Do You Use Protection?

How I saved my butt after losing my phone | InSecurity Complex - CNET News. No, not that kind of protection. I am talking about something more life changing. Okay. Maybe not. But, could you live without your smart phone? I thought not. Try leaving your phone at home one day, and try to get through the day without it. We all have become increasingly dependent on the ability to stay in touch. For solo lawyers, this becomes even more important. I am out and about a lot, and I need to be able to see important emails as they come in. I need to answer the office phone wherever I am; I have taken business calls in places you don't want to know about. But, these tiny little devices, that carry so much of our lives with them, can be lost, stolen, or otherwise misplaced. What then? The first thing you need to do is put a pattern tracing lock on the thing. Do not tell me it is too much of a pain to keep tracing the pattern when you turn it on, or the screen saver kicks in. Just do it. Now. Do you get in the car without fastening your seatbelt? Next, download Lookout, or one of the other security programs out there. They will back up your data in the cloud, broadcast their location if lost or stolen, and my favorite, as outlined in this CNET post, cause a siren to sound for about a minute that could call Satan from the bowels of the earth. If you don't back up your phone programs and data, and you don't pattern lock it, don't call me if you lose it. There's no crying in computer security.

Comments

[Ethan Stone]

Sorry to be obtuse, but what's a "pattern tracing lock"? I Googled the term and the only result was your blog post.

[Rick Georges]

Go into Security Settings on the Android, and you can lock and unlock the phone by tracing a pattern of dots on the opening screen. Just click the pattern link, and follow instructions to create one. From then on, when you turn the phone or tablet on, you will be presented with a grid of dots that you must trace with your finger in the same pattern as you set up. Better than a password.
Rick