Tracking Thieves With 'Find my iPhone' 424
Posted
by
CmdrTaco
from the because-you-can dept.
from the because-you-can dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to say "A friend of mine who just got an iPhone 3GS and has Mobile Me just used the "Find my iPhone" feature to track down his lost and subsequently stolen iPhone. This story involves three nerds wandering sketchy streets with a MacBook, and ends with a confrontation at a bus stop."
Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:2, Insightful)
Memo to self (Score:5, Insightful)
When stealing electronic equipment immediately disable all radios or remove all batteries.
While I'm at it remember to never plug it into any network until I'm sure it's not going to phone home.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
perhaps because you have a self deprecating sense of humor?
amongst other things, i'm an American of predominately Scottish and Dutch descent, and i refer to myself by a large variety of slurs.
maybe we'd all be better off as a society if everyone just took a chill pill and enjoyed a good laugh at our own and each others' shared expense without getting so wrapped up in labels that most people don't even know the origin of.
Re:Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone with a clue knows you can trace a stolen SIM.
Generally people with clues don't steal phones.
Re:Memo to self (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is awesome. (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem:
Police don't give a fuck about you or your phone.
Dangerous and Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Being one of the people that has spent a considerable amount of time living in one of those neighborhoods I can definitively say that what this guy did was extremely dangerous and stupid. I wouldn't pull that kind of BS with someone I sorta knew while they were standing in public, let alone in a neighborhood I've never been to before. I'm surprised that the guy who had the phone wasn't using it to call his friends to get down there and kick their asses, if for no other reason than to not appear to have been rolled by 3 scrawny nerds armed with a laptop in broad daylight.
If he stole the phone in the first place, he probably wasn't the most savory character in the world. What if he was on parole/probation/suspended sentence for something serious and could have been locked up? What if he was on some crazy uppers? What if he was actually meeting a large group of his buddies on that street corner? What if he was any of the above *and* armed?
Not trying to be a troll here, but I'm guessing that those guys have never really had their asses handed to them before.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, it shows how screwed up US suburbanites are. People that actually live in the city are mostly level headed about the "dangers" of the city.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps he was trying to explain the part of the story where he translated the message into Spanish. Or should he have self-censored that aspect?
It can be turned off.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Provided that the phone doesn't have a pin lock, the Find My iPhone feature can be disabled in the phones preferences, rendering it useless... :(
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed. I live about three blocks west of 11th street, anything east of that is the ghetto. My favorite bar is on 15th street, and I walk there frequently. Aside from hookers and dope dealers soliciting me, I've had no problems despite my hazel eyes. Now, if I were to "go off" on one of these folks, I'd probably be in trouble.
Does this work outside the U.S.? Overseas? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone know if this feature works outside the U.S.? Overseas? If the country the phone is (lost) in does not have Google Maps (like Vietnam) will it just give a geographic coordinate (latitude and longitude)?
Does anyone know if Mobile me will work on a "hacked" iPhone? Unfortunately that's the only kind that works here!
Can the Mobile Me feature be disabled completely by a thief? (I know that the location finding aspect can be disabled by turning off location services, sorry if I spilled the beans). Is it protected by a password? Will it survive SIM removal/replacement? Will it survive a complete OS replacement (I guess not)?
Thanks for any and all answers to these questions!
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
True, but even so, TFA's author's actions are very much those of an optimist. He could easily have been shot or had the crap kicked out of him.
I would suggest that a pragmatic approach might be the ability to remotely disable the phone totally so that it has to be sent some sort of authenticated authorisation code to be used at all.
Re:This is awesome. (Score:1, Insightful)
The real issue would be getting the police to care in the first place. They often have bigger things to worry about than random petty thieves; property crimes are probably pretty low on the priority list (unless someone got hurt in the process). They might write up a report declaring it stolen, and put it on a "stolen goods" list, and advise you to call your phone company and get the phone canceled... but unless they're really, really bored, they aren't going to go after it.
Chasing it yourself can be pretty stupid; confronting the thief is beyond idiocy. I'm all for citizens reacting in self-defense when threatened with immediate bodily harm--but that doesn't excuse doing so for mere property crimes, or vigilantism. Chasing criminals and stolen property is the job of the police. One might justify following discreetly and calling in the police from a safe distance, but walking up to a known criminal and saying "hey dude, you stole my phone!" is just plain stupid.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:1, Insightful)
You don't have to say anything negative to be labeled a racist.
Since you dared to even *mention* the race of a minority group, you deserve to be strung up in public by your toenails.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Confronting known thieves should always include the implicit assumption that there is danger of violence.
Re:Beat down (Score:3, Insightful)
"I'd prefer to just lose my phone and shell out another $500 than receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug."
And that is what is wrong with our society today. People are scared of violent street thugs and would rather not bother them, and leave them to be ... violent thugs wondering the streets searching for their next victim.
I guess it is too hard to get yourself trained and armed and stop thinking the police will protect you, because they won't, unless it is convenient to them to do so.
I would confront the asshole, and if he wanted to kill me for my iphone, then that person should be OFF the streets anyway. Life is too short is be a coward waiting to be the next victim.
Seriously, what is wrong with the world today, have we so much to lose that we allow thugs to knowingly roam free for fear of losing more???
We've already lost if that is the case. It is only a matter of time before we realize it.
Tell his boss please (Score:4, Insightful)
This thieving scumbag deserves to be fired.
I'd call the cops too, now that you know who did it.
He deserves an arrest on his record also.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:0, Insightful)
They are just taught to be ashamed for the mere existence of those thoughts, free will be damned.
I agree. I'm sick of being ashamed of wanting sexual intercourse with every good looking women I see. We should be allowed to violate them and just enjoy it. Free will forever!
Also, you're fat.
Re:Dangerous and Stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
"I can definitively say that what this guy did was extremely dangerous and stupid."
Really? If that were the case, then we've already lost. Our country is filled with cowardice, like yours. As the powers continue to take away your freedoms, one at a time, in the name of peace and security, you sit back and cower in fear of losing more if you "act up" and stand up for yourself.
I'm reminded of the quote ....
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
So, do nothing, be nothing, as cowards usually are. Hide behind your computer screen in anonymity whining about how bad the world is knowing that by being a coward, you have contributed to exactly what you fear most.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I live near Miami. I remember once telling my cousins in the UK that I really enjoyed Florida. They responded to the effect, "How can you live in Miami? Don't you worry about the assault rifle wielding drug dealing, ganster thug rapists?"
Recently in Philly, driving along one absolutely normal looking city block, my friends said remarked that they were surprised that people were walking around *at night* in this warzone.
It's one thing to be careless but this irrational fear of cities is mindboggling.
To see real urban ganglands, you need to walk through the gritty Weston neighborhood along the I75 corridor near the 'Glades. Some real thugs hang out here.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, that sad truth of it is...people who live in highly ethnic, poor neighborhoods TRY to have normal lives too (they're not all bad, no), but, I've heard story after story about shootings breaking out, and kids at an outdoor birthday party getting injured or killed in the crossfire.
Re:Beat down (Score:3, Insightful)
Just sayin'.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:2, Insightful)
You got your iPhone back, right? :)
You weren't foolish at all
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you're Google, in which case OMG evuhl korporationz 1984!!!!
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:4, Insightful)
"We parked along Medill and hopped out. It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. On the south side of the street, an outdoor birthday fiesta was convening, and some of the participants eyed us three honkeys questioningly."
I live about a block from where that party was going on. Calling that particular portion of Logan Square a Puerto Rican neighborhood is inaccurate (despite there being a Puerto Rican credit union there, many of my neighbors are from Mexico or are descendants of Swedish and Armenian descent).
The party that was having a birthday celebration had turned into a street soccer game around 9 PM. (Did you see the pinata with the big CA on its chest?) You had jack-shit to fear from that party other than them wondering what the hell good could come from three goofs who clearly didn't live there wandering up and down the street. Overall crime in that section of Logan Square is pretty low---at the point you passed the birthday party, you were about a block from Goethe Elementary's schoolyard. You would have raised a few eyebrows---not because you're white ( there were plenty of your cousins around that night, myself included) but because you were clearly doing something strange. When people who look confused walk through there it's usually to get to the Congress theater, and they may have figured you got a bad batch of X and forgot where your car was parked.
Honestly, it's a phone. If you lose it, you lose it. I see this story as just being a self-congratulatory geekoff. Had you entered a really, really sketchy neighborhood, I'm sure this story wouldn't have happened--you would have all turned around and walked out before things got weird. You felt comfortable enough whipping your hardware then, but after the fact, after a couple beers and with a few retellings i'm sure this all sounded like quite the adventure, the skintones of the participants got darker, the streets narrower and your courage only deeper.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you read the comments, you find he did offer $30 anyway, but the guy declined the money.
His statement that he was intending to track them down from his end but was intimidated by the messages may have been genuine. He might have been fearing a beatdown from the owner (no good deed goes unpunished), or wanting a neutral location at which to make the exchange away from family.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
Never actually HAD your ass kicked downtown, have you? I'm not saying that everytime you go through an urban area it's The Warriors 2009, but seriously, if you think the whole "urban fear" is just an invention, you're simply naive.
From the article: (the guy was thinking)"You probably think the angels of death have found you."
No, what crossed my mind was that if he was an actual criminal and not just some opportunistic teen, his thought would be more like "Sweet iPhone, and there are 3 dickweeds running around with a laptop too. All we have to do is roll them, and we get a laptop as well."
Re:Memo to self (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Beat down (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess it is too hard to get yourself trained and armed and stop thinking the police will protect you, because they won't, unless it is convenient to them to do so.
I would confront the asshole, and if he wanted to kill me for my iphone, then that person should be OFF the streets anyway.
I take it you consider yourself some kind of tough guy. You know how to fight and are possibly armed. You're not going to take shit from any lowlife street thug.
You are also an idiot. Here's why:
I've been in altercations with people who were clearly prepared to use a level of violence far beyond what the situation called for - people who were clearly not rational. It's not cowardly to avoid such confrontations. It's the intelligent thing to do.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:4, Insightful)
or maybe he was suggesting the intimidation he and his friends felt at being out of their element and in a new, strange, and oft stereotyped setting with real, if frequently overplayed, possibilities for eruption of violence.
maybe he over-empathized with those around him as a manifestation of his "white guilt". i know my primary inhibition with respect to new acquaintances from different American ethnic groups is my own self consciousness about the possibility of offending them. i think that sucks and we will only be able to make claims regarding the elimination of racism when *no one* has any particular feeling regarding their fellow man other than those merited by the facts of the interaction. (dude looking for a seat in the cafeteria: fine; dude robbing me: bad)
how else would you have described the setting to portray your feelings of isolation and perception of personal risk, justified or not? perhaps, "we were in a socioeconomically depressed region of town and felt odd"? this misses mounds of social context of both the part of the neighborhood denizens and the nerds.
racial tension is real. ignoring it and not communicating openly about these perceptions will not make them go away. in fact, lack of open communication will only stopper up and push these feelings underground where they will fester and gain new currency. on the other hand, i view this sort of description not as particularly racist, but as a step away from racism. can it be better, more harmonious, whatever? sure. gradually. as reality allows, descriptions of one's circumstances in odd situations will be based in that new reality that developed from today's which is, in turn, dramatically different from, yet traceable to our worst days as a racist society.
on a lighter note, isn't the term nerd a pejorative assigned based on extrinsic features observed by the cool kids? yet we own the term and generally rejoice in our nerdiness. and in our interactions with the world around us, we are gradually becoming normal in society.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:3, Insightful)
More like, mankind didn't evolve beyond it, and racism only quit being an issue because they had other species to fear/hate instead.
Re:LoJack for your iPhone? (Score:0, Insightful)
Of course. Baltimore is full of niggers... think about it.
Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook? (Score:4, Insightful)
I care if my $100 phone is lost or stolen. How is it a negative to care about losing something expensive? If it was the other way around you'd make fun of yuppies that don't care if their $600 phone is stolen because they are so casual with money.
Geez. Only on slashdot would you find people bitching about a good feature. God, what a fan boi. he only has an iphone because it makes him coffee and gives him blowjobs every morning. What a loser.
Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality (Score:2, Insightful)
Richard Pryor could exist in 2009. Have people already forgotten about Dave Chappelle? The thing about Pryor is that he was a genuine man and one of the funniest people. That itself is awesome.
The problem with anti-PC humor is that it is humor made by assholes. If it anything, it makes comedy worse. It makes it seem that being anti-PC is an essential way to be funny. Now just any asshole with a microphone - be it at a comedy club, radio show, at home in front of the computer, or anywhere that can be broadcast - or with anything to write just say "OMG NIGGER/SPICS/JEWS PISS ME OFF. FUCK THE PC POLICE!" and makes the morons grunt a chuckle. Want proof that they're assholes? Browse the -1 comments here at Slashdot and see how often they spam their humor. There is a very good reason why they are generally hidden. They turn message boards into shit holes. Anyway, why give assholes the benefit of making you laugh?
For every Richard Pryor, there is a Rush Limbaugh, an Adam Carolla, a Carlos Mencia, some douchebag duo on the radio, and probably even more assholes elsewhere. For every Matt Groening (whose humor is not anti-PC), there are at least 10000 wussy losers on the Internet making some "LOL MINORITIES SUCK" joke. (For the record, I don't think happywaffle is one of them.)