PhonEY phone – phone shell headset decoy

Computers & Mobile Technology
PhonEY phone – phone shell headset decoy

Phoney
Stephen didn’t want his new cellphone to get stolen, so he made a bluetooth headset out of a crummy cheap phone, and hides is real phone. [via] Link.

3 thoughts on “PhonEY phone – phone shell headset decoy

  1. cacharbe says:

    So, basically, he’s destroyed any wireless usability and has to hold a crappy phone up to his head again to talk on the phone. And if he needs to MAKE a call, he’ll have to take his JasJam out of his pocket, dial, slip it back into his pocket (or handy geek belt holster) and then hold his crappy FAKE phone up to his head to talk. Okay…

    I’m going to notice the phone when he’s using it as a PDA, tapping on it and swiveling the face plate anyway THEN I’ll mark him as a target and steal it. Most folk won’t really notice it for what it is if it’s pressed to his head, much like the crappy hacked phone will be.

    If he doesn’t want people to know that he has the phone, use a bluetooth headset and keep it in his pocket. Just about every new service contract out there comes with a BT enabled phone, so it’s not all that unique anymore

    I mean, interesting hack and all, but…*shrug* To each his own.

  2. pelrun says:

    You might stay in exactly the same safe location your whole life, but not everybody has that luxury.

    If you are somewhere you don’t want to advertise your expensive gear (the train, certain suburbs etc) then you can pull out the camoflaged headset.

    At home, at the office, in your car, in a cafe in some upmarket area, THEN you pull out the real phone.

    This gives him the *choice*. Everyone I’ve seen insulting this guy seems to think he’s now forced to only ever use the crappy phone. Why?

    And as for making calls… don’t most bluetooth capable phones have voice dialling for just that purpose?

  3. cacharbe says:

    hrm, live in Detroit area, work in Chicago, Cincinatti, Atlanta…I don’t stay, and not, neessarily, safe…*shrug*

    I suppose what you say is true, although your voice dialing argument is a bit shakey as the phone he showed as a decoy (and those of it’s class) don’t have it or it’s so unreliable as to be non existant, that I would be a little suspicious of someone asking that phone to auto-dial, but that’s neither here nor there.

    I guess I am a little naive. As I wrote above, almost all contracts signed in the last 6-18 months in the states come with a BT enabled phone, so much so that I’m no longer amused by the lady with a walker and a Blue LED next to her ear (as obviously functional as that should seem). So to hear an argument that a BT headset might indicate to someone that I am a mark makes me pause, though not for so long that my next walk through Lincoln Park (or even Campus Martius Park) would be sans my headset.

    As I wrote, interesting hack, and well implemented, it’s just not for me.

    Cheers.

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