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Is "snatching a phone and running off" a common enough problem in some regions that this is worth having? Or is this a feature chasing after fears of the bogeym
by Waterluvian 3mo ago
Is "snatching a phone and running off" a common enough problem in some regions that this is worth having? Or is this a feature chasing after fears of the bogeyman, leading to concrete inconveniences like this?
- hbn 3mo ago> Is "snatching a phone and running off" a common enough problem in some regions that this is worth having? Yes absolutely https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/phone-london-snatch-9.7204104 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/phone-london-snatch-9.7204104
- throwaway27448 3mo agoWhy bother stealing iPhones? Is it just for the scrap/recycle->repair value?
- hparadiz 3mo agoThey send them to countries where they aren't locked or break it down for parts.
- throwaway27448 3mo ago> They send them to countries where they aren't locked iphones will remain locked regardless of what country they're in. I presume you're talking about states who are seemingly unwilling to pursue/prosecute claims of theft?
- kotaKat 3mo agothere's still a fairly lucrative parts stripping market and there are extreme efforts that are used to "unlock" locked devices - it has been known in the Chinese marketplace that you could get paired chips to do SMD rework with a "clean" set of identifiers. they'll swap the SOC, the flash, and the wireless all for a few bucks. older iOS devices as well are also vulnerable to having their syscfg rewritten via exploits, so you can "clean" a locked device that way as well with a good set of serials. Apple Watches are a hot one for this.
- hparadiz 3mo agoOn top of that a sizable percentage of theft victims don't even bother to report it stolen.
- throwaway27448 3mo agoYou can't activate the hardware with a different ID regardless. It requires the owner to relinquish ownership. I'm sure this is different with different components of course depending on how granularly apple tracks their hardware—but the whole package certainly can't be activated.
- djtango 2mo agoMy high level understanding is there are countries where things like IMEI barring aren't enforced and the actual unlocking of the phone is possible. Via jailbreaking or flashing I presume
- cocoto 2mo agoNot possible on modern iPhones.
- perpetuallunch 2mo agoPegasus installed via zero click 0 day exploit. Completely owned.
- Nextgrid 2mo agoNobody is wasting nation-state exploits to launder stolen phones.
- bigyabai 3mo agoYou can send them to Chinese chop-shops and still turn a decent buck.
- mapmeld 3mo agoThere's also a scam where they contact the owner from abroad, offering to return it, claiming they're an innocent trying to activate a used phone they spent their last dollar on, or threatening the original user into unlocking it. They will say that they're hackers, connected to criminals in your home city, using your name and recent photos to say that they're going to expose your text messages. Anything to get an unlock.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoThanks! Given this was CBC, my jaw hit the floor when I saw London. I live 20 mins from London, Ontario and 70k thefts in a year would be _insane_. Then I realized it was about London, U.K. and my jaw only hit the table. 70k is still insane, though.
- skobes 3mo agoEven the CBC thinks of London, England before London, Ontario.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoPoor London. (Ontario.) (Canada.)
- oniony 3mo agoThey should have called it New London.
- mauvehaus 2mo agoThat's in Connecticut and it's older than London, Ontario: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London,_Connecticut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London,_Connecticut
- FromHoiPolloi 2mo agoor 'Fake London'
- clort 3mo agoIs it really insane? That is less than 200 per day, in a city of 15 million people.. a single gang of 20 thieves could likely manage that! The real question is, how does this compare to other cities of this size and demographics?
- iamnothere 3mo ago
- warkdarrior 3mo agoIt's a big enough problem in Brazil that the government has an official app to report incidents of phone theft: https://www.gov.br/pt-br/apps/celular-seguro-br https://www.gov.br/pt-br/apps/celular-seguro-br https://www.gov.br/pt-br/servicos/comunicar-roubo-furto-de-aparelho-pelo-aplicativo-celular-seguro https://www.gov.br/pt-br/servicos/comunicar-roubo-furto-de-a...
- why_at 3mo ago>an official app to report incidents of phone theft I can't be the only person to see the irony here. Do they also have a drive-thru to report car theft?
- warkdarrior 3mo agoRTFM
- evandrofisico 3mo agoAfter you install it you cana "safe contact" or do the reporting on a website which will blocklist the phone's IMEI on all phone companies, block any banking app sessions and remotely wipe the phone. It also functions as a public searchable database of stolen phones, allowing a prospective buyer of a second hand device to check it.
- Melatonic 3mo agoThats actually pretty awesome.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- datakan 3mo agoYes, its why those long crossbody lanyards are now so popular. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mggh4ll/a/crossbody-strap-light-blue https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mggh4ll/a/crossbody-strap...
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- bombcar 3mo agoEver since phones became pretty immune to reselling-theft (steal phone, reset it, sell it) people have been snatching phones and trying to empty crypto, banks, etc before it locks. Some apps don't reauthenticate.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoInteresting point. The article linked in a sibling comment (about 2025 thefts) suggests that they are being resold. Which makes sense if it's a $2000 product that's so stealable. But I do recall there being a lot of difficulty resetting a phone that isn't yours. Do you feel the is article wrong? Are there ways around it? Is "pretty immune to reselling-theft" a newer feature than 2025?
- kotaKat 3mo agoActivation Lock now extends to the serials of the parts inside every iPhone since Apple knows the S/N of everything. If you pull the battery off an Activation Locked phone and put it in another phone it's going to freak out and complain the part is pairing-locked and won't pair to your device but it'll be baseline usable. You'll just keep getting nasty nags in the Settings letting you know you're using stolen parts. https://support.apple.com/guide/security/activation-lock-security-sec0f8dfd030/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/activation-lock-sec... As of iOS 27 beta, there's now an additional "partner finance lock" status that will also be an available parts-lock status (to prevent a 'leased' device from being parted out). https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/21/ios-27-code-suggests-apple-could-restrict-leased-devices-after-missed-payments/ https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/21/ios-27-code-suggests-apple-co...
- bombcar 3mo agoIf I have your unlocked iPhone, I could probably reset your Apple ID because I have access to your email and your texts so I can reset your Apple ID password unlock your phone unlock. Remove it from Find My and reset it. It makes me wonder if there’s some way to put a third lock on there that’s not normally unlocked.
- 2mo ago
- dhosek 3mo agoIn Mexico, apparently, the scheme is to grab a phone from an inattentive pedestrian from a motorcycle or scooter.
- themaninthedark 3mo agoGlitterbombs would be a fun solution except the guys doing would probably get pissed and do bodily harm...
- mattlondon 3mo agoMassive in London.
- rsynnott 3mo agoEh, it certainly gets a lot of _attention_, and London is very, very big, so the absolute numbers are impressive-looking. The chances of it actually happening to any given person are extremely low, though.
- gengelbro 3mo agoHa. I was in London for work and had my phone snatched on a work trip the second day. Kings Cross area. Massive pain to get insurance to figure it out and I had to buy a burner. Two guys hopped a wide sidewalk, never stopped and were back into traffic in an instant. Everyone gave me the "you should't have been dressed that way" response. Police did nothing dispite certainly plenty of evidence (video, from apple, etc. etc).
- djtango 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- michaelt 2mo agoSocieties often try to address low-probability-high-cost risks. City fire departments, car seatbelts, motorbike and bicycle helmets, video doorbells/home CCTV, car steering wheel locks etc etc. The dangers are uncommon enough that the vast majority of people will live their entire life without ever having their house burn down or crashing their car. But they're common enough that in a city of several million people, the fire department might attend 100 incidents a day.
- backwardsponcho 2mo agoAs someone from South America I find it interesting that people born and raised in developed countries would think that phone-snatching detection is a bogeyman feature. Over there it's a given that your belongings can stop being yours at any given moment just 'cause.