[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Depends on the circumstances. Consider this scenario; a girl and guy meet up in a bar, and exchange phone numbers. They text each other back and forth and agree to meet up. The guy ends up killing the girl.

On the girl's cell phone is information that could lead to the identity of a suspect. However because it has a 4 digit PIN to unlock the phone, that info isn't available to police.

Now that this case is public, a less reputable person knows they have less chance of being caught.

I'd even consider a more likely scenario. I normally use my fingerprint to unlock my phone, and I never reboot it so I am never prompted to enter my PIN. Something goes wrong with the fingerprint reader, and now I can't remember my PIN to unlock my phone. All of my pictures are now lost because I can't take it to the Apple store and have them reset my PIN.

In my second scenario, we had that happen this week at work. Fortunately the guy remembered his PIN on attempt #7. I would personally be more concerned with that happening than with a hacker or the gov't getting my info from my phone.

I the first instance you're arguing for increasing the risk of crime against a huge portion of the population in exchange for helping solve a crime against a very small portion of the population. Let's face it, knowing that under a very specific set of circumstances, my chance of getting caught for a crime are marginally higher, isn't likely to alter my decision making process.

So you've hugely increased one kind of risk in the hopes of marginally reducing another.

In your second example you've again introduced a huge involuntary risk to everyone else because a minority of people have chosen to improperly use their device. That is akin to saying that door locks should be really easy to pick (like, anyone can do it with a pointy stick) because you sometimes lock yourself out of the house.

I don't know how to use a product properly is no excuse for taking away the functionality and security for everyone else.