Software > Apple

The app 'Find My Phone' 'for Apple is harmfull.

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Geek-9pm:
This is  dictation.

This is a negative report about a specific Apple application. 'Find My Phone'

Recently I had a bad experience with an application that is called 'Find My Phone' and is available on the Apple store. Often this program is used to help people locate an iPhone when it has been misplaced. There are also other programs that function the same way. This post is about a bad experience specific to that particular application. I do not know if the problem is present on other applications that serve the same purpose.
And by the way, I have both Apple and android products as well as mine Windows computer. I do not claim to be an expert on Apple products, I just use them.
I am not going to go into a detailed report about what happened to me. Except to say that it was disturbing to me and to my family what happened. Apparently this experience has been duplicated by others and I do not mean just once or twice. The problem has been known for many years yet they never has, to my knowledge, then a credible explanation as to why this particular application malfunctions. But it does now function. It does so in a way that could be harmless or potentially dangerous.
Rather than trying to analyze the technical aspects, but they. Just imagine
got some brightly colored knitting yarn and decided to tie it onto things that I lose. I could tie on a 3 foot piece of yarn on my eyeglasses. I could tie a piece of yarn onto my wallet. I might time. Sometimes metaphors can be used to express an idea without getting stuck in the technicalities.
The let me say that I am a person that easily loses things. Even inside my own bedroom or my own office area. The one of the ways that I try to help myself is to put little colored tags on things or wrap little bit so wire around things or stick a piece of paper on something that I want to notice. I have poor eyesight and often I cannot find things because the color just blends into the background.
Let's just say that I started to put colored yarn on things. I would put a bright yellow piece of yarn on my eyeglasses, about 3 feet long. Next, I would put a bright green piece of yarn on my wallet, again about 3 foot long. And I might do the same for my shoes. And of course, I would do it with my iPhone and my android. Would that be a logical choice or person who has trouble finding things?
Please understand that this is only a metaphor. I don't really do that. Except sometimes. Obviously having strings of yarn that are hanging around could be dangerous. I could step on something and trip over. Or the Kitty cat could come along and pull it down to the floor and break it . So, obviously, it would be very dangerous to depend on a piece of colored yarn to help me find a lost object.
Now then, back to topic. Using a piece of software that has been untested and unproven is potentially dangerous if you use it for something very important. And that rule does apply in the case of find my phone. People are using the find my phone app for serious things. So serious, that there is the potential of a loss of property and even bodily harm because of the use of such unreliable software. Now what makes me very angry is there never has been any kind of retraction, this claim are or warning about the danger of using such an unreliable program.
Now if the program were to be used just as a game or a novelty on amusement or a party trick, that would be understandable. But people are using it for very serious things. They expected to be used for finding a very expensive piece of computer equipment, such as a high-end laptop. That is not a good idea. First of all, you should never leave an expensive laptop in some place where could be easily lost or stolen. That is just stupid. Then using an unreliable program to try to locate a missing laptop is very foolish. What are you going to do you find the laptop is in somebody else's house? How do you really know what's inside their house?
I am not going to give links about this. Four years this has been reported on the Internet and nobody's ever done anything about it. So apparently, Apple and the people who write such apps, don't really care. But I am posting this here so you know. To not rely on the find my phone app to locate a stolen laptop.. As for your phone, if you are a person that easily loses things, only used cheap throwaway phones. Stop using expensive phones.

If this is of any interest to you I could supply you a bunch of links about horror stories people have using the mentioned application. I have not find any such course stories relating to sailor applications, the only one that comes up is called 'Find My Phone'.

End dictation. There may be errors that I can not spot.

BC_Programmer:
"Find my Phone" is for Android phones from Google. "Find my iPhone" is the Apple App from Apple for Apple phones.


--- Quote ---They expected to be used for finding a very expensive piece of computer equipment, such as a high-end laptop.
--- End quote ---

People are not using Find my *Phone* and Find my *iPhone* to find a high end laptop, as those work exclusively with Android and Apple phones and tablets. (For Apple, they have a *separate* "Find My Mac" service). So now we know you don't even understand what the apps do or how they work. That's probably why you had to provide a useless analogy. "Find my Phone" and "Find my IPhone" I might add, are similar useless at locating a missing pet.

"Find my Phone" and "Find my iPhone" allow you to use the Phone's GPS to keep track of where it is, and you can see a general area of where it is when you lose it. Can be very useful if you've misplaced it during say a trip and it could have been misplaced in any number of places you had been. The phone(s) can also be locked remotely, which means if it was stolen your private data cannot be accessed. It can also take pictures using the phone's camera.

If the phone is stolen, rather than simply misplaced, then you can track where it goes. As far as actually recovering the phone, having GPS tracking/location information will typically be enough to encourage local police to assist in recovery. Since most thefts are thefts of opportunity, the appearance of police with you has a substantially better chance of them returning it, usually with some barely plausible but not easily disprovable story like "Oh I was just holding it for you".

The instances where the feature is less useful are the criminals who know what they are doing. The Find my iPhone and Find my Phone services only work if the phone is turned on and has an Internet connection. Removing the SIM card and not connecting the phone to the Internet, and then resetting it, is enough to evade the utility. However those are actually far less common.


--- Quote ---First of all, you should never leave an expensive laptop in some place where could be easily lost or stolen. That is just stupid.

--- End quote ---
Ahh of course. That's theft solved! Similarly, one can avoid being murdered if you don't let people kill you.

Geek-9pm:
Would  you use TNT to rid your house of rodents?

My point is that i dotes not work.
It does not do what  is needed in a safe way.

My rant is about the Apple app.
Find My iPhone
and
Find My Phone
Sound the same.

BC_Programmer:

--- Quote from: Geek-9pm on February 18, 2019, 07:44:14 PM ---Would  you use TNT to rid your house of rodents?
--- End quote ---
Of course not, however, you've not explained how your analogies are in any way relevant to the App/utilities in question.


--- Quote ---My point is that I dotes not work.
--- End quote ---
Then your point is wrong, as it functions as intended for all the problem scenarios it was designed for.


--- Quote ---It does not do what  is needed in a safe way.
--- End quote ---
What does it do that is unsafe and what is the safe way that it should be doing it?

Geek-9pm:

--- Quote ---Then your point is wrong, as it functions as intended for all the problem scenarios it was designed for.
--- End quote ---
Does that include legal advice on current law about stolen goods?
Does it make possible legal recovery of stolen goods?
Ca nit protect a vigilant owner from a hostile thief?

At best the software could be part of a plan approved by local police.

I read the Apple documentation and found no help on howto recovery a stolen laptop.
https://support.apple.com/kb/ph2698?locale=en_US

In fact, it is hard to prove laptop ownership. You can not just go up to a house and walk in and find your laptop. You, not the thief will spend the night in jail.

This article was published a few months ago.  I should have been 8 years ago.


--- Quote ---Report your lost or stolen device to local law enforcement. Law enforcement might request the serial number of your device. Find your device serial number.
--- End quote ---
You also need to read this:
Q. stolen iphone cops won't go to address

--- Quote ---Sorry, but it’s been posted here before. Police simply don’t consider a find my iPhone hit just cause to go to someone’s home, and no court will issue a warrant based on just that anyway, so they’d not be able to go in or do anything. The location is considered approximate, and tells nothing about whom there may actually posses the device giving the location data.
--- End quote ---
The GPS system can not identify the enemy.  8)

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