Ok so maybe I was slightly misleading in saying it could survive a hard reset. What it can do however is to re-establish itself from ROM. The only problem would be that the phone would have to use the same ROM. If it were flashed with a different ROM then you would lose all information.

At the moment I think it might be the best way of doing it. Short of keeping something in ROM that cannot be erased without a password that not even a ROM image could destroy. I would assume unless you were a developer of some sort that this would be very hard to erase, without the password.

Phill

After a Hard Reset everything is erased. There is nothing we can do.

But think with me. If you lose your device, you will try to get it back as soon as possible. If someone find it and he is a good person, he will not change anything and try to give it back to you. If not, and if he know a lot of this kind of devices, he will do a hard reset and start to use it. The chance of a thief make a ROM reflash is very small I think.

I think you will have time to find your device in most cases if you use a custom ROM with RT inside.

Some time ago I tried to contact MS and ask the possibility do keep some softwares and registry after a hardreset and explained how RT works. No answer. So surprised

Cheers,
Joubert

Isn't it easier just to not get your phone stolen?

Hmm I am confused now. You say on one hand that it cannot survive a hard reset per se, however if it is in a custom made ROM, it can.

Is this correct?

For me it was a given that if it should be flashed with another ROM then indeed there is nothing you can do but if it is a custom made ROM that keeps a registry setting as part of its customisations in the ROM held on the device, theoretically, it should restore itself on a hard reset of the device.

(All getting a bit confusing for me now!)

Cheers

Phill

OK, so I've thought long(ish) and hard(ish) about the whole surviving-hard-reset problem, and baking into a ROM is the only answer, however it's no good if you have to bake a different from for each user.

I propose that one of these applications should use your devices unique ID or a derivation of it (easily retrieved) as it's 'authorisation code'. Thereby each device has a unique number that needs to be sent in authorisation SMS, but you don't need individually cooked ROMs.

I guess some parameteres would need to be set on a website.

e.g.

- Install remote tracker app
- Select about box (or similar) to get device unique ID
- Go to www.remotetrackerwebsite.com and enter code to register the device to you
- Phone stolen, can be commanded by SMS using unique ID to your phone no
- Phone hard reset with your SIM still, no problem
- Phone hard reset and SIM changed, remote tracker app should post new phone number to website to let you still command it etc.

Thoughts?

P

I would prefer a scenario whereby you can enable the front facing camera via 3g, then when you know its been used by your thief, you can remotely blow the device up. That would be better, and they might not think about doing it again.

I believe in south africa they have a device fitted onto cars which spread fire around the outside to stop car jackings. Similar thing don't you think?

In all seriousness yes I agree with Paul, your way is probably the best way of doing it. I think the only problem is that there will have to be a hosted service to keep it running, since the program will have to integrate with that. I'm not sure the developer is that far advanced. Perhaps you could help him out on this one Paul? I spy a potential new plus service in the making!

Cheers

Phill