Systems and methods for remotely shutting down or preventing operation of device via a wireless network infrastructure are provided. The device may be disabled using a defined command the device receives on a wide area network, such as a SPOT network or wireless carrier network. In various embodiments, the device responds to pre-defined command(s) and operation is disabled locally. Override codes may be used to locally re-enable the device. In a "keep alive" embodiment, the device operates as long as it continues to receive "keep alive" messages from the intended environment.