LG G6 Child warning (possibly all android phones now?)

[skidaddytn]

Last night, in the time it took my wife to cook dinner, our 2 year old grabbed her phone, entered the screen lock password 10 times.

As a consequence it erased all data from the internal memory, and then did us the additional favor of not only erasing the SD card but writing ZEROES so that nothing could be recovered. The SD card in these phones is not secure to being with... were the phone stolen, someone could have removed the sd card and taken whatever they wanted data wise without even knowing the password. This is way overkill. This almost tipped me over the edge of going to back to Apple but apparently they are doing the same thing now. This self destruct *feature* should really be a user choice. Hell, I would have rather had a phone virus, or had my phone run over by a car. At least then, I could have recovered something.... As I read others sad stories about this I realize it has happened to some people while jogging with their phone in pocket. I always thought of screen lock as a way to stop your phone from getting erroneous touches while your phones in your pocket. This is not so. You are better off having a few settings scrambed/emails deleted by leaving it to random touches than with no screen lock at all.

Just wanted to warn others if you have kids. The screen lock is very tempting for young kids to play with... also could be used maliciously by someone that has access to your locked phone in a very short period of time.

 

[thejesse]

This post is pure FUD. In the first place, you are better off accidentally losing your data than giving a stranger unfettered access to your phone. Once someone has your phone they have your 2FA and your email. If someone has your 2FA and email, they have all of your financial accounts.
Secondly, the G6 DOES NOT wipe your phone after ten incorrect pin entries. After five incorrect tries it requires a thirty second cool down before the next try. After ten incorrect tries it requires a thirty second cool down between each attempt. I don't know at what point it wipes your phone but it would take a decent time investment to reach that point.
My advice, keep your $600 electronic device out of the reach of two-year-olds.

 

[skidaddytn]

>I don't know at what point it wipes your phone but it would take a decent time investment to reach that point.

Agree that after X attempts it waits 30 seconds in between, but I can tell you that it can be done in less than an hour by a 2 year old. I no longer recommend using a screen lock. I'd advocate for a less military locking style option that acts as a "deterrant" rather than protection of classified FBI type data. Someone could have stolen my wallet and gotten credit card/financial information as well, but I would have noticed its absense in 24 hours, called to alert banks/cc companies and been fine.
Again, not wanting to take away the feature for those that want/need it... but its simply too extreme of a measure especially since that SD card was not encrypted or marked *secure* in any way.

 

[Rukbat]

Allowing a 2 year old an hour's unfettered access to your cellphone isn't a cellphone problem, it's a parenting problem. A whole minute? Maybe, although that's too long, but a whole hour? Your wife couldn't put her phone away before she started making dinner? You couldn't watch what your child was doing while she was making dinner?

We have too many examples of stolen phones and "how do I get past this lock screen" attempts to even think of asking manufacturers or Google to decrease the security on phones. I'd like to see "theft of phone" be changed from a minor "the cops don't care about it" violation to a felony. It's a key to your bank account and to your identity.

As for your data, if it was backed up, you haven't lost anything but a few minutes. If it wasn't, now you know why it should have been.

 

[skidaddytn]

Some data was lost (since the last backup). But I honestly don't think it even takes an hour for this to occur. I believe that time is exactly 5 times 30 seconds. So basically, if you go to the bathroom, don't forget to take your phone with you or hide it. Obviously I'm not going to test it on my G6 to verify. The time should at the very least be drawn out exponentially on each retry, with possibly some countermeasures in there to make sure the phone is not simply bouncing around in ones pocket.

 

[Law2138]

Yeah...1 hour of not seeing what a 2 year old is up to seems odd. Not casting any judgement on your parenting, but I can't leave my 4 year old alone for 10 minutes unless she is completely engaged with her toys.

 

[anon(1733)]

No problem with the phone or Android itself. Not to sound rude but it's your error. Even if it did erase all your data after 1 minute it's still your fault. Why complain and want things fixed because of your error. This happens all the time. Someone makes a mistake and now we have complaints. While agree it sucks all the data was lost. Although I highly doubt it was done in 1 minute. It still doesn't change the fact it's user error.

 

[skidaddytn]

FYI They weren't left alone. We were all in the living room/ kitchen area together. I have 2 little ones and they have lots of toys. They go in the corner of the room and start playing with dolls, toy kitchen, etc... I guarantee most parents have caught their kids grabbing something they are not supposed to have before.
Sometimes you are caught with your pants down while you are checking an email, etc.
Understand that I will get no sympathy here and you can call me a bad parent, that's fine... but in reality something like this takes only 2.5 minutes.

I do however maintain that it's too easy to reset the phone. I have pulled it from my pocket while doing yard work before and there has been X login attempts made and the screen is ON. Until this week, you could not have convinced me that it was possible for a phone to erase itself while in a pocket or someones purse. I now know that it is...

Hope it never happens to any of you guys. All I can say is if you use a password, make sure you are prepared for the possible consequences of login failure.