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May 1, 2007

ipod

Fighting crime, the iPod way

Posted May. 1, ’07, 9:38 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | iPod

iPod Screen LockSure, the iPod has a slew of possible uses, from playing music and videos to storing your address contracts: but can it fight crime?

The UK’s Home Secretary John Reid seems to think so. Attributing an 8% rise in muggings over the last quarter to “New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets,” Reid is proposing working with technology vendors like Apple and Sony to make said gadgets less attractive to would-be thieves by implementing security features in their devices.

Reid wants manufacturers of mobile phones and MP3 players to concentrate as much on anti-crime functions as on other design features.
On second thought, maybe we should hope they spend more time on the anti-crime functions than they do on design…zing.

Now, newer iPods do have a security feature which allows users to lock the screen with a four-digit combination. This functionality severely limits what you can do with the iPod; you can’t switch tracks or adjust the volume while the iPod is locked, though you can pause and play the music, so theives are stuck listening to your playlist forever. Which could be its own kind of special torment, depending on your music preferences.

In that sense, something like a fingerprint scanner might be more useful, but for users, there’s always a tradeoff between security and convenience—how many of us, for example, have our computers set to login automatically without giving it a second thought? And how many of you actually use the screen lock feature on the iPod? Not to mention that adding fingerprint authentication to iPod may not only not decrease the rate of muggings, but may also sharply increase the number of finger removals.


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