Apple, Google, Samsung and Motorola have all received a letter from New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today, who is requesting information from them regarding their work on making their products more secure against thieves. Criminals who steal phones wipe them clean and are then likely to sell them on the black market. Such thefts are also at a high risk of turning violent, Schneiderman mentions some thefts that turned violent or even resulted in murder to the companies in his letter.
To be honest though, its not like these companies will openly share whatever future technologies they’re working on. Competition is stiff in this market and there are enough leaks taking place as it is. The fact remains though that each handset already carries a unique hardware number which isn’t easy to spoof. Stolen cellphones can be reported to the respective carriers which can easily block them. Though then there’s the instance of someone reporting a device stolen when its actually not. If such a device is found or recovered after it has been reported stolen, a service would need to be set-up that would enable it again. Manufacturers and carriers aren’t exactly at a loss for blocking stolen devices, manufacturers sell more and carriers add more devices on the network. With such a system already in place, what more can manufacturers do to make their devices less alluring to criminals?