Find My iPhone is an app developed by Apple that basically allows you to locate your iPhone in the event that you might have lost it or had it stolen. The current version of the app uses GPS to indicate its location, and should the thief be smart enough to turn off the device, the minute the device is turned back on an e-mail will be sent alerting you about it, giving you another shot at attempting to track your device down.Now it looks like Apple has field a new patent that looks like they’re trying to up the security and sophistication of the app, judging from the patent filing above, which has been filed with the title “Proactive Security For Mobile Devices” which comes with the description:
Mobile devices, such as phones and media devices, have a high risk of being lost or stolen. If a mobile device is stolen, the information contained on the device can be accessed. Various security methods have been developed to prevent unauthorized access of information stored on mobile devices. Some methods will encrypt the data to prevent access. Simple encryption ciphers can be broken and more secure encryption techniques are also more complex and thus require more resources that may not be available on some devices. Other security methods allow a remote wipe command to be sent to the mobile device over a network. The remote wipe command, however, wipes out all the data on the mobile device accept a boot file. This forces the user to have to restore the wiped data, which can be inconvenient and time consuming for the user.
Comparing what Apple has in mind and what the app can do now and the difference is pretty much night and day. The other patent drawing also indicates the level of security we can choose for the iPhone and also the options of scrambling emails and contacts and the deletion of stored passwords, as well as choosing how much of the phones’ functions can be used while locked down. It’s a pretty cool idea that Apple has going on here, makes us wonder when we will start seeing it being incorporated into the iPhones.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Inc, iPhone, Patent and Security.