In the case of a stolen phone, a PIN code might work great along with a splash screen. Here's my idea. The splash screen could say something like,
"Error: this camera has failed Canon's diagnostic tests and is considered defective. It was manufactured in July 2008. If returned within five years of the manufacturing date, we will gladly replace it for free under warranty within 10 business days. Please return to:
Canon Repair Center
<YOUR ADDRESS HERE>"
So my idea is to trick a stupid thief (or buyer) into mailing it back to you. Plus they'll stupidly include their own mailing address. You could mail 'em a dead fish. Hopefully they won't test it with another SD card. The camera wouldn't finish booting until you enter a PIN. A menu option could enable/disable this feature.
A solution for a lost camera is to just put your name and email address on a sticker.
An anti-theft trick I came up with (original?) is to use Canon's PC software to program my phone number into the "Camera Owner" field. This way the camera puts it into every photo as an EXIF tag. If it gets stolen I can search the web (or Flickr) for my phone number (assuming the owner ever posts their pics). I tested this on Flickr and it does indeed show up in searches. This could potentially get the camera back from an ethical person who bought the camera not realizing it was stolen. You'd merely need to email them and perhaps offer a small reward. And with any luck, they might notice the EXIF data and give you a call out of the blue someday. OK, they'd have to be *really* ethical....A potential new feature for CHDK would be to support even more EXIF fields to include your email address or other info.
Does anyone know if there's a way to write code directly into on-camera Flash (amending Canon's code)? Or must all hacked Canon code execute out of an SD card?
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