Trace a lost / stolen mobile phone?

[neilrr]

Daughter got ritzy new super-duper Blackberry for Xmas, daughter has it nicked less than one month later, daughter has replacement 3 days later.

Any cheap app or trace service available to find this one if it suffers the same fate?

TIA.

 

[Sp!ke]

If the blackberry spoke to a BES then a besadmin could prompt the handset to upload its gps coordinates at pre determined intervals and track them in the logs.

If a prosumer model there's little you can do really as the first thing a thief will do is wipe the handset and swap sims so no tracking app will remain.

You do know that you can send the handset a pin message however? Regardless of what sim card or network or whoever has the device now, you can send the device a message. New owner may not know its nicked until you tell them....

 

[manalishi]

From recent news: Schoolboy uses GPS technology to track down mother's £230 stolen phone | Mail Online

 

[0ptic]

I use the Lookout app on my Android (HTC Hero). I think there is a version for RIM Blackberry.I've tried out the locate and alarm feature and they work ok. Can take a while to locate device though.

 

[Sp!ke]

From recent news: Schoolboy uses GPS technology to track down mother's £230 stolen phone | Mail Online

Many of the HTC phones have something called HTC sense. Amongst other things, you can log into a web site and control your phone over the internet. You can wipe it of data, turn up the ring volume and ring it, turn on GPS and see in google maps where the device is etc.

Once again though this tracking will only work if your SIM is left in the phone. Once the SIM is changed its off the radar.

There are a number of 3rd party software solutions out there for all phones but all rely on a data connection and that the handset hasn't been given a factory reset.

 

[neilrr]

Thanks Sp!ke,

No idea what you just said. I'll C&P this to my daughter, she speaks Phone.

 

[manalishi]

Many of the HTC phones have something called HTC sense. Amongst other things, you can log into a web site and control your phone over the internet. You can wipe it of data, turn up the ring volume and ring it, turn on GPS and see in google maps where the device is etc.

Would be useful to access the phone camera, too. Send at text msg to the phone, wait until the tealeaf opens the text and then automatically take a photo of the muppet looking at the screen. MMS it back to the owner/police/etc.

Better still, add a one-shot tazer with the contacts at the earpiece, and activate that from the Website...

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

Better still, add a one-shot tazer with the contacts at the earpiece, and activate that from the Website...

Bullets man, bullets; you have to disable them completely!

 

[Oli]

It's a Blackberry they were doing her a favour, I had the first version of the Pearl when it came out a few years ago and I found it so awkward and fiddly to use I left it in a drawer to gather dust.

 

[Sp!ke]

Blackberry Pearls are awful. I had one on test when they first came out. Gave up with it after 2 days and made a decision not to offer them to users within the company.

As with anything, there were one or two people that insisted on a pearl and they all came back within a month with their tail between their legs asking for a normal qwerty based blackberry. The Storm handsets are just as bad.

The 9780 would be my choice if I had to go Blackberry but I'm currently distracted by Android devices at the minute.

 

[Oli]

I was going to get an HTC the last time I upgraded, but the loss of my ipod caused me to get an iPhone 4, I get a bit annoyed by the fans that won't shut up about them and go on about this app and that app but in honesty I do find it a really good phone and it's handy having your phone and ipod in one device, I think my favourite phone is the old Nokia 6310i that came with my car, I remember having one when they were a new model and I used to have to charge it up less than once a week!.

 

[blaser24nig]

+1 on the nokia 6310i, I had that phone up until 2005 when it almost became an abormination not to have a phone with a camera and other little things as well.

 

[jaymanek]

Mine was stolen at the gym, luckily i was insured with O2... I can see why they are a target, a blackberry torch fetches above £300 on ebay.

 

[clegsr]

Google Latitude is the answer...

I have just had a similar experience with my wife's Iphone which was recently stolen, and to answer your question you can get a free google latitude account which I think they do a blackberry version as well BUT the key is whether your blackberry allows "background updating" - which means that the app updates the google/latitude servers even when the app is closed.

You can check that here

Anyway - after you install Latitude you can then track each other (dont panic - you have to opt-in) and if you log in on via PC rather than your blackberry you can enable "history" - (which is the REALLY clever bit).

So we had Latitude installed and my wife's iphone got nicked from her workplace (a large public organisation) what happened next?

I tracked it via the web and saw that the phone had left her work place (out of the street about half a mile away) - and then they turned it off I guess because we were all ringing it...) - so no tracking.

I then rang O2 and had the number barred and the iphone IMEI number barred.

Then comes another fascinating bit...the phone was stolen Friday morning and barred the same day, but when I logged into Latitude on Monday it showed the last location on the Sunday evening in a local street...

My wife then checked the employment records at work and they did have someone who lived in the street ( we could not identify the exact address because it was a block of flats) - so we rang the police again (we had already reported the phone as stolen).

The police then became slightly more interested, and said they would call us back! (previousy they were not v interested at all)

We had high hopes at this point of the villain coughing and us getting the phone back but....when the police did call they said unless we could "pinpoint it to within a metre" then they couldn't help.

Now the thing is that if Latitude has a good signal its pretty accurate but of course only when its turned on, and I still dont know how it managed to send a signal when the phone was blocked, but I suspect by now the phone is wiped. Perhaps it was when they switched it on to wipe it that it sent the signal.


The moral of this long story is get Google Latitidue if you want to track your phone - but dont expect it to get your phone back....

 

[Sp!ke]

Just a slight warning...

Expect your blackberry battery to need charging multiple times a day if you install google lattitude - but it does work in a roundabout fashion.

 

[219]

If nothing else , give the IMEI number to your carrier and the phone will be 'bricked' as soon as it connects to any network .

Doesn't help you get it back , but at least you have the.satisfaction of knowing no thief can benefit from it either .

 

[Sp!ke]

If nothing else , give the IMEI number to your carrier and the phone will be 'bricked' as soon as it connects to any network .

Doesn't help you get it back , but at least you have the.satisfaction of knowing no thief can benefit from it either .

The phone can still be sold and used in another market as an IMEI block will only work with UK telco's.

Its still something though I guess.

 

[219]

Why are you bothering with this Latitude thing on an iPhone ?

If you have a passcode set - the phone will wipe all your data after so many wrong passcodes , also Find my iPhone allows you to locate it on a map , also to remotely lock it and delete all your confidential data .

 

[Sp!ke]

The iPhone password is very easy to break.

In fact due to their type of use even Blackberry passwords are usually guessable within 10 tries because people set very very easy passwords (usually a run of keys like asdfgg or qwerty).

 

[219]

I suppose it is down to the user to set a strong password .