Items tagged with Find My iPhone
These days, smartphones have become an extension of ourselves. Many of us can’t even go a few hours without a smartphones attached to our hip, so it stands to reason that a lost smartphone is enough to send someone over the edge. Luckily, smartphones running popular operating systems like Android and iOS have built-in apps that make it easy to locate a lost or stolen smartphone. And wouldn’t you know it, people actually take advantage of the features to track down their lost digital appendages. However, one Atlanta couple’s home has become an unwanted destination for people looking for their lost smartphones. And as you would imagine (for someone who thinks that their stolen smartphone is at...
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It looks as though thieves are finding fewer reasons to target smartphones as a way to make a quick buck. Back in 2013, Apple implemented the Find My iPhone Activation Lock feature in iOS 7, which makes it extremely difficult for a stolen iPhone to be of any use without its original owner. Without a user’s Apple ID and password, a thief would be unable to turn off Find My iPhone, erase the device, or reactivate it. So someone could nab your iPhone if they wanted to, but it would completely useless in the wrong hands. With iOS 7, Activation Lock was turned when Find My iPhone was enabled. With iOS 8, Activation Lock was enabled by default. iOS 8 currently has a 72 percent adoption rate according...
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Apple developed its Find My iPhone application to help users track down lost or stolen iOS devices, but never could the Cupertino company imagined that its software would be used to save someone's life. Yet, that's exactly what happened when a 28-year-old woman rolled her car 500 feet down an embankment on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, California. After failing to show up at home, the woman was reported missing by her stepmother at around 3 AM on Tuesday, Campbell Police Capt. Gary Berg told the Los Angeles Times. Attempts to reach the woman through her mobile phone were unsuccessful. OnStar wasn't much help either in this particular incident -- though it issued a distress call after the accident...
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It's a little bit awkward when you're flipping through photos in front of a group and come upon that one sexy pose in skimpy clothing you forgot was on there, but imagine if someone hacked your phone and uploaded all your private photos for the entire world to see. Jennifer Lawrence and several other celebrities don't need to imagine because a flaw in Apple's Find My iPhone service may have allowed hackers to do just that. According to various reports, someone posted a Python script on Github for a password brute force proof of concept to Apple's iCloud service. Brute force attacks use a script to continually guess passwords until it finds the correct one, and in this instance, it leveraged a...
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An alleged Apple smartphone thief bit off more than he could chew when the owner of the stolen device tracked his whereabouts using the Find My iPhone app. The owner of the iPhone in question, Kenneth Schmidgall, tracked the suspect to a beach where he caught up with the person who was in possession of his smartphone as he rode his bike, blissfully unaware that he had a tail. "I saw the gentleman on the bike and we followed it and kept tracking it and every time it would stop, the guy on the bike would stop," Schmidgall told ABC News. Schmidgall brought along his friend, Greg Torkelson, a freelance photographer who captured the ensuing confrontation on camera. When they caught up to the man on...
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