#icrime

New Post has been published on http://sansarg.com/wp/2013/11/12/technology/will-ios7-protect-you-from-icrime/

Will iOS7 Protect You From iCrime?

The violent crime rate in America has declined 19 out of the last 21 years. So what happened in the two years–2005 and 2006–when violence (and muggings in particular) went up? Ninety million iconic iPods were sold, marking the beginning of a revolution in mass communication.

In addition to connecting us in novel ways, the iPod and its distinctive white ear buds, $ 400 price tag, and tuned-out users were new and inviting targets for criminals. Almost a decade later, iCrime continues to claim a big share of urban crime.

Now, finally, we are being told there is a solution. iOS7, Apple’s new operating system for personal media devices, contains a “kill switch” that allows users to electronically disable a lost or stolen device.

So, will this stop iCrime? Maybe, but it is a costly approach– and there is an even better solution.

People steal devices because there is a market where they can profitably be re-sold. Demand for stolen devices is driven by below (legal) market prices. So the key to reducing iCrime is to either raise the price for the customer, or raise the price for the thief by making the theft too risky an endeavor.

The kill switch in iOS7 raises the price for the purchaser of a stolen device. Purchasing a below-market price device contains some risk, and risk increases the effective price. The kill switch raises that price. Sophisticated sellers of stolen devices can get around the kill switch by jailbreaking the phone. Unsophisticated sellers will just sell inoperable phones. Either way, the device’s value is greatly (or totally) diminished and that effectively raises the price.

That should reduce iCrime, at least for some Apple products.

But on the flip side, we know how to raise the price for the thief, and that’s a better solution.

In 1990, there were over 100,000 vehicles stolen in New York City. Last year, there were only about 10,000. A big part of the reduction is insurance companies fighting insurance fraud. Much of the rest is about better standard security on motor vehicles. But it is also about LoJack.

Once the police are notified that a LoJack-equipped car has been stolen, the LoJack is activated and officers are alerted when they are proximate to a stolen car and can recover it, hopefully with the thief still in it.

LoJack increases the risk of detection, apprehension, and incarceration. And the fact that it’s invisible means that thieves have no way of knowing which cars have it, so even non-LoJacked cars benefit from the technology’s protection. As a result, a lot of potential car thieves have been priced out of the car theft market.

A similar setup for recovering stolen devices is easy to imagine. The technology already exists and it would be easy to implement a LoJack-like arrangement between police and internet service providers. Similar policing arrangements have been used successfully for decades.

There are two barriers that have nothing to do with technology. One is that a stolen device may not be worth enough to for the victim to even bother with a police report, especially if the device’s value is close to or below their insurance deductible.

A bigger problem is that because these are relatively low-dollar crimes, law enforcement may not prioritize their investigation even if the crime is reported. In many police agencies, the thinking is that the crime itself probably won’t lead to jail time, so why divert officers from more serious crimes to chase down stolen tablets?

That line of thinking is a big mistake and a huge missed opportunity. Law enforcement should prioritize these cases because they are a cheap sorting mechanism. Some of New York City’s much-ballyhooed crime reduction was purportedly due to police actively booking low-level offenders for things like turnstile jumping because it was a cheap way to find lots of people with outstanding warrants for serious crimes. The same goes for chasing down iPerps.

While the iCrime itself may not be worth the time, some of the iPerps certainly will be.

I’m a coffee shop connoisseur; the most frequent mistake I see with fellow java-lovers is the ease with which they leave their iPhones or iPads lying on the table when they go to retrieve their order. My iPhone is like a third hand when I am in public space; I never let it out of my sight.

When I am in the city (or a high crime rate area), all my devices are carefully concealed. I never give criminals an open invitation to mug me. My Jeep never announces that any semblance of technology exists within.

The lucrative secondhand market for today’s niftiest handsets has produced an explosion in “Apple picking” by thieves. A used iPad or iPhone can fetch more than $400. –ROLFE WINKLER | The Wall Street Journal

After pressure from Congress, regulators and police departments-  the FCC and four major US carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile & Verizon) have agreed to form a national joint blacklist database so that stolen devices will not be able to obtain new service. This service should be available sometime in October 2012.

Verizon currently does not allow devices that are stolen to be operated on their network. Sprint cuts off phones that have been reported as stolen and T-Mobile suspends accounts that report stolen phones. AT&T was slow to jump on the bandwagon – but was pleased to join the blacklist initiative.

iCrime

There is a certain mindset that dances to the tune“This could never happen to me!” Get over it already because iCrime could easily happen to you.Gadget theft is big business. My daughter recently experienced the bitter reality of iPhone theft when Siri danced away from a neighborhood BBQ in the arms of a stranger. She was devastated. I couldn’t say “I told you so,” because sometimes people think that the world is made up of entirely nice people.

How can you beef up your security?

Within one hour, Mat Honan of Wired lost his entire digital life to hackers – why? Through the use of social engineering tactics, hackers tricked Apple service reps into granting access to Mat’s iCloud account. Unfortunately, two of his online accounts was daisy-chained – enabling the hackers to gain access to his Gmail and Twitter account. It was a difficult and extremely harsh lesson for Mat to learn and many of us on Twitter sympathized with his pain.

I should have been regularly backing up my MacBook. Because I wasn’t doing that, if all the photos from the first year and a half of my daughter’s life are ultimately lost, I will have only myself to blame. I shouldn’t have daisy-chained two such vital accounts — my Google and my iCloud account — together. I shouldn’t have used the same e-mail prefix across multiple accounts — [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. And I should have had a recovery address that’s only used for recovery without being tied to core services. –Mat Honan | Wired

Learn from Mat.

Security comes with a price

You are going to have to make a choice betweensecurity and convenience. I have learned thatinconvenience is one giant step toward fightingiCrime. Backing up data, using complex passwords, disabling services that could open the door to stolen devices – is mandatory when it comes down to proactive versus reactive.

I never want to place myself (or my devices) in a “reactive” position!  I am the type of person that often plans ahead for security disasters. It is the same reason that I usedigital surveillance (to upload real-time office images to a remote server) – I take the necessary time to configure and manage my digital assets in order to make life miserable for a potential thief or hacker.

 The Top Ten

1- Backup your iPhone and check the option to encrypt data. You won’t know how much you miss until your iPhone becomes wiped or stolen…

The simplicity of iPhone is that all you have to do is connect your iPhone to iTunes and let it do it’s magic. I use a Windows laptop to back up to the cloud and a Mac to backup locally. I don’t take any chances that either the cloud or the local backup is going to screw me over. Be paranoid – it’s worth it.

2- Use a complex password and set auto-lock on. Strong passwords are still key…

Continue reading 10 Ways To Beef Up Your iPhone at the GetCocoon Blog.