After about 20 years of owning a cell phone, my phone has just been stolen. It was an iPhone 5 on Verizon. I naively thought it would never happen to me. I realize that I could have done a much better job with my recovery plan. In the future, I'll be using the following:

1. Insurance for loss or theft. With insurance, the overall price for replacement is almost the price of a new phone. However, the replacement process is otherwise nerve-racking.

2. "Find my iPhone" App with GPS turned on all the time. GPS uses extra battery power, and keeping GPS on gives up some privacy. So be it.

3. iCloud backup. Backing up with iCloud allows remote wipe. I wasn't using iCloud because I prefer to be off the grid when I can, but that mode of operation is being updated.

4. Lock screen software. This software shows a text message about contact information on the locked screen. Such a message makes it easier for an honest person to return the phone.

5. Contact phone number taped to back of the phone.

These precautions are probably obvious to some people. I have learned my lesson the hard way.

Yeap, I learned the same lesson when my teenage son's "dumb" phone was stolen out of his school backpack. Even though it was much cheaper than a smartphone it was still a frustrating lesson learned.

Now that the family has four Android smart phones (and I'm a poor man) we've made sure that all four are insured through Verizon ($100 per replacement up to 2x per year for each phone) and that they all have an app called Lookout installed on them - a find-it, scream, wipe-it Android app.

Last week my daughter went to a roller coaster park with friends. They put all their wallets and cell phones in one backpack and then whoever was carrying it promptly left it somewhere. I get a call from an unknown phone number that was my daughter in tears saying that they lost it all. I quickly used the find-it app to find it and used Google Maps Earth view to tell them where it was. It turns out an employee had picked it up and brought it to lost & found ... that's where it was and they got it all back.

The solution to having a backup and privacy is to run your own backup solution. I use OwnCloud so everything on my phone is a copy of whats on my OwnCloud server so my backup is always there.

I've been meaning to set that up for a while now. The closest I've come is to create a virtual machine and load a pre-built image of it and start it up. Looked promising, but I just never got around to doing an actual install. I'll have to get back on it...

Just make sure you do not put the number on the phone itself on the screen. Kind of useless if you want to call the owner of the phone...

In the UK the iPhone 5 costs between $920 (16Gb) to $1187 (64Gb) so are very expensive to purchase. I have been using a cheap unlocked Samsung E1200 for around $7. No complaints with this handset for making and receiving cellular phone calls. I also recently purchased a new battery for my Ericsson SH888, which is still going strong after 15 years.

The thief is experienced. Soon after discovering my phone missing, I tried to make several calls and text messages to my phone. NONE of the calls have appeared in my online account as "missed calls", and NONE of texts have increased my monthly text count. Thus, the thief powered off my phone immediately.

Ultimately, the ease of the process depends on if the finder is honest or not.

By the way, a Verizon tech told me that missed calls and texts only show up online if the phone is powered on and connected to the network. That makes sense. I have an accurate record of calls and texts in my online account. However, at exactly the time when my phone was stolen, the record abruptly stops.

Verizon has a feature that prevents the phone from being activated on Verizon, regardless if the SIM card is replaced. However, you can activate the phone on another carrier if the SIM card is replaced.

Here's another reason missed text are NOT counted if the phone is powered off: some plans have limited texts. It would be unfair for texts to continue racking up if a person has powered off their phone.

I would like to see a website where a cell phone's serial number can be quickly registered if the phone is lost/stolen. Then, carriers would simply tap into the database before activating a phone. Fraud can be prevented by the carrier contacting the current cell phone registrant via email or other means. For example, if a serial number is registered, the carrier attempts to contact the current registrant to verify the theft.