Rising Concern Over Smartphone Thefts
COSTELLO: All right. A bit of news just in to CNN. The Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was taken to the hospital this morning, we believe it's nothing serious, in fact his office sent us a statement he wasn't feeling well and just as precaution they took him to the hospital. The doctors did some tests. Apparently, Senator Reid is feel better but he's remaining in the hospital just for now, he's under observation. If there are any more developments on the story we'll pass it along to you. In other news this morning, lawmakers in California have an idea that could wipe out cell phones fast, it's a big problem. As you might know, I was a victim myself. Some punk kid ran up behind me while I was talking on my cell phone and ripped it out of my hand with a chunk of my hair. I was lucky because he didn't have a gun, like this guy did on a Seattle bus. This guy used a gun to steal people's smartphones until the crowd turned on him and beat him up. Now, officials in California are proposing a new law that could end this kind of crime. They want to require smartphone manufacturers to install a kill switch that would make it impossible to use stolen or lost devices. Now, the idea is if thieves can't use your phone, there's no point in stealing it. Simple, and it's simple and beautiful, right? Joining me now from New York is Brett Larson, host of "Tech Bytes." Brett, welcome.</s>BRETT LARSON, TECH BYTES: Hey, Carol. Thanks for having me.</s>COSTELLO: This sounds like a fantastic idea. So, I would assume that cell phone manufacturers are jumping on board with joy.</s>LARSON: Wouldn't you think they would all be on the band wagon for stopping cell phone theft? But surprisingly, they're not. What happened to you is a horrible example of what is happening in a lot of major cities. It's called apple picking, they literally run up behind you or come up from in front of you with a gun or a weapon and steal your phone and it's terrible. And the cell phone companies, there's been talk about let's do something about this, let's make these phones. They have a serial number unique to every individual phone, make them so they don't work anymore once they're stolen. And they haven't gotten on board with this. So, now, we're seeing this legislation out of California which may push this process along of instilling this kill switch.</s>COSTELLO: What is the kill switch, is it like an app? Could I install it on my phone?</s>LARSON: Right. It would be something that the device manufacturer would actually put into the phone, it would be a software, not a physical switch but a software that runs that would effectively listen for or take in a signal from either the cell phone carrier or from law enforcement officials, once you say my phone is stolen, they send out the signal to the smartphone, the signal tells the phone to shut down and then your phone is inoperable. So, now, the downside to that is if that kill switch is accidentally flipped, that you have a phone that no longer works. One of the reasons that the cellular telephone industry, the CTIA doesn't want to get behind a kill switch is what they're afraid of is hackers could gain access to these things and send that signal to your phone for no reason and then you have what's known as a brick -- your phone is, doesn't do anything, it doesn't even turn on.</s>COSTELLO: That is a new term that I think everyone should learn, a brick, and we have a definition to put up. So, tell us what a brick is.</s>LARSON: A brick is when your really expensive smartphone becomes a really expensive brick because it doesn't work.</s>COSTELLO: OK.</s>LARSON: You basically, you have a $500 paperweight, and there you go. You can throw it at the wall in frustration. You can let it sit on your desk. It's not doing anything.</s>COSTELLO: I just thought people had to know. Doesn't the new version of the iPhone have something like a kill switch installed?</s>LARSON: It does. With the iCloud services that Apple offers, you can go online and you can see where your phone is, you can send instructions to your phone, you can send messages to say, hey, if you found this phone please call this number. You can lock your phone. You can also erase all of your personal data on your cell phone. But the one this in one thing you can't do is tell it, don't ever turn on again. The problem here is if somebody steals this phone, I can erase all my data, I can make it not work unless you punch in my code, but if you stole my phone, there's a pretty good chance you're going to be able to take that to a computer, plug it in and wipe out the data, including the data that says don't open it until you put a password in, and turn around it and sell it.</s>COSTELLO: Yes. Well, I'm sure that's exactly what happened to my iPhone, someone's enjoying it to this day, although I don't know who that person is. Thank you, Brett Larson, for joining me this morning, much appreciate it.</s>LARSON: Thanks for having me.</s>COSTELLO: Still to come in the</s>NEWSROOM: a night out in a London theater turns terrifying when the roof collapses during the performance. Max Foster is in London this morning.</s>MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, imagine I've been speaking to people that were in there, they either felt rubble fall on top of them in the middle of this performance or they saw a cloud of smoke and were rushed out. Details after this.