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Today's Poll!Your iPhone Could Be Disabled During The Next Protest You Attend
The mega company received a new patent and could be disabling your device in restricted areas
Monday, September 10, 2012
The next time you’re at a concert and you whip out your iPhone to record the excitement, you may notice it doesn’t work. During the show you keep trying to turn it on but for some reason it just won't light-up.
But miraculously when you go outside when the concert is over, your phone all of a sudden works again. This can happen to you at the next concert you attend or maybe inside the next movie theater you go to.
Apple has received a patent that would allow the company to turn off its mobile devices in areas that are deemed inappropriate for recording or taking pictures. The new technology would also have the ability to shut down communication functions in devices, so people couldn’t text or make phone calls if they’re in areas that are considered sensitive.
Here’s what's written on the patent:
“This policy enforcement capability is useful for a variety of reasons, including for example to disable noise and/or light emanating from wireless devices (such as at a movie theater), for preventing devices from communicating with other wireless devices (such as in academic settings), and for forcing certain electronic devices to enter ‘sleep mode’ when entering a sensitive area.”
Many believe this new patent could be a good thing, as it can remove the power from movie bootleggers or cut off communication from a group of up-to-no-gooders in an airport let’s say, but it could also harm the public’s ability to document wrongdoing.
Citizen journalists
Remember the kids who were pepper-sprayed at the University of California Davis during the Occupy Wall Street rallies? The students were sitting peacefully but were sprayed at close range, while hundreds of smartphones filmed the incident, which was eventually broadcast around the world.
Well, this type of amateur-video journalism could be halted, as certain entities could have the power to abruptly shut off your phone during protest marches, rallies or political gatherings. Those same entities could also just block off satellite signals so you couldn’t get smartphone access in certain places.
The federal government along with Apple could arbitrarily decide what areas or public functions would be considered sensitive or restricted. Some believe the amount of subjectivity that goes into making such a decision is as big as the sea, which is the reason they're concerned about this new technology.
Although the patent was granted, Apple would still need the okay from the government to implement the technology, but the company is well on its way to using it in the near future.
Some have already expressed concern over not being able to monitor police action, especially during public protests.
Blackout conditions
"Covert police government operations may require complete ‘blackout’ conditions," said the patent. "The wireless transmission of sensitive information to a remote source is one of the examples of a threat to security. This sensitive information could be anything from classified government information to questions or answers to an examination administered in an academic setting.”
Apple also noted having the ability to shut off smartphones is ideal for professional and some social settings, where devices could easily bother many people at once.
“As wireless devices such as cellular telephones, pagers, personal media devices and smartphones become ubiquitous, more and more people are carrying these devices in various social and professional settings,” it says in the patent. “The result is that these wireless devices can often annoy, frustrate, and even threaten people in sensitive venues.”
Apple also says smartphones should be disabled within photography darkrooms and biological labs, where light can destroy what’s being worked on.
Apple also says the new technology can help drivers as they attempt to use their devices on the road. The company says the smartphone’s communication function could be temporarily deactivated when entering your car or when you're driving in certain areas. Devices would be manipulated by GPS signals and satellites.
Now just which entities will have the authority to deem areas sensitive remains to be seen. Whether it’s only Apple, areas of the U.S. government, or local police departments, setting up the technology nationwide is challenging, but extremely doable.
The fact that Apple has already been granted a patent by the government, shows that having your smartphone manipulated by someone other than yourself could be happening sooner than you think.
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Comments
cmnsense 8 months, 2 weeks ago
This sounds like something the Chinese government would do.
Paroquet 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Pfft. Technologies are available for entities (even individuals) to create a black-out bubble of their own for all manner of wireless signals. Just use whatever search engine to shop the category "wireless device jammer".
Apple is just looking to undermine those businesses. Could even become an anti-trust issue.
TickledPink 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Just one more reason I won't buy Apple. I can't believe Grace isn't screaming about government intrusion, squelching our rights, fascist pigs, blah blah blah. I mean really - what do you honestly think this is going to be used for? This is not going to end well.
John 8 months, 2 weeks ago
This ranks alongside the "Patriot Act" for ways in which the government, or an instrument of the gov't (such as a business ordered to disable their cellular products), can and will interfere with freedoms enjoyed by citizens.
Paroquet 8 months, 2 weeks ago
from a standard TOS you see about everywhere: "...we retain the right to change the terms without prior notice" -click- >I agree<
Done deal.
John 8 months, 2 weeks ago
That does not change a thing I wrote. It is merely your way of dismissing a very worrisome problem.
It is interesting the number of people who use this forum to post . . . just words. The words are not posted to enhance the conversation -- only to show others how smart or witty the poster believes themself to be.
Paroquet 8 months, 2 weeks ago
You did see the case recently upheld here in MO about someone being obligated for the annual fee on a credit card for which they clicked? I think that was published in this very paper.
Regardless, this is not an issue of the government. It's how a company chooses to control its product, and you are required to agree to their terms in order to use it. You don't have to buy that product. You have other choices.
That's what renders moot what you wrote; the government is not involved. Now, if the government made such a feature mandatory for all such devices, then you'd be all too right. As it is, you're only jumping at shadows and delving into a topic unrelated to the subject material. FYI? I'm no fan of the Patriot act myself, and I don't think a business of any stripe should be able to change the TOS to which you originally agreed without stringent, exhaustive, and very clear advance notice, and offer to return any balance owed if you choose to cancel in response.
spelchek 8 months, 2 weeks ago
"Remember the kids who were pepper-sprayed at the University of California Davis during the Occupy Wall Street rallies?" -- Nope. I remember police haters disobeying an order to leave multiple times and being warned that they would be pepper sprayed if they failed to comply. They asked for it...big difference.
Now, all this is moot knowing that there will be a jail break for this feature as soon as it's implemented. Funny how there are those always one step ahead of these companies. Interesting how productive and innovative people can be free of gov't intrusion.
Sequoia 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Perhaps you will also remember that a police order for a small peaceful gathering on public property should "leave" is not a lawful order. I'm suprised that the "too much government" types would argue that our right to assemble peacebly disappears as soon as a police officer says "leave," and that non-compliance justifies whatever violence an officer of the state personally decides to mete out. Simply assembling peacebly does not make one a "police hater."
Of course I'm not really surprised. When y'all say "government is the problem..." what you really mean is "except when government does mean things to people I don't like."
Too much government is a problem for you, unless that government involves a police officer in full riot gear spraying pepper spray in the mouths of peaceful, seated, unarmed young people who are saying things you don't like.
spelchek 8 months, 2 weeks ago
"Too much government is a problem for you, unless that government involves a police officer in full riot gear spraying pepper spray in the mouths of peaceful, seated, unarmed young people who are saying things you don't like." -- Once you've disobeyed multiple orders to end the peaceful assembly you are no longer peaceful....but you already knew this.
Paroquet 8 months, 2 weeks ago
I respectfully disagree. Were those protesters not peaceful, the peace officers would have been in pieces. 1:100 odds aren't in your favor, I don't care how you stack it. For most police, their comfort zone is 2:1.
You're still peaceful, you're not resisting arrest. You're just not obeying an order outside the scope of authority to issue in the first place. That doesn't make you any less peaceful.
Who is already shackled has sacrificed freedom for an illusion of personal safety from something as innocuous as an idea, alternative opinion, or perceived affront to their sense of propriety and concept of social grace.
asb 8 months, 2 weeks ago
This from someone who talks constantly of the need for a civil war to get rid of the boogy man.
Sequoia 8 months, 2 weeks ago
But then you would concede, would you not, that if all the facts were the same EXCEPT if the protesters were Tea Partiers instead of OWS-ers, you'd be outraged at the Berkley police?
I'm saying you indulge in identity politics: Your view of an issue depends on the political identity of the actors involved. You're not concerned about legal or moral principle, just the idea that whatever is bad for my enemies is good for me.
TickledPink 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Actually, the police should never have asked/ordered them to leave. They were peacefully assembled and that's still covered under the 1st Amendment. They were well within their rights to disobey an unlawful order.
Sequoia 8 months, 2 weeks ago
And yet, the result of the decision by the officer to perform a sadistic act of abuse is that the students' message reached a much wider audience than if the police had just ignored the students and waited for them to go home on their own.
JMO 8 months, 2 weeks ago
The only way I can think of off the top of my head to "challenge the order" would be to seek a court order prohibiting the police from making them disburse...which of course would necessitate first disbursing in order to go file in court, which would render the their petition rather moot.
Or do you know of another way that doesn't involve them first complying with the improper order?
TickledPink 8 months, 2 weeks ago
"Interesting how productive and innovative people can be free of gov't intrusion." Those would be hackers - people who are intentionally breaking the law and proud to do it. I personally have no problem with many hackers, but it's still illegal.
spelchek 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Understood. My point is their innovation and imagination isn't credited to government hindrance. Quite the opposite; they are the Benjamin Franklin's of our time.
eileen10 8 months, 2 weeks ago
This is where I come to learn things. I'm still back in the 60s and trying to catch up and no doubt you all know this . Political talk, all this technology talk among other things is way over my head. I have a question. Is my cell phone that doesn't do anything except let me call people..bugged?
John 8 months, 2 weeks ago
The answer, Eileen10, is maybe. Our various ELINT (electronic intelligence) devices are constantly on the lookout for many different ways in which terrorists can communicate.
Certain keywods can definitely trigger a recording of cell phone conversations . . . . . use the word bomb, kill, fertilizer, ammonium nitrate, or similar words and phrases in a phone call and it is a good chance the balance of the conversation will be recorded and reviewed by a bureaucrat (even if it is a federal law enforcement officer it is still a bureacrat).
JCLifer 8 months, 2 weeks ago
youtu.be/D43QKyg8RgE
You know where to add the 3"w"s.
Silverado_Phil 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, jailbreaking iPhones is legal in the United States
Littleinvestor 8 months, 2 weeks ago
If there were no civil disobedience, would there be a United States of America?
asb 8 months, 2 weeks ago
How civil was the colonial disobedience involved in our disconnection from England? Hardly at all. We went from snowballs to property damage, to firearms, and to armies with little civility beyond a few letters and pamphlets.
eileen10 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Thank you John for the info. and thank you too for not using million dollar words. I know medical terminology but most people here at times cause me to head for the dictionary.Have a nice day and once again, thank you.
John 8 months, 2 weeks ago
Are you silly enough to believe that the only cellular phones that can be tapped or rendered inoperative by the gov't is the Apple IPhone? Let me tell you that after several decades work in elint and, specifically, voice network, POTUS can shut them all down or selectively shut down users. We also have the capability (and we use it) to monitor individual cell phone conversations. This can be done, by the way, without the benefit of a warrant, thanks to the Patriot Act. This process of monitoring/tapping is accomplished via satellite and does not require access to hard lines, although that is available as well.
Now, with all your mighty wisdom, explain to us how THAT is rendered moot because of some silly buyer's/user/s agreement.
Again, you are saying words simply to try to impress people.
asb 8 months, 2 weeks ago
John who are you chewing on, and why? There are more or less three ways to shut down a cell phone: jamming which is phone agnostic and impacts specific frequencies, interrupt any one or many groups of phones once their signal is in the backhaul or wire part of the phone system, or the phone can respond to a signal to change its mode of operation. Apple is the one offering the third method. Local LEO can also do these things. Same for tapping; radio (including satellite), in the wire network, or by (Apple's) direct command. There is not, and never was, a means to avoid those in power from knowing what you're up to. From Ogg peeking into your cave, through traditional surveilance, to modern electronic snooping. Your words impress me greatly.
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