Jeff Andros wrote:
simple... display contact info(email, friend's phone number, etc) to
return the phone at the login screen...
This will be a pretty good reason even for quite dumb evildoers (who is
not willing to return device to you on their own) to reflash device with
default\empty image to get rid of this info to make device looking like
their own.And location tracking will stopped by reflashing as well.The
only way to avoid this scenario is to make such people to believe that
device is in almost its default state without any restrictions set and
is not going to act "against" them so they will leave current firmware
as is and it can still silently track phone's coordinates and report
them to a real owner, giving a good chances to get your device back even
if those who uses your device did not planned to return it to you.
I think my old(~2000 ish) WM PDA had an option to do that... people
can't get into the phone itself, but they can figure out how to get
ahold of you
Yep, in IDEAL world filled with only good people it can work.But in REAL
world lots of people will prefer not to return device to you but rather
to remove stupid lock and use device on their own or sell it to
someone.It is not too hard to remove lock and hence chances to get your
device back are not very high and depend too much on who is a new device
owner.If this is good person with fair intentions who is willing to
return device, this will help.But if for example some a$$hole has just
stolen your device, do you really expect (s)he will return device to
you?Unlikely I guess ;).However, if phone (silently!) reports too you
locations where "a$$hole" can be found, it is quite trivial to get your
device back.However this tactic requires that new owner to believe that
device does not restricts it's usage in any way, etc.Adding info about
owner slightly increases chances that device will be reflashed to reset
this info, etc.Setting a "hard" lock will cause quite high probability
that device will be reflashed\unlocked to get rid of lock.
--
Jeff
O|||||||O
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