, and rather than run fast enough to get away will start making phone calls within one minute. This seems to me to be a highly improbably use case and not something that I would go to much trouble to design for.
Lawrence Finch wrote:
You are now imagining that a thief will steal your phone while it is unlocked, and rather than run fast enough to get away will start making phone calls within one minute. This seems to me to be a highly improbably use case and not something that I would go to much trouble to design for.
Granted, I am thinking of a very specific case, but it doesn't take but 5 seconds to set autolock to never and there would be no need to run. A good pickpocket doesn't need to run 🙂
I don't think it would be much trouble for Apple to restrict access to the Cellular Data switch whenever something like Accounts or Locations Services are restricted.
Anyway, I think we are going in circles now. Both sides made valid points.
Put a passcode on the phone, then they can't get to the settings to shut them off.
Prevent Celluar Data and WiFi from being turned off?
