Theftaware is a mobile smartphone application used to protect mobile phones from theft its features includes
it does not require a data connection to operate – all controls are done using SMS (more info
below), which works anywhere you
have reception. There are a variety of remote commands TA(THEFTAWARE) can receive and understand via this SMS mechanism. For example, WIPE, LOCK, UNLOCK, SIREN, setting of any option, and even custom commands you can make yourself by programming
your own Android activities or
services. There is also one more
command that deserves its own
special bullet point. It’ s up next. You can make the phone secretly dial you and spy on the thief by
listening in on the surroundings. This command is called CALL, and it ’ s pure genius. Since the app disappears from the
list, the only way to get into it is by dialing a special code that you set yourself during the setup phase. For
example, if you set your code to
2222, you go to the Dialer app,
press 2222, Call, and voila – Theft Aware starts up. This code
authenticates all SMS control
messages from the previous step, by
the way, so don’ t let anyone find it out. (root) TA can install itself as a special device admin , which is a feature introduced in Android 2.2
that allows full wipe, including
emails, texts, apps, and anything data-related, including your SD card. On non-rooted phones, this gets rid
of Theft Aware as well, but on
rooted devices, the app survives. During the installation, TA asks you if you want to customize its application name, so that an unsuspecting thief would never
even think twice about something
like " EVO 4G camera driver." This doesn’ t yet change the internal package name, but Theft Aware ’ s developer liked the idea and is
thinking of doing this in the future.
This feature doesn’ t really matter on rooted phones, by the way, as, if
you remember, TA is completely
invisible there. For phones with SIM cards, tracking and locking can be initiated on
SIM change, rather than manually.GPS tracking is enabled automatically + GPS icon hides while the app is determining the phone’ s position :~)
