 So the story is really about these kind of legislative efforts called kill switch bills. Their basic goal is to turn off your phone remotely and that's not just turn it off like the power that's like disable it from being able to connect to AT&T or Verizon or even be able to install apps. So the big piece of legislation that's coming up is this bill from California. It's basically passed the Senate, it's gone through committee and now it's on the assembly floor which means it's just a couple steps away from being signed into law by the governor if it gets approved. And it's basically going to require cell phone companies starting next July to provide a way to remotely wipe, a way to disable it completely and a way to revert everything when you're done. The other side of this is that cell phone companies and cell phone manufacturers have already kind of agreed to do this. They're a part of a consortium called the CTIA and they all signed something a couple months ago that basically said we're going to provide all these features anyways because it's something that we need to do. And so that goes into effect next July as well. So you kind of have the situation now where you have these laws bumping out against the self-regulation of these companies. The main reason to have this kind of legislation out there is that people's phones are being stolen faster than ever. Millions of phones are being stolen every year. A lot of them not really violently. People are just kind of leaving them in restaurants or bars or taxi cabs and it's very easy to flip them and sell them. On one side it's really about consumer protection but it's also about kind of making it really simple to make these things less worthwhile to steal. I think the downside right now especially with some of this legislation and this is something that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is kind of arguing is that if you make all these companies do something, maybe a better version comes out later but they still have to comply with this law that you could theoretically have a situation where they still have to provide this and it's hindering them from really innovating as quickly. Also you run into some sort of issues where maybe it brings up the expense to make these devices or it kind of creates this bloat in software. I don't think these fears are really well founded but they're a legitimate issue.
 So the story is really about these kind of legislative efforts called kill switch bills.
 Their basic goal is to turn off your phone remotely and that's not just turn it off like
 the power that's like disable it from being able to connect to AT&T or Verizon or even
 be able to install apps.
 So the big piece of legislation that's coming up is this bill from California.
 It's basically passed the Senate, it's gone through committee and now it's on the assembly
 floor which means it's just a couple steps away from being signed into law by the governor
 if it gets approved.
 And it's basically going to require cell phone companies starting next July to provide a
 way to remotely wipe, a way to disable it completely and a way to revert everything
 when you're done.
 The other side of this is that cell phone companies and cell phone manufacturers have
 already kind of agreed to do this.
 They're a part of a consortium called the CTIA and they all signed something a couple
 months ago that basically said we're going to provide all these features anyways because
 it's something that we need to do.
 And so that goes into effect next July as well.
 So you kind of have the situation now where you have these laws bumping out against the
 self-regulation of these companies.
 The main reason to have this kind of legislation out there is that people's phones are being
 stolen faster than ever.
 Millions of phones are being stolen every year.
 A lot of them not really violently.
 People are just kind of leaving them in restaurants or bars or taxi cabs and it's very easy to
 flip them and sell them.
 On one side it's really about consumer protection but it's also about kind of making it really
 simple to make these things less worthwhile to steal.
 I think the downside right now especially with some of this legislation and this is
 something that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is kind of arguing is that if you make all
 these companies do something, maybe a better version comes out later but they still have
 to comply with this law that you could theoretically have a situation where they still have to
 provide this and it's hindering them from really innovating as quickly.
 Also you run into some sort of issues where maybe it brings up the expense to make these
 devices or it kind of creates this bloat in software.
 I don't think these fears are really well founded but they're a legitimate issue.