There is an article in today's New York Times about kill switches, and how they are used to help prevent theft by disabling the item (in this case, smart phones) if it is stolen.
I think theft is a horrible crime, and I would welcome the ability to shut down (myself) anything of mine that was stolen and equipped with such a switch.
My concern is that it is not necessarily always the consumer who kills the item, but rather the vendor. And apparently consumer initiated kill codes are attractive bait to hackers, so it seems as if whoever does the killing, the method is conceivably available to others for their use.
And my concern is that if someday vehicles, phones and computers have kill switches, it would be far too easy for a government entity to obtain the kill files and pretty much shut down anyone they wishes, or even entire groups of people.
I don't know about you but if I woke up one day and my phone, computer, and vehicle were all inoperable it might make my day very difficult.
I think theft is a horrible crime, and I would welcome the ability to shut down (myself) anything of mine that was stolen and equipped with such a switch.
My concern is that it is not necessarily always the consumer who kills the item, but rather the vendor. And apparently consumer initiated kill codes are attractive bait to hackers, so it seems as if whoever does the killing, the method is conceivably available to others for their use.
And my concern is that if someday vehicles, phones and computers have kill switches, it would be far too easy for a government entity to obtain the kill files and pretty much shut down anyone they wishes, or even entire groups of people.
I don't know about you but if I woke up one day and my phone, computer, and vehicle were all inoperable it might make my day very difficult.
