[App] If someone steals my phone and changes the SIM

[NJSmoke]

If someone steals my phone and replaces the SIM will I be able to track them with Prey or Cerberus the same way I am able to do it with a Verizon Phone. Does Cerberus need a rooted phone to do all the things it did on the GNex?

 

[KOLIO]

The phone is uniquely identified w/the IMEI Number & Serial Number:

SETTINGS > ABOUT PHONE > PHONE IDENTITY > & there you will find the IMEI & Serial Number. Write these #'s down & keep in a secure place for future use,should you need it.

A call to CEREBUS/LOOKOUT/etc... is in order to answer any other questions you have regarding tracking w/a different SIM Card.

Should you ever have your phone lost or stolen,immediately contact your service provider to have the phone blocked/blacklisted,which in most cases should prevent anyone else from using your phone,even w/a different SIM Card.

You have lots of options,& a call to the abovementioned parties is in order to determine which actions should be taken as to re-locate a lost/stolen device.

 

[rinch]

Also report the loss with the serial number to your local police department. If it is pawned or traded in on a new phone, they may be able to catch the person who stole it.

 

[El Presidente]

Cerberus will track the phone even if the SIM Card has been replaced, you can also use it to pull up call and SMS logs etc.

The only thing it needs root for (I think) is to install itself on the System partition so it survives a factory reset.

Epic story involving smartphone thief and the Android user who got his Galaxy Note back

 

[Diabo]

If someone steals my phone and replaces the SIM will I be able to track them with Prey or Cerberus the same way I am able to do it with a Verizon Phone. Does Cerberus need a rooted phone to do all the things it did on the GNex?

That depends on what else they do. If they pull the sim outside wifi range Prey and Cerberus can't do anything. If they reflash the ROM or do a factory reset (if you didn't root your phone) Prey and Cerberus are gone and they can't send out anything, not even when your phone goes back online.

If a thief really wants to replace the sim without you finding out there's nothing you can do about it.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Avast (free) can also run after the SIM card is taken out. It has a stealth mode (root required) that makes it completely undetectable and undeletable, even with a factory wipe. The only way that it can be accessed is by opening your phone's dial-pad and "placing a call" (not really) to a password-number, which then opens the app.

 

[Diabo]

There are still plenty of ways to knock out avast, though. It won't survive a reflash, it doesn't break through firewalls or permission managers like LBE, and apps like Titanium can find and wipe Avast, even in stealth mode. A smart thief can easily kill any anti-theft app, including avast.

 

[NJSmoke]

That depends on what else they do. If they pull the sim outside wifi range Prey and Cerberus can't do anything. If they reflash the ROM or do a factory reset (if you didn't root your phone) Prey and Cerberus are gone and they can't send out anything, not even when your phone goes back online.

If a thief really wants to replace the sim without you finding out there's nothing you can do about it.

Well on te GNex I would be able to take pictures of the perk and control the access the person had to the phone.
I think I was even able to turn the phone on and off.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

There are still plenty of ways to knock out avast, though. It won't survive a reflash, it doesn't break through firewalls or permission managers like LBE, and apps like Titanium can find and wipe Avast, even in stealth mode. A smart thief can easily kill any anti-theft app, including avast.

Of course no security app can survive a re-flash, but for root users, Avast's mobile security app (which is a free secondary add-on to the main Avast antivirus program):
1) Can be renamed to something like "Bluetooth launcher" so that it wouldn't draw the attention of a thief.
2) Can't be deleted-- not even using Titanium Backup (contrary to your assertion). I just tried.

I'd say that there's a very good chance that one could track the phone to the thief's lair before the thief could figure out how to re-flash a particular model of phone-- each of which requires a different procedure. And sometimes phones aren't stolen by hardcore thieves; but simply found by people who don't turn them into the police. IMHO, it's far better to have something than nothing. Devices are sometimes recovered thanks to these kind of security apps.

 

[Diabo]

2) Can't be deleted-- not even using Titanium Backup (contrary to your assertion). I just tried.

I didn't even have to take avast out of the device admin list to let titanium zap it. I just tapped the uninstall button in titanium and a few seconds later avast antitheft was gone.

Are you sure you tried all the different titanium settings, like chuck norris mode etc.?


Titanium vs. avast:

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I didn't even have to take avast out of the device admin list to let titanium zap it. I just tapped the uninstall button in titanium and a few seconds later avast antitheft was gone.

Are you sure you tried all the different titanium settings, like chuck norris mode etc.?

I don't have the pro version of Titanium Backup. The free version doesn't seem to have Chuck Norris mode, and it failed to delete Avast Anti-theft. TBU-free sees it (with my made-up fake app name), gives me the option to uninstall it, and acts like it's uninstalling it, but it fails without an error message.

So your requirements for a thief to delete Avast Anti-theft are:
1) Titanium Backup Pro is installed.
2) There's no lock screen code.
3) The thief is very Android savvy-- not just the typical idiot thief or somebody who finds your phone and chooses not to turn it in.
4) He recognizes the Avast Anti-theft icon (since the app's name can be changed to something harmless-looking, like "Bluetooth Launcher") or he scans through the phone deleting every app that he doesn't recognize in case it's an anti-theft app.
5) He accomplishes all of this before you can get a fix on him.

Well then... I think I'll just go ahead and keep it on my phone since there's a good chance that it will help me recover my phone and no hope if I don't have such an app installed.

 

[NJSmoke]

Here is what I found at Cerebus website.

I have a rooted device. Can I get additional features? Yes! If you have rooted your device you can integrate Cerberus into your ROM and get two additional features: complete uninstall protection (Cerberus will even survive a wipe/factory reset) and GPS auto-enabling even on Android 2.3.3 and later. To have these features uninstall Cerberus, then download cerberus.zip, put it on the sd card and install it from recovery. Cerberus is also available on ROM Manager.

If that method doesn't work, you can manually install Cerberus in /system/app this way:
- Uninstall Cerberus from your device
- Download Cerberus.apk and put the file on your sd card
- Open a terminal emulator and execute:

su
mount -o remount,rw /system
cp /sdcard/Cerberus.apk /system/app/
chmod 644 /system/app/Cerberus.apk

- Now Cerberus should be installed in /system/app. Try to open the app, log in and see if it works.

 

[Diabo]

So your requirements for a thief to delete Avast Anti-theft are:...

Nope, those are not my requirements at all. Titanium is just one of the methods that the thief can choose from.

A thief just needs to push the power button, or pull the battery, or switch off wifi and cell service (airplane mode, pull the sim). The vast majority of thiefs will force a stolen phone offline before the owner can kick his anti-theft app out of bed.

Once your phone is offline the thief has all the time in the world to grab a beer, sit back, relax, and google for ways to wipe out everything without risking getting caught.

With anti-theft apps your chances of catching the thief increase from about zero to a little over zero, no more than that. Usually the best you can hope for is sending out a remote wipe command before the thief pulls your phone offline.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

...The vast majority of thiefs will force a stolen phone offline before the owner can kick his anti-theft app out of bed.

Got any data to support that claim or is that just your guess?

A thief just needs to push the power button, or pull the battery, or switch off wifi and cell service (airplane mode, pull the sim). Once your phone is offline the thief has all the time in the world to grab a beer, sit back, relax, and google for ways to wipe out everything without risking getting caught.

This potentially assumes that the thief has access to airplane-mode or that the battery can be removed and that he manages to flash the phone without starting it into a mode that allows it to communicate. Though pulling the SIM card on a GSM (not CDMA) phone would be effective as long as the thief stays off of WiFi. This also assumes that the thief is tech savvy and considers it worthwhile to spend the time to research and implement a flashing methodology-- and not just some average-Joe thief or some schmuck who finds a lost phone and decides to keep it. That's a lot of assumptions.

With anti-theft apps your chances of catching the thief increase from about zero to a little over zero, no more than that.

Could you provide some specific data to support that claim so we can know what a "little-over-zero" is? Or is that just your guess?

Any reason not to implement anti-theft software?

 

[RazzMaTazz]

Here is what I found at Cerebus website...

Both Cerebus and the Avast Anti-theft app get installed into the System/App folder and are therefore relatively immune to standard removal techniques (including a factory reset), though as Diabo points out, of course no app can survive a re-flash and certain tools like TBU-Pro may be able to uninstall them.

 

[tcat007]

I just started using "TrustGo" on my Nexus 7 (no sim), and it tracks very well. I am happier with it than Avast. Hope to never need it, but just had my Optimus stolen with no security on it so now I'm paranoid.

 

[RazzMaTazz]

I just started using "TrustGo" on my Nexus 7 (no sim), and it tracks very well. I am happier with it than Avast. Hope to never need it, but just had my Optimus stolen with no security on it so now I'm paranoid.

Thanks. Why do you like it better than Avast?

Does it have root-level anti-uninstall protection like we were discussing above? The Play Store description doesn't mention it.

 

[Diabo]

Got any data to support that claim or is that just your guess?

From a quick'n'dirty Google search:

 

[RazzMaTazz]

From a quick'n'dirty Google search... An i for an i: Lost phones, tablets leading to rise of arrests for not returning them

 

[CybrGuy]

Both Cerebus and the Avast Anti-theft app get installed into the System/App folder and are therefore relatively immune to standard removal techniques (including a factory reset), though as Diabo points out, of course no app can survive a re-flash and certain tools like TBU-Pro may be able to uninstall them.

So, would you then consider this fact a good reason to NOT install TBU-Pro on ones phone? It's an awfully useful app...

 

[RazzMaTazz]

So, would you then consider this fact a good reason to NOT install TBU-Pro on ones phone? It's an awfully useful app...

For 2 years I've been using the free version of Titanium Backup and haven't ever felt the desire to upgrade to the pro version. I've looked at the pro-version features and there's not much of interest to me. But I realize that lots of people buy TBU-Pro so it's a personal choice of the tradeoffs for cost-benefit & risk-reward.

One mitigating factor in the risk of TBU-Pro is this... How many thieves are going to be tech savvy enough to open TBU-Pro AND search for AND recognize an innocuously renamed security module icon AND know how to use TBU-Pro to uninstall it? And if the thief is at that level of tech-savvy, then aren't they likely to just turn off the phone, pull the SIM card and wipe it?

 

[CybrGuy]

TB Pro, Cerberus and Camera Zoom FX are the only paid apps I have on my cell. With the recent 4.1.2 update the included camera app has surpassed CZF so I have gone back to the stock camera app but I still like Cerberus better than the compitition and (agreeing with you) think TB Pro is probably worth the risk.

 

[NJSmoke]

I was not expecting the conversation to get this intense. But I am with you I love Cerberus and recommend it. So far I have never had to use it. The only problem I have with Cerberus is remembering how to spell the name. When ever I got to go to there site I have to google 3 headed greek dog.

 

[Malena]

Hi everyone,my mobile was stolen 2 days ago,I had registered it, so now I'm watching it by the Samsung findmymobile,I have put tracking my mobile,I see it's online but it doesn't show me the location....yet.
What else I can do?
Please help! Thank you!

 

[funkylogik]

Think you just have to sit and wait. i remember when my friends phone got stole, the dummy didnt even factory reset it and when he added contacts like "mum", they appeared on my friends other phone lol. Didnt take us too long to find the guy and he was very..very sorry
You could try push installing "Plan B" to it using the play store on a pc.. i think it relies on the phone having a working data connection but check it out, its worth a try. Good luck and if you do track it down, be careful what youre doing ok :thumbup: