Powerguard: Prevents Someone From Turning Off Your iPhone [Jailbreak Tweak]
System
Posts: 446
Powerguard: Prevents Someone From Turning Off Your iPhone [Jailbreak Tweak]
One of the drawbacks of Apple's Find My Phone service is that, if your iPhone is stolen, the thief can turn off your iOS device to prevent it from being tr...
Comments
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Hi,
I was waiting for such an application from the time when I bought the first iPhone 4. Has anyone checked whether the combination of keys (home + power) still work after installation? If so, the application does not make sense. -
pretty sure home+power is a bypass to the iOS controls... I really doubt this tweak will bypass this function
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Nice app but can be bypassed with power-off in sbsettings and (home + power)
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Ah, that sucks. Was looking forward to having this but since you guys said the home & power bypasses it, what's the point. Damn.
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People can also just remove the sim
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@chuckie
That's sad but true… -
I wish there were better options in this regard. Find My iPhone only really works if you lose your phone. If it's stolen, I'm sure the first thing someone will do is turn it off.
I think this tweak can buy you some time if the thief doesn't know how about power+home which is quite possible if they don't already have an iPhone... -
While the ability to Power off using SBSettings is a deal breaker, Power + Home button which reboots the iPhone, shouldn't be an issue.
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all you have to do is put it in dfu mode and restore it via itunes, which equals stolen phone
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How is Power+Home rebooting the iPhone not an issue?
You can then switch it off while it's rebooting, completely obviating this useless app.
Or if that's too much trouble, you can hold vol+ while rebooting to put it in Mobilesubstrate safe mode, and then switch it off at your leisure.
If it doesn't prevent home+power rebooting the device, it doesn't prevent someone switching the device off without the password.
An app that costs $2, claims to prevent switching the device off without a password, and doesn't prevent switching the device off without the password isn't very good, is it?
Re DFU, if Apple instead of issuing SHSHes for stolen iPhones, issued a deactivation ticket that bricked the device until it was reported unstolen by the real owner, it would be impossible to use or sell a stolen iPhone without also stealing the owner's credentials. Shame on you, Apple, for being in a position of such power, and not using it to fight crime. What would Bruce Wayne say? -
hi, anyone tried using this? i can still power off my phone after installing and enabling it. can't seem to work.
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One better solution is apple provide the service for permanently locking the device by it's IMEI number, as long as the owner report its stolen/lost device. The owner should have one time chance to unlock it again in case he found it. Then, nobody is gonna to steal a phone that can't be used(locked).
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you all miss something basic here. it is good against simple thiefs. if you have pin code you have to use it to get to SBSeting and turn the iphone from there. i have checked it, it is posible to ture the phone off via DFU mode - home + power. and that is a down side of the app that can´t privent some one that is not u to switch it off. with apple´s fine my phone and iGotya JB app`you r a little more protected. so see it as a small extra methode to help you protect you beloved iphone...
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@gifdhsd not sure what you mean by "switch it off while it's rebooting" ... Power+Home button reboots the iPhone, so the tweak is re-enabled after it reboots.
Putting the iPhone in DFU mode as @jessiejames pointed out or using SBSettings is an issue, but as @ifonix has said, jailbreak tweaks such as iCaughtU or iGotya or Powerguard add some more protection.
Carriers (in the US) are working on a centralized database to track and disable stolen phones (http://www.iphonehacks.com/2012/04/u-s-carriers-working-on-centralized-database-to-track-stolen-mobile-phones.html), which should also help plug the loop holes in such software based solutions. -
Power+home, while the OS is up, reboots the phone.
Power+home, while the OS is booting, turns off the phone. (Try it!).
Even if this tweak wanted to hook this, it's not loaded until later in the boot process.
So you don't even need to (but still can!) hold vol+ while it's booting to disable MobileSubstrate, or use Cydia to just uninstall Powerguard.
If there wasn't such a simple workaround as "hold power+home, release when you see an Apple logo, hole power+home", I'd advise finding a way to password-protect launching Cydia, because Powerguard is useless if Cydia can be accessed. But as it seems Powerguard is useless anyway, it's not too big a deal. -
Hey @gifdhsd that's true ... you have raised some great points ...
There is no way around Power+Home, but you could password protect Cydia using tweaks like AppLocker. -
An iPhone with a blocked baseband is still a very saleable item. All the thief has to do is pretend the radio died out-of-warranty, and sell it as an iPhone with a broken radio. People readily buy these things, as sales of the iPod Touch demonstrate.
Apple is in a position to block the whole entire motherboard, drastically reducing the value of a stolen iPhone: not only is the motherboard the most expensive part, making up nearly fifty percent of the phone's value, but to chop an iPhone takes considerable technical skill, and the parts are worth far less separately than they are as a complete working phone.
That's not to say IMEI blocking isn't a start, and that it's not equally deplorable that it's taken the carriers this long (especially for the US) to achieve the current pitiful state of affairs. The West has had more cellphones than people for at least a decade, and even now it's possible to steal a phone in the USA, and have it not be blocked in Canada (AUIU, the US carriers haven't even started sharing yet, so it's still possible to steal a phone in the USA and have it work in the USA). -
If you happen to have an iPhone 4S, it can't be ramdisk booted for ssh access without a bootrom exploit, all the older iPhones can be hacked this way. All one needs to do is jailbreak and use a passcode, then use a restore blocking tweak to prevent restoring, install the afc2remove tweak to prevent access to jailbreak filesystem over usb and also keep the wifi and bluetooth disabled to become completely protected. Yeah they can turn it off or take out the sim, but until they actually crack the passcode, it's a brick. Better yet, if they stole a CDMA variant, just attempting to try the passcode will allow the phone to be located via Find My Phone unless they are in a dead zone or faraday cage.
