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Mobile Defense!

Has anyone had problems activating? It wont send me the activation text so I cant use the program after install.
 
trondroid said:
well... I've actually had to use it as it was intended. But this was before the latest update so some of the bugs hadn't been worked out.

Got my phone on a sunday.... Browsed through the marketplace a bit and as an afterthought i downloaded mobile defense.

The following saturday i took my dog out the dog park and i guess during the course of the day my phone fell off my belt clip. (had the body glove case/belt clip thing. But no longer) didn't realize this until i got home and by that time it was dark. I logged onto mobile defense and i could see on google maps that the phone was still indeed laying out in the middle of the park... Scared and alone.

According to mobile defense i had about 50% battery life left.

I decided to wait until morning when the sun was out and go get it. Woke up the next morning and as i was getting dressed i logged back on just to check... I saw that my battery had dropped down to below 10% and had disconnected from the network to conserve power. ...and a few minutes later the phone started moving. I was like "what the hell!?!?" so i just sat there and watched the little blip on google maps as whomever found my phone walked out of the park... Across the parking lot and to their car... Then i followed them on the map as they turned down a couple of streets and hopped on the highway...

When they made it to their final destination i switched to "sctreet view" and saw that they were at "man's best friend" which is a dog kennel/training facility not to far away. I hurried up and jumped into my car and raced over there. When i got there i asked the girl at the front desk if anyone had been over to the dog park that morning... She wasn't sure but a class was about to start i guess. At that moment this guy who i remembered seeing at the park before walked out and i asked him if he had been up there that morning. He said yes so i asked him if he had found a phone.

The look on this dude's face was priceless.... He said "yeah... I found it in a puddle and it wouldn't turn on so i was gonna wait for it to dry out and try calling a few numbers in the phone to try and locate the owner. That was a lie... The phone was bone dry and since i was able to turn on the pattern lock he just couldn't get into it.

When he gave me the phone he was like "i gotta ask you man... How the hell did you find me."

"modern technology my friend... Modern technology."


sorry for the lengthy story... But i wanted to share the whole thing.
Click to expand...


priceless!
 
I will say this though.... at the time I tried to use the function that would cause the phone to display a message like "If found please call ***-***-**** to return." or something of that sort. And I could never get that function to work.

Maybe it was just user error. But there are still a few decent people left on the planet... and that's pretty handy for the slim chance one of them finds your lost phone.

I'll try it again when I get home and see if I can get it to work this time.
 
SinfulDragon said:
an even better idea!!

so then I don't need to open the txt or anything of the sort in order for the web to be able to connect to my phone? Sorry, at work all the servers really screw up my signal so I'm unable to really test until I get home.
Click to expand...

No, the Mobile Defense process is waiting to intercept the text, you certainly don't have to open it. I've tested everything but the alarm with a blacklisted contact for the noreply, and it works. Now, I did have some issues with the website, but I am 80-90% it's because my desktop is dying a very slow and painful and evolving death. (A process that becomes a crapton more interesting than stressful when you have a whole systems worth of upgrades already being processed by newegg, that's for sure.) It would connect to the phone, but the website would still say 'connecting'. Hitting refresh on the page fixed it, though, and everything was happening on the phone without needing the refresh. You can turn the pattern lock on. When you send it a message, something ominous like 'I am everywhere, I am the Jesus and the Truth and I will hunt you down' or something pleasant like 'Hi! Thanks for finding my phone, please call me at XXX-XXXX', it will wake the phone up, slide past the lockscreen, display the message with everything else blurred out. The only thing the person with the phone can do is hit 'okay' and then bam, lockscreen in effect again.

Now, at the moment, you will need a rooted phone in order to turn the GPS on remotely, because you need to install it as a system app. And like I say again, if you've already signed up for mobile defense with your regular Google cloud account, please change your settings and confirm a separate email address, and delete all messages from MDefense from your inbox.
 
Trondroid said:
Well... I've actually had to use it as it was intended. But this was before the latest update so some of the bugs hadn't been worked out.

Got my phone on a Sunday.... browsed through the marketplace a bit and as an afterthought i downloaded Mobile Defense.

The following Saturday I took my dog out the dog park and I guess during the course of the day my phone fell off my belt clip. (had the body glove case/belt clip thing. But no longer) Didn't realize this until I got home and by that time it was dark. I logged onto Mobile Defense and I could see on google maps that the phone was still indeed laying out in the middle of the park... scared and alone.

According to Mobile Defense I had about 50% battery life left.

I decided to wait until morning when the sun was out and go get it. Woke up the next morning and as I was getting dressed I logged back on just to check... I saw that my battery had dropped down to below 10% and had disconnected from the network to conserve power. ...and a few minutes later the phone started moving. I was like "What the hell!?!?" So I just sat there and watched the little blip on google maps as whomever found my phone walked out of the park... across the parking lot and to their car... then I followed them on the map as they turned down a couple of streets and hopped on the highway...

When they made it to their final destination I switched to "sctreet view" and saw that they were at "Man's Best Friend" which is a dog kennel/training facility not to far away. I hurried up and jumped into my car and raced over there. When I got there I asked the girl at the front desk if anyone had been over to the dog park that morning... She wasn't sure but a class was about to start I guess. At that moment this guy who I remembered seeing at the park before walked out and I asked him if he had been up there that morning. he said yes so I asked him if he had found a phone.

The look on this dude's face was priceless.... He said "Yeah... I found it in a puddle and it wouldn't turn on so i was gonna wait for it to dry out and try calling a few numbers in the phone to try and locate the owner. That was a lie... the phone was bone dry and since I was able to turn on the pattern lock he just couldn't get into it.

When he gave me the phone he was like "I gotta ask you man... How the hell did you find me."

"Modern technology my friend... modern technology."


Sorry for the lengthy story... but I wanted to share the whole thing.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'm sold. DLing now!
 
SinfulDragon said:
that is a good idea.

One question though, generally I don't have my pattern lock on. Once I lock the phone via the website the patter lock comes up every time I wake my phone up, does anyone know a way around that or do I just need to get use to putting in the pattern each time I want to use the phone?
Click to expand...


Yea, just turn on the pattern lock, then turn it back off. Next time you lock the phone from the app, it will turn it back on.

tsaunders said:
That is a really good idea. I am going to do this with Mobile Defense and Wave Secure.
Click to expand...
If you're in the US use Mobile Defense. Secure Wave's servers are overseas and we get charged for texts from them.
 
I installed this application just now. I can establish a successful connection to my phone, but I'm not having any luck initiating the pattern lock on it. The circle icon next to "Lock" keeps spinning and nothing happens. Anyone else have this issue? I haven't tried the alerts yet.
 
aileendq said:
Have any Droid owners had any chance to use this app yet? Care to share any success stories?

I just downloaded it last night. I haven't had much of a chance to test it yet (hopefully I will never have to use it for real).

Thanks!
Click to expand...
After installing the Mobile Defense app (which I tested and it works fine and makes sense to have) I joined their forum and discovered this interesting comment: "Contrary to popular belief, enabling the GPS doesn't actually mean the GPS is consuming any power. GPS will not start looking for signals unless a GPS enabled application is running. This is drastically different from other things such as 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Those three constantly try to seek out signals, and thus consume battery power even when they are not used."
 
Yea I installed this and tested it out over the weekend. Had my dad hop in the car with my phone and drive around the block a few times and it worked pretty good. Obviously, it's not perfect, I believe it was about a block behind from where he was driving, but still pretty freaking good for being free. I'm sure the more people install it, the better it will become too.

Good to know I don't have to have the pattern lock anymore. I'm happy with just keeping the GPS on and no pattern lock. I was always paranoid about someone finding my phone who wanted to keep it, but thought..what if someone with a good heart finds it and wants to call people in the phone to try to locate the owner? They won't be able to if there is a pattern lock on it. Now I know I can activate the pattern lock remotely whenever I want.
 
albiewan said:
After installing the Mobile Defense app (which I tested and it works fine and makes sense to have) I joined their forum and discovered this interesting comment: "Contrary to popular belief, enabling the GPS doesn't actually mean the GPS is consuming any power. GPS will not start looking for signals unless a GPS enabled application is running. This is drastically different from other things such as 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth. Those three constantly try to seek out signals, and thus consume battery power even when they are not used."
Click to expand...


After I DL'd the app, I toggled the GPS on and it has stayed on since. I have noticed NO adverse battery issues at all. Now I don't have to wait for the GPS to find a signal when I use Google Maps, either.

Even if it did force me to charge more often, which again, it has NOT, it's worthwhile for me to have the piece of mind that I can track the phone should it get stolen or lost.
 
Trondroid said:
I decided to wait until morning when the sun was out and go get it.
Click to expand...

Great story. I can't recommend leaving your Droid alone in the park all night and subject to sprinklers :eek: but very glad it worked out well for you.

I had told myself that I had cluttered my droid with enough apps already, but looks like I'm making room for one more.
 
aileendq said:
After I DL'd the app, I toggled the GPS on and it has stayed on since. I have noticed NO adverse battery issues at all. Now I don't have to wait for the GPS to find a signal when I use Google Maps, either.

Even if it did force me to charge more often, which again, it has NOT, it's worthwhile for me to have the piece of mind that I can track the phone should it get stolen or lost.
Click to expand...

I also haven't turned off the GPS function on my phone since installing this app. It also helps with the new Google "Near Me Now" since the GPS is on all the time.

The only thing I have noticed is that whenever I go to my Flixter app, the GPS icon stays on after I close out of it. I have to literally turn the phone off and back on again because I can't find the Flixter app under the running processes window.
 
tmette said:
I
The only thing I have noticed is that whenever I go to my Flixter app, the GPS icon stays on after I close out of it. I have to literally turn the phone off and back on again because I can't find the Flixter app under the running processes window.
Click to expand...

I just tried Flixter and there was no GPS that turned on. Maybe it's something in Flixter's settings (for example, whether you manually set your locations, etc.)
 
aileendq said:
I just tried Flixter and there was no GPS that turned on. Maybe it's something in Flixter's settings (for example, whether you manually set your locations, etc.)
Click to expand...


Good point, I will try that out this evening when I get home. Thanks!
 
Installed the app last night. Seems pretty darn cool. I am still keeping the pattern lock on the phone so as to protect from prying eyes...not thieves but significant others ;-)

Anyway, the map shows the status of the phone and whether it is locked or not, location, etc. Pretty cool stuff. Can't wait for the remote wipe features.
 
I sadly had to uninstall Mobile Defense. It worked great for a week, and then it started having multiple pop-ups saying that the app wasn't responding and it would force close. I would get 3-5 of these back to back and then the phone would lose cell signal and slow down greatly and need a battery removal to restart. This happened multiple times. Anyone else have this issue and know of any resolution? Would love to have Mobile defense back on but this issue makes it a no-go.
 
dukenilnil said:
I sadly had to uninstall Mobile Defense. It worked great for a week, and then it started having multiple pop-ups saying that the app wasn't responding and it would force close. I would get 3-5 of these back to back and then the phone would lose cell signal and slow down greatly and need a battery removal to restart. This happened multiple times. Anyone else have this issue and know of any resolution? Would love to have Mobile defense back on but this issue makes it a no-go.
Click to expand...

I have had it installed since it came out for the Droid and have not had a single problem with the program. Good luck figuring out what is messing with it.
 
OK, just downloaded Mobile Defense. I registered and I'm awaiting the activation text supposedly being sent to my phone. It's been about 10 min. Anyone else have to wait this long or is something wrong?
 
I think wavesecure actually deletes the text it sends because I can't find it anywhere. The only downside is that when WaveSecure sends you a text message you're charged an international text message fee if you're located anywhere outside of Singapore.
 
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