Notices

Some time ago, a friend told me his Nokia 5800 got stolen. He left it in his backpack and leave it on the floor for about 30 seconds. He was not far way, just a few meters. When he came back, his backpack was open and the phone away!

Well, after this, I was thinking what you can do against it. And I got an idea, which is a bit strange but funny and really cool, I think. Whether and how it works, depends on the hardware of the device. And of course: There is no 100% safe method. There's a trick against every trick


There has to be this thief detection application that you can start, when you have to leave your device alone for a while. You have to choose a short PIN and active the thief detection. After this, the app is checking the G-sensor. When it's got moved it makes a gentle piep tone. After this you have some seconds to enter your PIN. If you don't enter it, there should be a loud tone.


Ok guys. What do you think?

EDIT: Seems I choose the wrong forum. "Applications" would be better.

I think something like that would be great.

Difficulties:
- If speakers are not loud enough, you can make the sound too quiet to be helpful if you cover the them with your hands.
- If battery changing is very simple and works quickly, you just can put it out, before the bell rings

If someone approaches the proximity sensor, the N900 plays a sound file saying "leave me alone!". The startling effect of this will probably discourage the potential thief.

If that doesn't work, the accelerometer will show movement and the N900 can alternate playing a siren sound at full volume and shouting "put me down, you thief!".

Regards,
Roger

infact i got a ongoing work on maemo version the app. that i made for s60v3 which was called 'alertme'
ui is ready
i guess i can release it before weekend
i'll need n900 owner testers

for now you can use alertme for your s60v3 phones:
mclightning.com/alertme
and here
http://www.symbian-freak.com/downloa...om_thieves.htm

How about after a few attempts at breaking the PIN, the GPS coordinates of the phone are sent out to you?

Would be possible for sure. But I in most cases the thief will put out the battery after a while.

Interesting ideas here. There is a ticket in Bugzilla about providing owner information on the lock screen: https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=793 , but as these ideas here go further it might be worth to file a ticket in Brainstorm (Problem: "Thief detection") and to file the solution(s) that come up to your mind as separate solution that people can vote for: http://maemo.org/community/brainstorm/