3 ms·

200 phones a day doesn’t sound like that many given the size of the population and the number of tourists.

arccy 1y ago
but it could be like Tokyo....
ubercow13 1y ago
Supposedly 39% of phone thefts in Europe happen in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/26/mobile-phone-theft-europe-uk-police https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/26/mobile-ph...
account42 1y ago
WTF yes it does.
- selfhoster11 1y ago
  10 million people live in London. Surely you'd expect at least some theft of belongings
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- foldr 1y ago
  Let's do some back-of-an-envelope stats on this. Assuming there are 9 million people in London, that means that 1/45,000 Londoners experience a phone theft on a given day. We can then (very crudely) estimate the probability that a Londoner has their phone stolen over a ten year period: 1 - ((1-45000)/45000)^(365*10) = 0.08 So 200 phones a day translates to about a 8% chance of getting your phone stolen over a period of ten years. I'm obviously not suggesting that the calculation above be taken too seriously. But it shows that 200 phones being stolen a day in a city of 9 million people is consistent with phone theft being a significant but not overwhelming problem. (The adult population of London is around 7 million, and kids are obviously also victims of phone theft, so you won't get a radically different answer if you look at the population over a certain age.)
  - iamacyborg 1y ago
    That number also doesn’t take into account the significant number of tourists that visit every year, which from what I can see amounts to around ~20 million people.
  - alexfoo 1y ago
    > 1 - ((1-45000)/45000)^(36510) = 0.08 I think you mean: 1 - ((45000-1)/45000)^(365*10) = 0.08 Whilst it doesn't matter if the exponent is even (such as 3650 above) using (1-45000)/45000 will give a wrong estimation for odd exponents.

but it could be like Tokyo....

Supposedly 39% of phone thefts in Europe happen in the UK https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/26/mobile-phone-theft-europe-uk-police https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/26/mobile-ph...

account42 1y ago

WTF yes it does.

selfhoster11 1y ago
10 million people live in London. Surely you'd expect at least some theft of belongings
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
foldr 1y ago
Let's do some back-of-an-envelope stats on this. Assuming there are 9 million people in London, that means that 1/45,000 Londoners experience a phone theft on a given day. We can then (very crudely) estimate the probability that a Londoner has their phone stolen over a ten year period: 1 - ((1-45000)/45000)^(365*10) = 0.08 So 200 phones a day translates to about a 8% chance of getting your phone stolen over a period of ten years. I'm obviously not suggesting that the calculation above be taken too seriously. But it shows that 200 phones being stolen a day in a city of 9 million people is consistent with phone theft being a significant but not overwhelming problem. (The adult population of London is around 7 million, and kids are obviously also victims of phone theft, so you won't get a radically different answer if you look at the population over a certain age.)
- iamacyborg 1y ago
  That number also doesn’t take into account the significant number of tourists that visit every year, which from what I can see amounts to around ~20 million people.
- alexfoo 1y ago
  > 1 - ((1-45000)/45000)^(36510) = 0.08 I think you mean: 1 - ((45000-1)/45000)^(365*10) = 0.08 Whilst it doesn't matter if the exponent is even (such as 3650 above) using (1-45000)/45000 will give a wrong estimation for odd exponents.