So, it happened. My phone slipped out of my pocket as I was exiting a taxi and I didn’t realize it until it was too late. But no worries! I was prepared for this situation, right? So I log into avast’s site to try to track my phone down. I find my phone in my list of devices, check the security info screen and I’m immediately puzzled by what I see. Under products, I see:
avast! Free Mobile Security
avast! Anti-Theft
This makes perfect sense, because that’s what I had installed. In fact, I did the root install so that a potential thief couldn’t remove it easily. But scrolling down a bit further, I see:
Anti-Theft:OFF Solve problem
Huh? I never turned this off. Why would I? Well, whatever, at least it gives me an option to solve the problem! So I click on the “Solve problem” link and it brings up a screen that says:
Enable Anti-Theft
The avast! Anti-Theft component on your device is disabled. Fill required fields (if missing) and click on the “Enable” button to enable it remotely.
The only thing missing here is a friend’s phone number, so I add one and then click the Enable button and I get a message at the top of my browser stating:
“Action cannot be completed. Anti-Theft version is too old.”
Now I’m confused. Security info tells me:
Program Version: 2.0.4993
Definitions Version: 130802-0
I assume the green check marks next to both of those numbers indicate they are up to date, but I could be wrong. I look around security info a bit more and I see this:
Last Communication: 3 weeks ago (08/19/2013 15:19)
Why so long ago? Is this normal? Whatever the reason, avast seems to have failed me completely, and I’m trying to figure out if there is any way at this point to locate the device or if I’m screwed. The taxi company’s lost and found says the driver didn’t turn in any phones (what a shocker ::)). My battery was completely dead when I lost the phone, but I’d think whoever stole it Friday night probably would have charged it by now. Any help/explanations you guys could give me would be greatly appreciated. I went to the trouble of rooting the phone and installing this software for only this purpose.
In order to track your phone you should start by contacting the person (friend/family member) who’s phone number is set as “friend” number in Anti-Theft.
If a thief/finder turns on the phone and changes the SIM card, our app will send a SMS with the current location of the phone and the new phone number (as sending phone number) to this “friend”.
If the friend hasn’t received a SMS, it’s most likely that the original SIM card is still in place.
To locate the phone, you send a SMS to the phone with this content
2222 locate
replace 2222 with own avast! PIN - it’s 4-6 digits, only numbers.
There are many SMS commands available that might prove helpful. For example:
GET LOG
Sample: 2222 GET LOG 10
Gets the call and SMS log (you see whom the thief called and who called him)
Of course you can also use our online interface at my.avast.com to communicate with the anti-theft installation - provided that the app was paired with the online account. The upside of the online portal is, that it’s convenient. The upside of SMS commands is, that they are more reliable and will work even without internet connection (which might be relevant if the thief changes the SIM to a prepaied non-internet SIM card)
For a brief moment yesterday the website commands were available (i.e. I wasn’t getting the “Action cannot be completed…” message that I have in the topic here that I typically get whenever I try to do anything). Nothing actually worked, unfortunately - everything timed out:
Locate phone
15 hours ago Command timed out
Call a number
16 hours ago Command timed out
Call a number
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
Call a number
16 hours ago Command timed out
Mark phone as lost
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
Mark phone as lost
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
Locate phone
16 hours ago Command timed out
I’m trying to understand what this means. Is my phone powered off and that is why I get the “Action cannot be completed” message? Did somebody turn it on briefly when I was able to attempt commands from the avast site? Via sprint.com I can check my call log, and no calls nor text messages have been sent since I lost it. I’m operating under the assumption that the phone has been off the entire time. Is this consistent with the expected behavior of the anti-theft software? I don’t want to send mass texts trying to figure out my pin number if indeed the phone is off.