Having been the victim of a burglary recently in which my Nexus 7 2013 was stolen my first instinct was to change the passwords on all of my email accounts to prevent the thieves from taking control of my online logins. This was a serious security concern as I had both of my main email accounts synched up to my devices.
Little did I know that this would render Android Device Manager completely and utterly useless!
Prior to my devices being stolen I had activated the location features on them and they appeared to work fine but when I changed my password the stolen devices no longer had valid access to my Google play services and thus couldn't be accessed to remotely locate and wipe the devices!
After doing some research I have come to the conclusion that we cannot rely on Android Device manager to help locate our devices as the moment that the devices are wiped to factory settings or lose access to Google play services the devices are lost forever.
I had thought that this feature would be more fundamental and behind the scenes within Android (not requiring Google Play access privileges) and would have logged the device's serial numbers and singled out your specific devices when called upon by Android Device Manager.
Hell I know there are plenty out there that think this idea of this service being able to ping your devices serial number periodically to determine their location is a major invasion of privacy but I don't really care about that. If presented with that as a disclaimer to the service I think its a necessary price to pay to know I can regain control of my personal information and devices.
How could this have been overlooked by Google?
Little did I know that this would render Android Device Manager completely and utterly useless!
Prior to my devices being stolen I had activated the location features on them and they appeared to work fine but when I changed my password the stolen devices no longer had valid access to my Google play services and thus couldn't be accessed to remotely locate and wipe the devices!
After doing some research I have come to the conclusion that we cannot rely on Android Device manager to help locate our devices as the moment that the devices are wiped to factory settings or lose access to Google play services the devices are lost forever.
I had thought that this feature would be more fundamental and behind the scenes within Android (not requiring Google Play access privileges) and would have logged the device's serial numbers and singled out your specific devices when called upon by Android Device Manager.
Hell I know there are plenty out there that think this idea of this service being able to ping your devices serial number periodically to determine their location is a major invasion of privacy but I don't really care about that. If presented with that as a disclaimer to the service I think its a necessary price to pay to know I can regain control of my personal information and devices.
How could this have been overlooked by Google?
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