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Comment by psykovsky | Hacker News Reader

> “This would all be moot if we had an industrywide kill switch,” Mr. Gascón said.

And there you have it, the real purpose of the story, to push the killswitch agenda. Let's give the government full unfettered access to our mobile phones. What can go wrong with that?...

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The kill switch, as designed by the civic agencies asking for it, would be undoable by the owner:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0951-1000/sb...

A key quote: "The rightful owner [...] may affirmatively elect to disable the technological solution"

It's nothing like "giving the government full, unfettered access to our phones."

Where is this killswitch proposal? I'm curious who and how it could be activated and how you verify the owner.

Thanks for adding the link!

Here's the latest version: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?...

A part I'm concerned about: "(d) Any request by a government agency to interrupt communications service utilizing a technological solution required by this section is subject to Section 7908 of the Public Utilities Code."

Skip to 7908 here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&gr...

So, this kill-switch may not be 100% controlled by the device owner.

I'd be OK with a required/opt-out kill-switch only if I was the only person that could possibly brick my device with it. (That's a hard problem to make user-friendly and educate people about. A private key I create and store physically/securely somehow?)

Otherwise, I don't really own my device.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing "TC is controversial as the hardware is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner."

IMHO I don't think the 'kill switch' agenda has that much to do with government access but more to do with increased sales of handsets.

Right now you can use various software to track down stolen devices, this leads to the owners to pursue the item and try to get back their property. While this method can be dangerous there 'could' be some type of support from law enforcement to help you acquire your stolen items. Instead they just "kill switch it" and now your item is useless to everyone, your only recourse now is to buy the item again.

This kill switch is really only good news for the companies that make these products.

One possible idea that might help is pooling fees similar to an insurance (lets say $20/item in advance or $50+ when stolen) and find private investigators that are willing to get it back for you. The PI will have the resources necessary to get the item back safely and you don't have to pay for a $400+ device.

What do you guys / gals think?

I haven't thought about it much, but I don't see why you need to give the government full unfettered access (or any access) to implement a kill switch.

I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right?

EDIT: Do you often downvote people just because you disagree with them? You said it yourself you haven't given it much thought and your reply adds nothing at all. If any reply should be downvoted, it's yours. Have a nice day.

Although I would be interested to know more about the killswitch agenda you mention, which I am not currently really aware of, I don't really want to pursue a conversation with you in the manner you apparently want to converse.

I didn't downvote either of your comments. In fact I'm not able to downvote your second comment (which frankly I think does deserve downvoting), I think because it's a reply to mine.

I hope you also have a nice day.

I hope you don't mind if I steal this text the next time I find myself in a similar internet situation.

I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right?

The statement you mention is a quote, and a relevant one at that.

But let's be clear - there is no way in which a "killswitch" requires "unfettered access to our mobile phones." Indeed, the UK (and I believe the wider EU?) has a global register of blocked IMEI numbers to which mobile phones are added - while it's possible to circumvent this in various ways, there are also more steps that could be taken to achieve the required outcome without handing over the keys.

Or if you want to push it a bit further, it's not hard to design a system in which an owner can cryptographically prevent the use of their phone without handing the keys over to a third party. However, the struggle here is that users would not engage with this system well, rendering it pretty useless.

And yet despite the IMEI block register, phones are still stolen in large numbers.

You're being downvoted for the frankly absurd and incorrect position of asserting that a relevant quote from a DA interviewed for the article is "pushing agendas". And a bit more for the incorrect assumption that a kill switch requires government access of any kind. And probably more for complaining about being downvoted in an accusatory tone.

So. Being wrong, being wrong, meta noise, bad attitude. Any questions?

Probably not, but who would have access to this kill switch/phone bricker?

The customer with a private key? (...with no way it could be activated by the phone manufacture/service provider/legally forced by governments.)

Probably not, because it's not user friendly enough, or some excuse. It's a problem that needs solving so we actually own and control our property.

Do you realise how much Apple / Google can already screw up your phone today, even without a kill switch? Your phone is already constantly contacting their servers and running code from them. If they wanted your phone to stop working, they could do so today.

That's correct. So, let's get further away from this cliff of not actually owning/controlling our property, not closer.

Edit: Down voting because you disagree? It's a problem that needs solving; I hope we can discuss it.

I literally used a slippery slope in that argument. :|

I'll try again:

No-one but ourselves should be able to brick our devices. We don't actually 'own' our property if we can't 100% control what and if it runs.

But that's a hard problem to solve in a secure and user friendly way.

...and there's not enough financial incentive by consumers (and certainly by device makers, cell networks, law makers...) to solve it yet.

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