Phone Security
Phone Security
[The content of a configuration screen on a smartphone is shown. All items listed are activated as indicated by green switches.] Security Options Passcode to unlock (Set Code) Erase phone after ten failed unlock attempts
If stolen, phone can be remotely Tracked Erased Detonated
If phone is stolen, erase data and play an earsplitting siren until the battery dies or is removed
If phone is stolen, do a fake factory reset. Then, in the background...
...constantly request dozens of simultaneous rideshares to the phone's location ...automatically order food to phone's location from every delivery place within 20 miles ...if thief logs in to Facebook, send hostile messages to all their family members ...automatically direct self-driving car to drive toward phone's location at 5 mph ...take photos of random objects at the thief's address and post them as "free" on Craigslist and Nextdoor

This comic pokes fun at various phone security measures. At first, it covers some real measures, and then continues on to measures that are clearly somewhat overzealous or otherwise humorous. It is worth noting that all of the options are turned ON in the screen shown, so apparently the owner must be very afraid that their phone is going to be stolen, or just wants to see what will happen.
These may be options that would appear on the xkcd Phone , but that is not mentioned specifically, and this comic does not appear to be directly linked.
The first two options: Set Passcode to Unlock , and Erase phone after 10 failed unlock attempts are both real security measures found on many phones. The remaining options would rely on the fact that the phone could sense that it is stolen:
If stolen, phone can be remotely... The items on this sub-heading indicate the requirements of a separate device (i.e. the owner's laptop). The phrasing leaves it ambiguous whether they are only available when it is sensed to be stolen, or if they are simply indicators of whether the owner can perform the given actions when activated.
If the phone is stolen, play an earsplitting siren until the battery dies or is removed : This would be to draw attention to the thief, and discourage them from stealing future phones. Noticeably, it does not specify how the phone determines it is stolen, and, similar to the "detonate" option above, this has the potential to be an irritation if it is activated by accident, glitch, or hack.
If the phone is stolen, do a fake factory reset. Then, in the background... : This series of options is all humorous, indicating that the phone would allow the thief to think that it had factory reset, but the phone would, in fact, not do so, and would instead annoy the thief by doing various horrible things to them.
The title text extends the last category with: ...wait until they type in payment information, then use it to order yourself a new phone. If the thief used the thief's own payment information, then this would be the ultimate in poetic justice, as it would basically say that the user does not care if their phone gets stolen, because the thief will end up unintentionally buying them a new one. If the thief were to complain about this, they would have to admit that they had stolen the first phone in order to do so, which they would be disinclined to do. However, if the thief used fraudulent or stolen payment information (whether stolen by the same thief or acquired online), then the replacement phone would be purchased with the payment information of the other victim, and when that person complained, the owner of the stolen phone would appear to be the person who stole the payment information, and might be arrested for that theft.  This is a very, very bad idea [ citation needed ] .
Note that all of these security measures, with the possible exception of the remote detonation, could theoretically be done by a security app on a typical smartphone, although the fake factory reset and most (if not all) of what follows would likely require a phone to be rooted and have a custom operating system installed. With the advent of open source phones such as the Librem 5, tricks such as these have become much easier for the average programmer to implement, and some may already exist in the wild. (Even the remote detonation might be possible on some phones that prevent battery explosions with software rather than physical circuitry.)
[The content of a configuration screen on a smartphone is shown. All items listed are activated as indicated by green switches.] Security Options Passcode to unlock (Set Code) Erase phone after ten failed unlock attempts
If stolen, phone can be remotely Tracked Erased Detonated
If phone is stolen, erase data and play an earsplitting siren until the battery dies or is removed
If phone is stolen, do a fake factory reset. Then, in the background...
...constantly request dozens of simultaneous rideshares to the phone's location ...automatically order food to phone's location from every delivery place within 20 miles ...if thief logs in to Facebook, send hostile messages to all their family members ...automatically direct self-driving car to drive toward phone's location at 5 mph ...take photos of random objects at the thief's address and post them as "free" on Craigslist and Nextdoor
