Dan Goodin reports:
Apple has applied for a patent covering an elaborate series of measures to automatically protect iPhone owners from thieves and other unauthorized users. But please withhold the applause.
The patent, titled “Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device,” would also protect Apple against jailbreaks and other unauthorized hacks to the device, which were recently excepted from copyright enforcement.
The application, which was filed in February and published Thursday, specifically describes the identification of “hacking, jailbreaking, unlocking, or removal of a SIM card” so that measures can be taken to counter the user. Possible responses include surreptitiously activating the iPhone’s camera, geotagging the image and uploading it to a server and transmitting sensitive data to a server and then wiping it from the device.
Rest assured that this jailbreaking identification, the application would have us believe, is simply a means of protecting owners from unauthorized users.
Read more in The Register.
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