Phone Lockout after too many incorrect PIN attempts.

[Members_IJkea22]

Why does this feature exist? I recently got locked out for an hour having just kept my phone in pocket whilst out walking. Ok it was warm, but given how imprecise touchscreens are, seems like this is something that could just be triggered accidentally while phone in pocket.

This feature is just dumb. Serves no real purpose. Imagine a situation where this had been triggered, you were out somewhere unfamiliar, got lost, getting close to nightfall, needed to find out where you were on the phone? Only to find you are locked out for x hours (yes hours) and need to call the emergency services as your only available option? Not a good look. This could have been avoided if not for this "feature".

Imagine brute-forcing the PIN number. Someone could manually test a number every 2-3 seconds if they were fast. Now a 6 digit pin* has 1,000,000 possible numbers. Doing one per 2 seconds would mean 43,000 or so per day (at constant rate with no sleep), 3 seconds about 29,000; the full million would take 22-33 days full time (midpoint 500,000 would take 11-16 days) with no sleep at 1 attempt per 2-3 seconds. See what I'm getting at?

Why not limit lockout to 5 minutes (likely not dangerous, just annoying) instead? By brute force that would take 150 times as long (something in the ballpark of 10-15 years with no rest for an average 6 digit pin). Wouldn't seem worth doing.

Difference is lockout for 5 minutes is annoying, lockout for hours is extremely annoying and potentially very dangerous as you are disabling the phone in potential emergency situations (besides emergency services would take a dim view of being called out unnecessarily, your only option it seems).

If you insist on keeping this feature please can you give us the option to disable it in an update. I for one DO NOT like it and want rid.

* Why would someone use 4 digits instead of 6? Either way, using 4-digit pin, divide times above by a factor of 100.

[keith30]

It's a downside of setting a pin when setting everything up. Might sound good at the time but it's meanless feature.

[Bubbawithabackhoe]

I'm having a similar problem on my S23Ultra.  I plug in the charger and set it on my headboard when I go to bed. About once every ten days or so (sometimes less, sometimes more) I wake up to a text from a friend, but my phone is seriously locked.  No option to unlock it. Something like You have been locked out for too many login attempts.  I have noticed it only does this when it is face-down... (which it has to be since it lights up at odd times during the night for some stupid (SAMSUNG) system notification that I can't turn off - different rant)  So then I must wait.  I'd like to turn off this inane, irritating, and potentially dangerous "feature," or at least have a way to circumvent it.  The next time it happens I will try the google unlock trick, but I have a suspicion that it won't work - because so much other sh%T doesn't work like it should on this phone/OS.  I'm on FirstNet, and I use my phone to monitor dispatch when I'm at home.  I certainly can't recommend this phone to other first responders! This problem is so frustrating I'm starting to wonder how that iphone koolaid tastes. 

[Arrg]

The lockout started happening to me. After some heated chats with Samsung techs, no results. But... What i found was in

Settings ->Lock Screen ->Secure Lock Settings ->Auto Lock When Screen Turns Off

My phone was set to 10 seconds so what I think was happening was I would press the power button thinking the screen was locked and shoved the phone in my pocket before the 10 seconds had passed resulting in the screen being bumped ending up in too many login attempts. I changed the setting to 'immediate' and so far no lockouts.

But I still think the lockout feature should have the option to be disabled or have a setting to set the maximum lockout time like 60 seconds. Some people just cannot have a phone locked out for a large period of time. It makes the phone useless when you really need it.