I believe the idea is that you can't just reinstall the OS to circumvent it.
Apple currently does this with their activation - if the phone gets remotely locked by the user, it can't be unlocked without knowing the password, and no amount of reinstalling, wiping, or praying to your deity will be enough to unlock it.
As far as I'm aware, there aren't any known vulnerabilities with Apple's scheme - I don't know how long this will remain true.
I'm curious how this will be implemented on the Android side (also considering that Google is headquartered in CA - but I don't know if that changes anything). Android phones are known for their open-ness, and on many models, unlocked boot loaders. I wonder how you'd securely lock it down so you couldn't wipe it, like you describe.
Presumably it'd act as an extension of how it works now - the phone is shipped with a locked bootloader, and has to be unlocked by a computer which wipes the phone in the process.
So the bootloader could require a code which is generated by Google to do that unlock, and Google could keep a list of 'killed' phones not to generate unlock codes for. The challenge would be to prevent that expanding into a wider scheme to stop users having control over their devices.
Apple currently does this with their activation - if the phone gets remotely locked by the user, it can't be unlocked without knowing the password, and no amount of reinstalling, wiping, or praying to your deity will be enough to unlock it.
As far as I'm aware, there aren't any known vulnerabilities with Apple's scheme - I don't know how long this will remain true.
I'm curious how this will be implemented on the Android side (also considering that Google is headquartered in CA - but I don't know if that changes anything). Android phones are known for their open-ness, and on many models, unlocked boot loaders. I wonder how you'd securely lock it down so you couldn't wipe it, like you describe.