i have recently lost my iphone 4. i had installed "find my iphone" app too. is it possible to erase the firmware without connecting to internet (apple servers)?

You can always send your feedback to Apple at http://www.apple.com/feedback/

I actually do have the "wipe after 10 failed attempts" enabled for my passcode. My personal perspective is, if lost or stolen (and assuming you do not find it quickly, like just misplaced in your home or something), your chances of recovering it with find my iPhone are slim to none at best. Any data-connection-dependent method of remotely tracking a mobile device is just too easily defeated to be worth much, IMHO. There have even been news reports of savvy thiefs keeping those heavy guage metal-foil plastic bags in their pockets to drop stolen phones into - the foil pretty much cuts of radio reception so the device immediately goes offline, even though powered on. It is thus immediately unfindable.

The USA is now rushing to implement a shared system of IMEI information to block all phones reported by their owners as stolen - being a shared stolen database system, it is hoped all carriers will participate and thus block all stolen US phones on all US networks.

However, other news information would indicate this will do little to curb theft of smart phones. According to the FBI, one of the prime reasons for smart phone theft has nothing at all to do with resale value of the stolen phone itself, but personal information and identity theft. Since it seems it is such very common knowledge that most smart phones use no password protection at all, they have become prime targets for what is on them, not for the phones themselves.

So along with IMEI blocking to stop resale of stolen phones, if everyone began using passcodes on their devices, thieves would then truly have no reason to bother stealing smart phones or tablets. But as long as there are 100's of millions of unsecured devices out there, there will be theft, and lots of it - it is a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise, peddling other people's personal information and identity.

Michael Black wrote:

...after 10 failed password attempts, they are locked out until they restore the device in iTunes....

Note that while someone was trying to guess the passcode, if the iPhone had the find my iPhone feature enabled, and if it had a data connection (3G or wifi) it would be findable from your iCloud account - someone has to be able to unlock the device to get in to disable find my iPhone (which can be further secured as well by disabling account changes in restrictions, using a different passcode to get into the restrictions settings themselves). They could remove the SIM card which would effectively cut off cellular data connections, but if there was a wifi node available that the iPhone was enabled to connect to, then find my iphone would also still work.

I have always known that a smart thief, upon encountering a passcode, would immediately hard-off, pull the SIM card, use a foil bag etc. as you mentioned in your last post. It's the dumb thief I was hoping to thwart, and actually to entice to fiddle with my iphone, to give me a prayer of getting it back via location tracking.

That the "you just TRY to guess my password!" process can take some time, and also requires a dumb thief (or an ID-snatcher), made me question whether Location Services might function during these attempts. I hoped it would, and you have confirmed it.

Congratulations Michael you have brought me around to your POV and convinced me that a login passcode is the better choice. For the inconvenience, I get to completely foil a would-be ID-snatcher, but if a dumb thief gets the phone there's still a prayer that Location Services will show me where he is.

Thank you very much for sharing your exceedingly valuable experience, and your patience!

🙂

Yeah, another convert! Seriously though, while of course everyone is free to make their own choices, I do think that the use of a passcode is worth the inconvience overall. There really is no such as perfectly convenient security, well, at least until the star trek tricorder comes out and they put in a brainwave proximity sensor that ties it to the owner. 😉

Michael Black wrote:

I do think that the use of a passcode is worth the inconvience overall.

I had to talk my wife into a passcode; she didn't want it of course. I told her "but the internet is full of people who didn't plan for the possibilities..." and she bought-in. THEN I found-out in testing that a passcode is NOT required when answering the iPhone (and it immediately goes dark/enables passcode when ending a call) so the "inconvenience factor" is even less than I'd imagined.

I like your brainwave-proximity idea. As it is, we need a bluetooth keyfob that beeps when my iPhone is no longer within 5 feet or something (hmm a quick Bing and these exist i guess). Then we need a way to track the keyfob. Then we need a way to track the keyfob tracker...argh!

😝👿😁

Thanks again MB.