Lost... and Found. PhoneBAK reviewed

[slitchfield]

Attila Katona investigates claims by the comprehensive security utility PhoneBak that it can actually get your stolen or lost smartphone returned to you...

Read on in the full article.

[Taomyn]

Sorry, but if I were to thieve a phone (and I wouldn't mind you), the first thing I'd do once I have managed to get into it, would be to format/hard-reset it.

What use would this software be then? It would have been removed!

There's supposed to be an initiative in Europe where when you have your phone stolen or lost, you notify your provider and they block the phone from being able to connect to their network. They also then send this to a central register so that other providers can do likewise making the phone useless. I know this has happened in the UK not sure about the rest of Europe though.

[krisse]

Taomyn, that's what a clever person with access to a PC would do, but a lot of phone theft is done by people who aren't clever at all, or don't have a PC.

Most phone users, and I'm guessing most thieves, don't know how to wipe a phone.

[Nigma]

I think with the Nokia S60 phones, the device has to be on to do the actual format/reset. So at some point the theif will turn the phone on.
Its just a matter of wether their is a sim in the phone or not.

This software would be far more practical if the phone manufactures integrated this into the firmware. That way, there would be no way around it.

It is better to have this software than not to have as I believe it will increase the chances of retrieval much higher. Moreover it is not expensive at all at just GBP$7 only less than 10% of the cost of replacement for most phone.

[Shaxer]

at Irene.M

plus it works an endless number of times for that $7 so if you loose your phone 5 times and get it back times you saved the price of 5 phones by spending that $7 only once.