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These workers by and large aren't carrying money worth stealing they are being robbed of expensive e-bikes. If these bikes were configured to become inoperable

These workers by and large aren't carrying money worth stealing they are being robbed of expensive e-bikes. If these bikes were configured to become inoperable if they couldn't either phone home or talk to the users device then there would be no point in stealing them because nobody would buy them. The end user could authorize their own new devices unless they lost access to both devices and info needed to do so and the manufacturer could handle same if and only if you were the original registered owner or ownership had been transferred in a verifiable way. See why phone theft isn't as big a deal anymore they aren't worth anything if they can't easily be used anywhere. The other ridiculous conditions are solved by making them threat their employees as employees and pay them a minimum wage for time spent including spent idling + millage. If this plus vc money eventually exiting makes some portion of the work uneconomical so be it.

praptak 5y ago
I don't believe you can truly make the bike inoperable. Yes, you can make its electronics inoperable but I don't believe you can feasibly make its battery, engine or the mechanics inoperable. I mean theoretically you could, but not in a safe way.
- faeyanpiraat 5y ago
  Triggering inoperability in a safe way is not an issue. The problem is that you would need to reach mass adoption of the technology, so that the fact of that specific item not being worth stealing would become common knowledge.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Bike thieves aren't bike mechanics and modern hardware has chips that could fail to perform their task or even brick themselves. It could fail to charge or stop charging at 10% it could spin up the motor but inadequately. It could appear to start but gradually turn off for no reason 10 minutes later leaving it in all instances a safe expensive human powered bike. It could broadcast I'm a stolen bike with cords with the electrical pathway to the transmitter being also wired to something else more vital. You could pass an encoded unique to device signal over the rest of the system with chips elsewhere expecting that signal and noping out if they don't get it to foil rewiring. You could require a periodic modifier received over the air encoded in chip2 .. chip n but not available in chip 1 like a series of codes for your key fob to unlock your car. You could absolutely make it as hard to defeat as defusing a bomb and lunatics who wave glass bottles are no longer stealing your bikes. This has got to be 90% of the problem.
  - xxs 5y ago
    I'd rather build a much simpler bike with the parts - the chip won't do a thing. Heck even the battery pack and the brushless motor + the frame are fine on their right own.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    E-bike theft in general is a problem, and battery theft as well.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Which suggests locking it at the battery level might more most profitable. Looks like they cost as much as $900. Crackhead thieves that wave around broken bottles aren't going to be highly inspired to buy a new $900 part to render their $2000 bike that they intend to sell for $1500 serviceable. It takes a one step $1500 profit to a 2 step $600 profit. Might as well rip off the best buy for crack money instead.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Those batteries are vastly overpriced. The individual cells cost next to nothing and the BMS in them is an off-the-shelf component. But almost all of them contain some kind of DRM which makes it so that they only talk to their own manufacturers motor. This makes repairing them a fairly difficult thing, especially because they are typically constructed in such a way that opening them up is hard or will break stuff.
zelos 5y ago
That's a good idea, although this: "He reported both to the police, but the cases went nowhere, an experience common enough that many workers have concluded calling 911 is a waste of time." Is so frustrating. The theft of thousands of dollars worth of equipment with the threat of violence in a known location and the police aren't interested?
- pjc50 5y ago
  Yes? Especially if it's a bike. Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime.
  - zelos 5y ago
    It's hardly low-level property crime: "...food-delivery workers returning home after their shifts have been violently attacked there for their bikes: by gunmen pulling up on motorcycles, by knife-wielding thieves leaping from the recesses..." Those are crimes that carry multi-year prison sentences.
  - null_object 5y ago
    > Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime. These are somehow strange and inexplicable societal values concerning crime. A cycle blog here in Sweden recently had an article on several really simple measures that could be taken to help curtail bike theft (which is epidemic) but neither the police, insurance companies or reselling sites were interested in their suggestions. Bikes can be worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars. Last week I was walking into a grocery store when 4 police were arresting a guy who looked very dejected, and I asked an assistant what had happened she said he was caught stealing a piece of meat.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      > societal values concerning crime. Police do not necessarily reflect the values of wider society, they may have their own values. Ranging from anti-cyclist prejudice to simple workplace laziness - I suspect the grocery guy was caught by staff and all they had to do was take him away.
michaelscott 5y ago
There are a number of reasons this wouldn't work, especially once the thieves have figured this out. They'll then be incentivised to stop the bike for both the phone and the bike, and before you as the driver were able to remote block both items would have been bricked by the thieves. It's easy to take apart an electric bike, especially the ones that have been customised. Agreed with the treating of employees properly though, these guys go through the ringer just from regular customers and order systems I can't imagine adding thieves to the mix.
- eru 5y ago
  It doesn't have to work 100%. If it works well enough, it might shift things enough at the margin to alleviate the problem. You just need to make stealing the bike annoying enough for would-be thieves to find something better to do with their time. (Compare how flimsy most people's front door locks are, yet, they still help compared to no lock.)
eru 5y ago
> The other ridiculous conditions are solved by making them threat their employees as employees and pay them a minimum wage for time spent including spent idling + millage. Compare https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-more-monopsony-in.html https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-... and https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in-free-economy.html https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in... Basically, there's not much binding riders to a specific delivery app. Many cities have multiple competing apps that riders relatively easily switch between.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
There's still value in it if it's inoperable; the motor and battery are still worth enough to make it worthwhile, and I guess the frame can be repurposed too. I mean look at cars; just taking the wheels or radio out is already worth the effort. The radio is less viable these days though, since they're built in so more difficult to remove, and there's a lockout if it's disconnected from power (for which you need a code).

praptak 5y ago

I don't believe you can truly make the bike inoperable. Yes, you can make its electronics inoperable but I don't believe you can feasibly make its battery, engine or the mechanics inoperable. I mean theoretically you could, but not in a safe way.

faeyanpiraat 5y ago
Triggering inoperability in a safe way is not an issue. The problem is that you would need to reach mass adoption of the technology, so that the fact of that specific item not being worth stealing would become common knowledge.
michaelmrose 5y ago
Bike thieves aren't bike mechanics and modern hardware has chips that could fail to perform their task or even brick themselves. It could fail to charge or stop charging at 10% it could spin up the motor but inadequately. It could appear to start but gradually turn off for no reason 10 minutes later leaving it in all instances a safe expensive human powered bike. It could broadcast I'm a stolen bike with cords with the electrical pathway to the transmitter being also wired to something else more vital. You could pass an encoded unique to device signal over the rest of the system with chips elsewhere expecting that signal and noping out if they don't get it to foil rewiring. You could require a periodic modifier received over the air encoded in chip2 .. chip n but not available in chip 1 like a series of codes for your key fob to unlock your car. You could absolutely make it as hard to defeat as defusing a bomb and lunatics who wave glass bottles are no longer stealing your bikes. This has got to be 90% of the problem.
- xxs 5y ago
  I'd rather build a much simpler bike with the parts - the chip won't do a thing. Heck even the battery pack and the brushless motor + the frame are fine on their right own.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  E-bike theft in general is a problem, and battery theft as well.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Which suggests locking it at the battery level might more most profitable. Looks like they cost as much as $900. Crackhead thieves that wave around broken bottles aren't going to be highly inspired to buy a new $900 part to render their $2000 bike that they intend to sell for $1500 serviceable. It takes a one step $1500 profit to a 2 step $600 profit. Might as well rip off the best buy for crack money instead.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Those batteries are vastly overpriced. The individual cells cost next to nothing and the BMS in them is an off-the-shelf component. But almost all of them contain some kind of DRM which makes it so that they only talk to their own manufacturers motor. This makes repairing them a fairly difficult thing, especially because they are typically constructed in such a way that opening them up is hard or will break stuff.

zelos 5y ago

That's a good idea, although this: "He reported both to the police, but the cases went nowhere, an experience common enough that many workers have concluded calling 911 is a waste of time." Is so frustrating. The theft of thousands of dollars worth of equipment with the threat of violence in a known location and the police aren't interested?

pjc50 5y ago
Yes? Especially if it's a bike. Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime.
- zelos 5y ago
  It's hardly low-level property crime: "...food-delivery workers returning home after their shifts have been violently attacked there for their bikes: by gunmen pulling up on motorcycles, by knife-wielding thieves leaping from the recesses..." Those are crimes that carry multi-year prison sentences.
- null_object 5y ago
  > Police are incredibly bad at handling low-level property crime. These are somehow strange and inexplicable societal values concerning crime. A cycle blog here in Sweden recently had an article on several really simple measures that could be taken to help curtail bike theft (which is epidemic) but neither the police, insurance companies or reselling sites were interested in their suggestions. Bikes can be worth the equivalent of thousands of dollars. Last week I was walking into a grocery store when 4 police were arresting a guy who looked very dejected, and I asked an assistant what had happened she said he was caught stealing a piece of meat.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    > societal values concerning crime. Police do not necessarily reflect the values of wider society, they may have their own values. Ranging from anti-cyclist prejudice to simple workplace laziness - I suspect the grocery guy was caught by staff and all they had to do was take him away.

michaelscott 5y ago

There are a number of reasons this wouldn't work, especially once the thieves have figured this out. They'll then be incentivised to stop the bike for both the phone and the bike, and before you as the driver were able to remote block both items would have been bricked by the thieves. It's easy to take apart an electric bike, especially the ones that have been customised. Agreed with the treating of employees properly though, these guys go through the ringer just from regular customers and order systems I can't imagine adding thieves to the mix.

eru 5y ago
It doesn't have to work 100%. If it works well enough, it might shift things enough at the margin to alleviate the problem. You just need to make stealing the bike annoying enough for would-be thieves to find something better to do with their time. (Compare how flimsy most people's front door locks are, yet, they still help compared to no lock.)

eru 5y ago

> The other ridiculous conditions are solved by making them threat their employees as employees and pay them a minimum wage for time spent including spent idling + millage. Compare https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-more-monopsony-in.html https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/10/california-wants-... and https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in-free-economy.html https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in... Basically, there's not much binding riders to a specific delivery app. Many cities have multiple competing apps that riders relatively easily switch between.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

There's still value in it if it's inoperable; the motor and battery are still worth enough to make it worthwhile, and I guess the frame can be repurposed too. I mean look at cars; just taking the wheels or radio out is already worth the effort. The radio is less viable these days though, since they're built in so more difficult to remove, and there's a lockout if it's disconnected from power (for which you need a code).