We first heard about Samsung implementing a kill switch in its smartphones in Korea back in August, with the kill switch a security measure that would allow carriers and other authorities to render the smartphone completely useless, instead of just wiping its data clean. Samsung had built this switch into its phones in the US as well, but according to a report by The New York Times, US carriers opposed the move and forced Samsung into removing the kill switch before shipping devices.
Now, a kill switch might be a bit of an extreme measure, allowing malicious individuals to render a device useless without the user's knowledge, but according to emails exchanged between a developer and Samsung, it is believed carriers have a different agenda in mind – they don't want to give up on the profits they make from selling theft insurance to consumers, which, thanks to the increasing occurrence of smartphone theft these days, is letting carriers rake in quite a bit of cash.
Right now, new Samsung devices do have a reactivation lock (found in the Security menu in settings), which will prevent people from reactivating a device after factory resetting it unless they have the proper credentials for the device's owner's Samsung account, and Google's Android Device Manager also lets users wipe their devices (and locate them) through their Google account. However, it seems these methods will continue to be the only ones available for the time being, until a better and more acceptable way (for carriers) to “kill” stolen smartphones comes along.
