Database Info

Theft alarm

Does any one know of a theft alarm that will give a warning when my mobile is away from the receiver (in my pocket) more than a certain distance? Maybe built on RFID technology or blue tooth?

Your question made me imagine a phone tied by a piece of string to one of your pockets, so if someone jerks it out without you noticing, it would also jerk your pants. lol

that would be the simplest solution; still, I prefer technology, a very tiny transmitter hidden in the mobile, preferably a passive RFID tag so it will not contain a battery which then will be paired to a receiver that can only detect this tag. If the mobile is out of range, a buzzer and vibrating alarm is activated in the receiver.
I know that this seems possible, however, current RFID readers are priced in Ks of $, and this will not make it feasible for every one to buy it.
There are some alarms in the market with the same idea but built on different technology, their problem is that the transmitter is noticeable and the thief can simply remove them the moment he picks the mobile.
http://www.tradekey.com/selloffer_view/id/887081.htm

ok so you are running late for work and forget to put the non mobile side of the detector on your person one morning, you get part of the way out the door up the street and your phone starts buzzing and beeping like crazy.... run back to pick up the chip???
yeah if you really want this that bad string sounds good.

cktlcmd said:
Your question made me imagine a phone tied by a piece of string to one of your pockets, so if someone jerks it out without you noticing, it would also jerk your pants. lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also, if the phone slip of your hand, the string will prevent it from drop to the floor. Not a bad idea, expecially you get two protections for the price of one.

If you carved some gooves into the side of the phone you could make a yoyo too.

come on guys, where I live, 3 out of 5 mobile owners had their mobiles theft at least once, if we use the string alarm, I imagine every one walking down the street is screaming out of pain because a thief tried to steal his mobile and had to let go when he found it stringed, this sudden release hearts I think

phones are considered disposable technology these days, i remember a few years back when insurance companies in australia use to offer insurance on phone theft but no one really bothered with it much.
if someone wants my phone badly enough to try and take it from my pocket i garentee there will be some sort of weapon involved and they will want my wallet and keys too and that being the case they can have it.
also considering that most people are aware that a phone can be tracked via the cell network who would buy it? its not like you will pay $50 down the pub for it knowing that someone would have reported it stolen and ur average thief aint smart enough to know how to change the IMEI number nor would anyone who is stupid enough to buy a $50 phone at a pub with half a string attached to it (LMAO)

st3v3 said:
phones are considered disposable technology these days, i remember a few years back when insurance companies in australia use to offer insurance on phone theft but no one really bothered with it much.
if someone wants my phone badly enough to try and take it from my pocket i garentee there will be some sort of weapon involved and they will want my wallet and keys too and that being the case they can have it.
also considering that most people are aware that a phone can be tracked via the cell network who would buy it? its not like you will pay $50 down the pub for it knowing that someone would have reported it stolen and ur average thief aint smart enough to know how to change the IMEI number nor would anyone who is stupid enough to buy a $50 phone at a pub with half a string attached to it (LMAO)
Click to expand...
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Obviously you have not been on any poor parts of the world, based on your opinion. But in reality, there are parts of the world where cell phones don't have insurance, and they do sell it on the nearby pub, and people actually will buy them believe it or not. Just my observation.
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where I live, it is exactly as what cktlcmd described, a phone may cost the salary of several months to some people, police can not track all of them and they get stolen only when you loose your attention for one moment (it takes less than 30 seconds of not paying attention to loose your mobile as per statistics), so may be a theft alarm does not sound feasible where st3v3 lives, but here, it sure is. Besides, loosing the data and having someone looking at your personal data is what hearts more.

hatamata said:
where I live, it is exactly as what cktlcmd described, a phone may cost the salary of several months to some people, police can not track all of them and they get stolen only when you loose your attention for one moment (it takes less than 30 seconds of not paying attention to loose your mobile as per statistics), so may be a theft alarm does not sound feasible where st3v3 lives, but here, it sure is. Besides, loosing the data and having someone looking at your personal data is what hearts more.
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Click to collapse
point taken but having the phone vibrate and beep still isnt going to act as much of a deterant, a running thief will just keep running!

hatamata said:
Besides, loosing the data and having someone looking at your personal data is what hearts more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Backup frequently (automatically - see my Backup Bible at http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=1270&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 ) and use a Secure Information Manager. The four best are:
CodeWallet Pro (Developer One, Inc., www.developerone.com)
eWallet Professional (Ilium Software, www.iliumsoft.com)
FlexWallet (WebIS, Inc., www.webis.net)
Spb Wallet (Spb Software House, www.spbsoftwarehouse.com)

st3v3 said:
point taken but having the phone vibrate and beep still isnt going to act as much of a deterant, a running thief will just keep running!
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Click to collapse
Not the phone that will vibrate, it is the receiver which should be in my pocket
As for Menneisyys's back up idea, it sure will save most data but not all of it, still, it will not prevent others from seeing my sensitive data stored on the phone.

hatamata said:
where I live, it is exactly as what cktlcmd described, a phone may cost the salary of several months to some people, police can not track all of them and they get stolen only when you loose your attention for one moment (it takes less than 30 seconds of not paying attention to loose your mobile as per statistics)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that there are countries where a phone cost a few months of salary.. but I'm pretty sure that in those countries, there are always cheaper alternatives. E.g. India's gazillion-aire may buy an A380 as private jet.. build a tower as his own house.. but they do have pretty cheap cars (as I heard, £1,000+). Hence, I don't really understand when people are willing to spend several month of salary on a phone. If that's the case, then probably that's a risk they have to take. E.g., you don't get a convertible car in China unless you are prepared to hire body guards.
AND, if that phone is going to cost the person buying the phone x months of salary, I would think it would cost y (where y > x) months of salary for the person who is stealing it, and some beeping gadgets will not do the job. The beeping gadget will probably make a `theft` to a `robbery`, I think.
Anyway, cute beeping gadget .

hatamata said:
Not the phone that will vibrate, it is the receiver which should be in my pocket
As for Menneisyys's back up idea, it sure will save most data but not all of it, still, it will not prevent others from seeing my sensitive data stored on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can encrypt everything on, say, your card in the background - WM6 already supports this. Also, there already are Remote Wipe solutions.

[Q] Things that irritate about phones in general

Although the subject is rather troll like I hope I can do it in a non troll way.
There's a number of things that are really hacking me off about phones these days. I thought I'd have a major slam out to let off steam with the off-chance that someone might say "Ah but if you try X you can avoid that".
...some of the challenges in the mobile phone area these days...
1) Battery capacities aren't good enough as we all know. Getting through a single day is really the basics for me. Why not have hot swappable batteries? For me I expect to be able to go for 3-4 days. I don't know why... I just kind of expect that kind of efficiency.
2) Samsung Galaxy series... seems amazing but the batteries overheat, no?
3) So many people are ignorant of security to the point that most people are walking around with devices and apps that can just completely own you. Yeah there's sandboxing but it doesn't really work, it's been sidestepped. The iPhone just hides what's going on, rarely fixing the issues.
4) Licensing, all that stuff. Companies reinventing the wheel, fighting, all the rest. You can't buy a phone that does X and Y because company X won't license tech X to company Y
5) Trying to get everything perfect in one device... it's a bit of an ask but needed for portability. If things were separate we could have the better of most worlds, but that doesn't seem possible
6) Closed source. Just a bit irritating to see the inefficiency of it all in general. Bit of a hash moan but for those who can imagine better it seems like the dark ages in some areas still.
7) Closed source binary blobs. See Replicant on Samsung phones as the best we can do... the modem is arranged such messily and it's just not true a solution because of that. Kind of irritates me that there is no phone that can really guarantee it's not recording my phone numbers, conversations and credit cards because it's fully open source. Certainly an issue for companies. Companies in general are happy to rely on the word of Blackberry for thier integrity but for those of us who can imagine a solution that is secure by design it's not the best.
8) App whitelisting. Similar to the reactive rather than proactive security we tend to see as the trend in general. Manually checking all apps in the app store, trying to block and check them all.... doesn't seem the best. We've also had censorship. There are alternative stores, that's good.
9) Wakelocks. The Dalvik VM not managing or helping us track them down. Further, it's hard to tell if the app that you want to use is going to shaft your battery... once installed it's hard to tell if the app is ruining your battery too. It's messy.
10) IMEI security is a pain in the butt. It slows down the criminals but it also slows down everyone more so. In the case of Turkey it's another way to screw people with tax. Again, imperfect design.
11) As a man, if you have a phone at waist level that reduces your sperm count. Almost nobody notices or cares.
12) Just the usual society things... people looking at phones rather than each other. Can't really complain about that... the interface of looking at a screen is a bit basic. I've had speech recognition available to me... but I don't use it because there's always people around me and I'd rather be quiet... just one of those funny inventions
13) Screen don't work in bright sunlight still. We've got Motheye coming though which is great but we've had eink for ages and still no eink phone. Further, it can't be hacked onto an existing phone. Some of us aren't interested in games and movies and are focussed on getting stuff done. I feel Mirasol & PixelQi are being blocked or delayed as they try to slow things down until the point we've run out of ideas to make things better so only then does that tech get deployed.
14) Networks interfering with phones. I always go prepay because it's cheaper if you do the maths in many countries and also it allows for freer trade. Networks are always trying to get thier fingers into the mobile phone pies. Thank you Samsung for helping get against that, and also custom ROMs.
15) Apple are great but it's not clear what's going on behind the scenes.
16) eink displays would help battery life. A NookTouch can last for a month. How much would that help a phone on standby? Yet no eink display or anything like that.
17) Great to see the back of proprietary connectors but they still come back sometimes.
18) I hate the way things are made to break. Watch out for this. There's usually one thing on a phone that is designed to break. Sometimes it's a moveable part, like a ribbon cable in a slide phone. Sometimes its the USB connector. You can't buy port savers. When they fail you're screwed. Mitigate against this if you can. Try to figure out what the weak spot on your phone is.
19) Lock in software. I have an old backup phone... but I still have to keep the sync software... bit annoying. One day it probably won't work on Windows9 or whatever. People say throw it away but that's just it, throw away society. No, fix it, get it to work and be in control.
All of these things can be mitigated against. But you have to think about these things when you select your new phone.
If the commercialisation of the industry, cut throat tactics and so on aren't good enough as they are for me one thing you can do is buy a slightly older, but popular phone. In my case I never buy a new phone and instead go for something that I already know is popular with the hacking community. I know you guys can give me an insight into what I'm really looking for in life. As an example my last phone was a Galaxy S i9000. Way out of date in a sense. That's the way I find the best way to go. Go with something popular. That way you have some real support like a real man able to handle things yourself, not AppleCare and a 1 year limit. A philosophy for life. You can't have it all but with a bit of thought you can do a lot to get a bit closer to it all.

[REQNET] A Letter of Influence

Wasn't to certain on where to stick this so Mod please feel free to move if needed.
I think when we look at motivation these days we find ourselves to get. a little more unmotivated. There's just no true value anymore it seems. Well, today I wanted to take some time out to write to every Dev and anyone inspiring to be one and I hope it reaches out to some of you as an influence rather than motivation. I feel being influenced will drive you to do what you love, influence is the foundation of what motivation derives from. I shouldn't have to feel motivated because I am influenced self-motivation is already there and established. I can't tell you how many times I have stayed up for 2 days straight coding away, and refusing to accept 'No' as the only possible answer has paid off.*
When I first started I heard a quote, and a man came on through the audio of my computer while watching youtube and the man quoted in the video and it goes as follows.
"The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry our their dream." -Les Brown
Thinking about that made me realize that if I was to be truly happy in life, I'd first have to be influenced as self-sustained happiness should always come from within first or you will only do more bad than good with those around you. I guess bad and good are self-opinionated definitions and argument able through the eyes of each individual dependent on terms. The moral of it is, *if you can always give a happy version of you than those around you will always want to be around you and in turn hoping so, they may also be inspired.
Before I get too far down the topic I want to say I worked multiple jobs, Real Estate, Cellular, Insurance, Medical and at first they were all great. What I found out is I got burned out. The last thing we look at a mostly atlas to me Is what I love to do. What I love to do has been plagued by society as something not of true work, unless you build multi-million dollar companies from home, I am sorry to say a job like being a full-time Dev reliant on income from people via unlocking or rooting or device customization services isn't exactly eye-popping, After hearing that quote I looked at my wife and I told her "I'm going all in on something, I want you to trust me, and I will never work for another man again." I got tired of protocol from HR groups who didn't even step foot in the office that builds and structures the corporate foundation.*
I started with getting my hands on an HTC MyTouch and following that an HD2 running Gingerbread. I soon needed my service unlocked and I ended up than meeting with a guy named Jeff who a year later would be sentenced to prison for unfortunate reasons. While working with Jeff he should me how the Windows CMD and Os terminal operate and how just by reforming command arguments you can create exploits in the smallest of areas and depend on what you're doing bigger ones as well. I was inthralled with the logic from it and my immediate response was "This was way too technical." right there I determined my success or failure and for months went with no break through and hating the 9-5.*
I decided I'd pick it back up only after being unemployed a bit, I was bored, tiredness and needed something to do while the wife slept. I hopped on and I started watching and reading guides via youtube and XDA and really the one thing I think I least looked at or kind of refuse to because of being lazy was the tools provided to do a lot of the work for you. Ask yourself that before you even decided to code something, or before even knowing how. We viewed it in a term of having to manually write it line for line, we never seen the tools first. The moment I got my hands on those tools and the understanding of relative arguments and manipulating arguments to produce the opposite response I was hooked. I was so driven even now I still love to just pick apart a room and it's OS even if I feel it may be a dead end I can find myself lost for hours in building.
What stops people is other peoples opinion, not just friends but the real important ones. How many of you without looking at your family first have had a stranger or someone not too close to you tell you "you can't-do something" I think we all have, now how many times can you see in that light, that those closest to you told you that you can't-do something? For most of us, the ones we care more about have the most affect. They are no different then a strangers opinion, self-happiness is yours to have in the most selfish right and with that comes sacrifice, if your wife is going to leave you because she can't accept the time it takes to build a dream, let her go. It's selfishness, see because her personal happiness would have a based upon the value of you removing yours to increase hers. Not that in that point in time it would hold much weight but it does add up, and that negativity mounting faster than your Hard disk to your computer after a late night computer software sabotage from rage. I am happy to say my wife has stuck by mysids on sometimes days with no sleep and damn near losing my mind. We both continue to smile and be happy because our love is depended on the pretense and communication of one another and she knows I can go all the way and get the dream job or build the dream company one day when my reputation reaches that level.*
What I'm getting at is code has forever changed my life, XDA and it guides and it's such humble, kind and trust user base has kept me going. I know I haven't been active and this looks like a new account, but I never leaked, I only helped people physically learn. I used it as the dictionary to my new found passion. I decided to join here to repay that honor, to teach those wanting to learn and to provide roms and builds to some devices that go unnoticed. I know what it's like not having much and not a great phone and wanting a great phone. To create software to give even the slowest of phones that boost or that drive or that deadening it needs to adhere to the persons wants and needs in relevance to speed or performance is important.*
So lastly I thank you, and I want you all to know that I am still here working, I own my own work from home company, intact 3 of them just this one is developing so I stay busy but it pays off. Don't forget to make time for those who give you encouragement, you will need someone there to pick you up when no alternative option has been presented within yourself. My wife and my friends and not to be cheesy have seen me to the point where being behind on the bills and getting evicted has done to me, but I kept going. In my head I would wake up on day's where I felt suicide was a peace of mind, it wasn't I was just tired, I was emotionally drained. I stepped back a few days, worked to make some money on other services I naturally was good at and I paid the bills because I learned from that eviction. *I went back to coding a few days later with a clear mind. To all of you, do not trust your emotions when you are tired or angry, you will only do things that you naturally wouldn't do. As an example thing of what creates an argument with someone and what makes someone laugh. 9/10 that argument will be a topic that has been an issue and just like issues it gets worse the more you talk about it. Learn to leave things alone also it's not a bad thing, just take a break. With all that done, doing this job has never been so amazing. I look forward to meeting all of you and I hope this acts as a letter to those experienced to keep going, your work is appreciated very much. I get to read scripts and learn more things and more work arounds then I KNEW. Have the power to accept you haven't mastered anything and you still have everything to learn.*
God Bless
TheCodeDev

Well i got a question att note 10 +

I know i am probably going to catch some heat. But anybody know how to carrier unlock this thing for free aside from asking att because i know answer because I tried . so i can use boost mobile. Read my story below to understand why I’m asking.
so back in mid 2020 me and my wife (who cant physically work) fell on hard times which resulted in our phone bill getting cut off and keep on growing, well back this December we got enough money to get me a phone for work, lg51 on boost mobile (cheapest best phone walmart had). (It’s junk) still can’t afford our bill plus imei check shows bill unpaid. I have tried a lot of places and either they want a lot of money or cant do it. I know I should be happy with what i have (which i am) but i miss the function of my note it’s easier to type on and see in daylight.
Thank you

TexasPride said:
I know i am probably going to catch some heat. But anybody know how to carrier unlock this thing for free aside from asking att because i know answer because I tried . so i can use boost mobile. Read my story below to understand why I’m asking.
so back in mid 2020 me and my wife (who cant physically work) fell on hard times which resulted in our phone bill getting cut off and keep on growing, well back this December we got enough money to get me a phone for work, lg51 on boost mobile (cheapest best phone walmart had). (It’s junk) still can’t afford our bill plus imei check shows bill unpaid. I have tried a lot of places and either they want a lot of money or cant do it. I know I should be happy with what i have (which i am) but i miss the function of my note it’s easier to type on and see in daylight.
Thank you
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Contact me . I can help u . It's cheap but not free

Update, well after talking with a company (google search) if i do get it unlocked it will work but may be permanent locked which would need a new imei, etc at the tune of $150. I would love to have my note work like it used to.
My wife has a family member who is smarter then i with tech but he hasn't responded to her messages due to past issues in the family.
I can use my note but i would have to take the lg with me to hotspot which im data capped at 15gb (for data/hotspot) then its low speed.
All i know is playing the same game (sweet escapes) on both note 10+ 5g and the k51. The k51 lags hardcore and freezes up even on max performance the other phone i can play any game (i run max performance for games) and never have any issues.

AT&T never forgets.
They will hound you until you come to terms with them. Talk to them and try to work out an arrangement you can honor... no harm in trying.
Don't use a bandaid when you really need a battle dressing... or a tourniquet.
Filing for bankruptcy may be a viable option at this point to restructure your debts and to start rebuilding your credit. If after 3 years of trying to repay all your debts doesn't work you can use a chapter 7 to have the debts completely wiped*. Bush screwed up the bankruptcy laws bad. If you qualify for Chapter 7 now and owe more than $20G, do it now.
* you keep your house if you own one, your car and most if not all of your personal property. A fresh start. Banks will offer you credit almost as soon as it's finalized.

How can I test to see if a phone was compromised by law enforcement?

Phone: Samsung S20 5G FE
Just to set a tone, this phone 'disappeared' from a hotel room occupied by an organizer of the 2022 Ottawa Canada protests, after the room was combed over by Police/RCMP, as well as other devices and documents. The phone was later 'found' back in the room and started behaving strangely with other people's photos and messages appearing randomly.
The owner of the phone contacted me and asked if I could help, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this stuff and simply told them it would be best to reset the device and stop using it. They did that, then bought a new phone and gave this one to me, telling me "you can have it, do what ever you want, sell it or try to fix it, its yours".
Obviously I haven't used it for anything.
I would like to at least know if it is compromised and if there is any way to 'fix' it. I don't want to waste money paying to have the bootloader unlocked on it if rom flashing won't clean it. Or if I wouldn't even be able to tell.
Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

Reflash it to the original rom. Change Google and any other applicable account passwords.
Done.

Ok, I'll go through the unlocking process and flash a new rom to it.
Out of curiosity would this remove anything they could have used on it? Even if it was something like Pegasus? I would assume it would but I'm not sure if they have anything that works on a lower level.
Sorry if that might sound like I'm over thinking, but they spent a lot of time and money trying to track the people organizing the protests and anything is on the table. Some of the stuff I've heard about that wasn't public knowledge is pretty unbelievable.

MrCool00236 said:
Ok, I'll go through the unlocking process and flash a new rom to it.
Out of curiosity would this remove anything they could have used on it? Even if it was something like Pegasus? I would assume it would but I'm not sure if they have anything that works on a lower level.
Sorry if that might sound like I'm over thinking, but they spent a lot of time and money trying to track the people organizing the protests and anything is on the table. Some of the stuff I've heard about that wasn't public knowledge is pretty unbelievable.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Toss the device if really concerned.
If the DOD, FBI, etc are surveilling you in earnest, you likely won't pick off all their tiers of surveillance.

They aren't watching me, honestly, I was never involved in, at, or around any of the events, just distant buddies with one of the guys. I just have this phone, it's practically brand new, and feel it would be such a waste to toss it, I mean I could sell it I suppose.
I just, as anyone even mildly concerned about privacy, would rather not have anyone much less government officials snooping on everything I do. It would make a great phone for those rare times I need to install some scummy app to set up a device from aliexpress or otherwise. Or other similar tasks. Just rather know I cleaned it up before I go ahead and connect it to the same network as every other device in my house.
As an aside, I do see this as a good leaning opportunity. No matter how small I never pass those up. Just hope I'm not coming off as someone who's completely tinfoil hat, or hell bent on saving a device.

Rule #1- physical security is the only real security!