[HTC Desire S] testerics:
anti-theft (lost) protection

This ROM is almost perfect, thanks again for your incredible job lowveld!

What is missing? Anti-theft protection (or anti-lost) integrated in ROM (with no possibility to uninstall or disable the protection)

On the market there is a lot of applications with this feature, but none is fully protect the S device...

Normally, when a theft take the phone, the first move is to pull out the battery and replace the SIM. If the phone is locked with the new SIM, the phone it will be transferred to a specialist to remove the protection and if it is a good one, he will replace the ROM and the phone it will be lost forever. So, don't lock the phone with this kind of protection, let the theft to believe that it was lucky ;)

In my opinion, the feature that we need:

- to open some how (key combination or something else) the settings of the hidden application/service

- to setup a partner (admin) phone number, this one will receive the information's from lost phone via SMS and it will be granted to send commands.

- to be possible to receive and send hidden SMS commands

- to be possible to start GPS hidden (no icon on task bar)

- to be possible to initiate hidden callback after the phone is receiving SMS command

When you don't find your phone, the first think to do is try to call your number from other phone. If is ringing, the phone is lost. If is not ringing, the phone is in the theft hand.

If is only lost, you try first to find it using GPS localization. This is working only if the phone was lost outside. Send a SMS command from partner phone and wait the answer. Normally, after receiving the command, your phone should start GPS and in maximum 1 minute should get the signal from satellites (see FasterFix from market). It is very important to set the phone to try to receive the satellites for a limited time, otherwise the phone will lost the battery quickly. If you will receive a SMS with valid coordinates, just use Google Maps and find your phone. If you are in the proximity location of the coordinates, you could send another SMS command to make your phone to start an alarm sound (at maximum volume if it is possible, even if the phone was left in silence mod before you lost it). In this case the phone is recovered :rolleyes:

If the phone was lost inside of a building, you will receive a SMS with non valid coordinates (something like 0.00000E...). In this case send the SMS only to start the alarm (it is better to be possible to setup a maximum time for this alarm, otherwise the phone will lost the battery quickly). If someone will hear you phone, will do this: if it is a honest person it will try to call a number from your contacts (remember, phone it is not locked) and you will recover your phone :rolleyes:. If is a theft, it will remove the SIM and the battery for the moment (you could verify this calling your phone after 5 minutes from the moment when you send the SMS with alarm command...).

I saw some other type of localization (useful when the phone is inside), like GSM cell tower, but this is not working because the localization area is very large.

If your phone is in the hand of the theft (no signal when you try to call your number), you need to wait on the partner phone the SMS with the new SIM number. When you will receive this, send the localization SMS and wait for the coordinates. If this are valid, try to send another one to see if the theft is moving. And so on till you receive 2 or 3 SMS with approximately the same coordinates (theft is in fixed position, outside). If it is possible, take a cop with you and go to that position and when you are in the place send a SMS alarm command. You will recover your phone :rolleyes:

If the coordinates that you receive is invalid (the theft is inside of a building), there is another possibility to recover it if you could send a SMS command for callback. In this case, your phone will call your partner number (of course hidden, nothing to be seen on the phone) and you will hear all conversations around the phone. The probability to hear some useful information's to recover your device is very high :rolleyes:

Other type of commands should permit you to wipe confidential information from your phone (like contacts, notes with bank accounts, etc), but never to lock the phone!

Sorry for this large "novel", but I want to see if is possible to have something like that cooked in my S device.

If there are some other possibilities to protect our devices, please post it here and maybe lowveld could create a surprise for us ;)

Thanks!