Google, Microsoft, Apple, HTC, Samsung, Huawei, Motorola and Nokia have signed a pledge where they will include the anti-theft feature on every smartphone which will be sold from 2015 onwards.
When a phone is stolen, the thief is smart enough to switch it off immediately and discard the SIM card. Since the phone could have a tracking software built-in, the thief goes ahead to wipe off or factory reset the phone so that he won’t be traced easily. Recent news about Chinese boxes used in changing the firmware and IMEI numbers has also floated in the market. These devices can wipe off the entire data, replace it with a fresh firmware and tamper with the IMEI number too. This makes your device almost impossible to track.
However, the smartphone manufacturers have signed a pledge to introduce a newer and smarter anti-theft feature in every smartphone that will be sold next year onwards. This new feature will render the phone useless and brick it so that the thief cannot even load another firmware on it or change the IMEI number.
Though the owner would encounter a loss of hardware, the data on it would be potentially safer too. This new feature will not benefit the thief in any way as he would then be in possession of a useless piece of stolen electronics. Neither can he use it anywhere, not can he sell it for any gains. The maximum gain for him would be to sell off the phone for spare hardware replacements, for instance, the memory card, display screen, chassis, battery, and a whole lot of other internal parts, which can be used for repairing other phones. The motherboard is the only part which will be useless, but there are people and phone repairers who can make use of the chipsets, processors and other minor parts from the motherboard.
In short, if your phone is stolen, the thief is not completely at loss—he can still make a miniscule amount of moolah, but at a higher risk and immense hard work involved.
Only time will tell us how the smartphone manufacturers will help safeguarded the hardware along with the data on your phones.
