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Comment by lorenzhs | Hacker News Reader

Why stop there? It could broadcast some (authenticated) "I'm a stolen iPhone" message to other iPhones nearby. Maybe a Bluetooth beacon that any iPhone with Bluetooth enabled could pick up and report to Apple servers. I'm not sure how technically feasible this is but at least in high-density urban areas this might work.

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>> "It could broadcast some (authenticated) "I'm a stolen iPhone" message to other iPhones nearby."

Why not have Siri yell 'Im a stolen iPhone' full volume with the volume switch disabled.

To much power consumption when the phone would likely be already out of the public. But certainly an option

Could just phone the police, "Hello I'm an iphone, I am being stolen, my GPS coordinates are ..., and here's a photo of the face of the thief"

Or it could just shock the person holding it until they drop it and run away http://youtu.be/tMa-lwxXWjY

On a serious note, none of these options seem desirable if the Apple account is compromised.

Maybe a good Apple Watch use case. As soon as the phone is stolen from you you can activate the alarm using your watch and now the thief is running down the street with an iPhone screaming that it's stolen. I'm guessing they would dump it because they won't get far before a cop hears it if.

You'd probably have to make sure that it only activates if the phone is actually stolen, not just lost. I found an iPad in the street once, took it home, found the owner's details and took them to come pick it up (turns out it was some sort of sale team, and one of their staff put it down and forgot to pick it back up).

I'd've been _extremely_ unimpressed if the device suddenly started proclaiming it was stolen.

Good point.

OTOH: This opens up a whole new avenue of pranks to pull on iPhone users.

Better idea: make it so iPhones always broadcast an "I'm an iPhone" message to all nearby phones.

"I'm an iPhone Sent from my iPhone"

Isn't that feature already implemented in the owners?

In 2008

Why stop there?

Why not make the iPhone blow in the face of the stealer?

Thief

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