7 ms·

When Hitting ‘Find My iPhone’ Takes You to a Thief’s Doorstep

55 points by kanamekun 12y ago

psykovsky 12y ago
> “This would all be moot if we had an industrywide kill switch,” Mr. Gascón said. And there you have it, the real purpose of the story, to push the killswitch agenda. Let's give the government full unfettered access to our mobile phones. What can go wrong with that?...
- Joeboy 12y ago
  I haven't thought about it much, but I don't see why you need to give the government full unfettered access (or any access) to implement a kill switch.
  - psykovsky 12y ago
    I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right? EDIT: Do you often downvote people just because you disagree with them? You said it yourself you haven't given it much thought and your reply adds nothing at all. If any reply should be downvoted, it's yours. Have a nice day.
    - Joeboy 12y ago
      Although I would be interested to know more about the killswitch agenda you mention, which I am not currently really aware of, I don't really want to pursue a conversation with you in the manner you apparently want to converse. I didn't downvote either of your comments. In fact I'm not able to downvote your second comment (which frankly I think does deserve downvoting), I think because it's a reply to mine. I hope you also have a nice day.
      - raldi 12y ago
        I hope you don't mind if I steal this text the next time I find myself in a similar internet situation.
    - matthewmacleod 12y ago
      I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right? The statement you mention is a quote, and a relevant one at that. But let's be clear - there is no way in which a "killswitch" requires "unfettered access to our mobile phones." Indeed, the UK (and I believe the wider EU?) has a global register of blocked IMEI numbers to which mobile phones are added - while it's possible to circumvent this in various ways, there are also more steps that could be taken to achieve the required outcome without handing over the keys. Or if you want to push it a bit further, it's not hard to design a system in which an owner can cryptographically prevent the use of their phone without handing the keys over to a third party. However, the struggle here is that users would not engage with this system well, rendering it pretty useless.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        And yet despite the IMEI block register, phones are still stolen in large numbers.
    - Karunamon 12y ago
      You're being downvoted for the frankly absurd and incorrect position of asserting that a relevant quote from a DA interviewed for the article is "pushing agendas". And a bit more for the incorrect assumption that a kill switch requires government access of any kind. And probably more for complaining about being downvoted in an accusatory tone. So. Being wrong, being wrong, meta noise, bad attitude. Any questions?
  - JTxt 12y ago
    Probably not, but who would have access to this kill switch/phone bricker? The customer with a private key? (...with no way it could be activated by the phone manufacture/service provider/legally forced by governments.) Probably not, because it's not user friendly enough, or some excuse. It's a problem that needs solving so we actually own and control our property.
- raldi 12y ago
  The kill switch, as designed by the civic agencies asking for it, would be undoable by the owner: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0951-1000/sb_962_bill_20140206_introduced.htm http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0951-1000/sb... A key quote: "The rightful owner [...] may affirmatively elect to disable the technological solution" It's nothing like "giving the government full, unfettered access to our phones."
  - JTxt 12y ago
    Where is this killswitch proposal? I'm curious who and how it could be activated and how you verify the owner.
  - JTxt 12y ago
    Thanks for adding the link! Here's the latest version: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB962 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?... A part I'm concerned about: "(d) Any request by a government agency to interrupt communications service utilizing a technological solution required by this section is subject to Section 7908 of the Public Utilities Code." Skip to 7908 here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&group=07001-08000&file=7901-7912 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&gr... So, this kill-switch may not be 100% controlled by the device owner. I'd be OK with a required/opt-out kill-switch only if I was the only person that could possibly brick my device with it. (That's a hard problem to make user-friendly and educate people about. A private key I create and store physically/securely somehow?) Otherwise, I don't really own my device. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing "TC is controversial as the hardware is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner."
- joosters 12y ago
  Do you realise how much Apple / Google can already screw up your phone today, even without a kill switch? Your phone is already constantly contacting their servers and running code from them. If they wanted your phone to stop working, they could do so today.
  - JTxt 12y ago
    That's correct. So, let's get further away from this cliff of not actually owning/controlling our property, not closer. Edit: Down voting because you disagree? It's a problem that needs solving; I hope we can discuss it.
    - JTxt 12y ago
      I literally used a slippery slope in that argument. :| I'll try again: No-one but ourselves should be able to brick our devices. We don't actually 'own' our property if we can't 100% control what and if it runs. But that's a hard problem to solve in a secure and user friendly way. ...and there's not enough financial incentive by consumers (and certainly by device makers, cell networks, law makers...) to solve it yet.
- Nikker 12y ago
  IMHO I don't think the 'kill switch' agenda has that much to do with government access but more to do with increased sales of handsets. Right now you can use various software to track down stolen devices, this leads to the owners to pursue the item and try to get back their property. While this method can be dangerous there 'could' be some type of support from law enforcement to help you acquire your stolen items. Instead they just "kill switch it" and now your item is useless to everyone, your only recourse now is to buy the item again. This kill switch is really only good news for the companies that make these products. One possible idea that might help is pooling fees similar to an insurance (lets say $20/item in advance or $50+ when stolen) and find private investigators that are willing to get it back for you. The PI will have the resources necessary to get the item back safely and you don't have to pay for a $400+ device. What do you guys / gals think?
Zigurd 12y ago
It is disingenuous to position a "kill switch" as the best alternative. Kill switches can be circumvented. Phones can be sold for parts. And it's an excuse for police to be unresponsive. Whereas if phones can be located, it seems like a great opportunity for repossession companies to offer a phone retrieval service, and for police to aggregate data on recovered phone to identify theft rings.
- probably_wrong 12y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with that point of view. Phones currently can be located, and yet there are no repossession services around already. And police is already unresponsive when it comes to this* (I don't know if they uncover theft rings, though). I think phones fall under the same category as bikes - good resale price, low risk[1]. A kill switch doesn't have to be perfect, I think. It only needs to be hard enough to circumvent to make the effort worthless, the same way that the woman in the article found her phone despite it being relatively easy to circumvent the "find my phone" feature. * Results may vary according to your city and country. [1] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-t...
- PeterisP 12y ago
  I believe that kill switches. In my area at around year 2000, when 'dumbphones' were common but still rather pricey, theft or mugging of phones was a common crime. It dropped significantly overnight when IMEI blacklists were implemented and reported stolen phones wouldn't work on local networks. There were still some thefts of luxury phones, where it made sense to export them abroad, but it was a huge reduction. Even if kill switches can be circumvented and phones can be sold for parts - it significantly reduces the incentive for someone to steal phones, as selling them is more effort and less money; such changes do affect behavior of criminals.
  - JTxt 12y ago
    The idea of a kill switch is great if it can only be controlled by the owner of the device. (The person that purchased it to use.) But we have not solved that problem yet. We are still using short passwords instead of strong private keys; we give unencrypted access of our data to cloud providers to make things easier for us. How can ultimate authority/access of our property be made user friendly enough for joe user/sixpack?
lalwanivikas 12y ago
Not iPhone, but it's related to my stolen MacBook Pro. 'Find My iPhone' doesn't always work and I think we can have a better solution. This is my story: A few weeks back, there was a theft at my place and I lost all my valuables (cash, credit cards, headphones) but most importantly my laptop. I'm tired and frustrated of going to Police station to inquire about it. I want to fix it! Here is what I propose: We can use the power of crowd to locate lost devices. I think most stolen laptops are sold second-hand in grey markets. If we can tell a buyer somehow that the laptop he is about to buy is stolen, there is a high probability that he will not buy it. We can make a mobile app/website where anyone who has lost a laptop can enter basic details of his device ( Serial No., Model etc.) and whenever anyone is about to buy a second-hand laptop, he can check our app/website and immediately know whether the laptop is stolen or not. This can help people locate their lost devices and can lead them to the thieves. What do you guys think? This is just one idea that can help people recover their lost devices. There might be many other ways, and we can brainstorm them here. Let's shoot! PS: Please drop me a line if you are interested in working on this problem!
- cones688 12y ago
  We already have this in the UK and its run by the British Police forces. https://www.immobilise.com/index.php https://www.immobilise.com/index.php
- psykovsky 12y ago
  Something like http://www.tracechecker.com/ http://www.tracechecker.com/ , maybe? > Checking by citizens and Police on Trace is FREE.
- wellboy 12y ago
  Great idea, but I think it has a hard chicken and egg problem. You can have lots of people who put their lost serial number on the website, however until until not more than 100k people have heard about your website and are engaged with it, very few people who lost their device will have a match. I think also there is quite some lots and found websites out there, so maybe it's a better idea to talk to them about implementing your mechanism.
topdownburglar 12y ago
Interesting sentence. " The officer, who asked that his name not be used for fear that civilians would follow his example,"
fromdoon 12y ago
In India, when you loose a phone, you buy a new one ... often a less costly one. No one ever even thinks of trying to find who stole the phone.
- bananas 12y ago
  Not sure why you got down voted for that. I did this not when stuff was stolen but when expensive stuff packed in. I now tend to use budget devices (Moto G and old thinkpad). If you can't afford to replace it, you probably shouldn't have bought it.
- alistairSH 12y ago
  The difference could be that the US market for smart phones is warped through carrier subsidies. A $600 iPhone only costs a consumer $199 up front (they pay the difference through larger monthly fees). So, at purchase time, an iPhone isn't an expensive phone. But, if you have to replace it off contract, it's very expensive. When it gets stolen, that $200 phone suddenly becomes a $600 phone, which probably leads people to more drastic action, like following criminals to their homes.
- calbear81 12y ago
  It's not really about the value as much as it's about the principle of the matter. Maybe it's an American thing but we have a sense of justice that makes us do irrational things when rationally it shouldn't. For example, someone broke into my car and ended up taking a tennis racket from my trunk. It wasn't expensive to replace but I got in my car and drove around to see if I could spot someone walking around with it. I would have confronted them and fought them if they didn't hand it back. Even then, I would probably call the cops and report the person.
  - ryandrake 12y ago
    I'm an American, and I think a more important principle is you don't risk an encounter that may end in injury or death over mere "stuff". There's no justice in getting shot trying to recover a phone you were too drunk to keep in your possession. Replace your phone and be a little more careful next time you go out.
mieko 12y ago
As ineffective as biometric unlocks (TouchID, etc) are in targeted data retrieval scenarios, I'd wager their wider adoption would effectively kill casual smartphone theft. Every 5S owner I know actually uses TouchID. I'd guess around half of the 5/5C users I see bother to use the four-digit PIN, because it's a longer process to unlock. Smartphones unattended on a bar will be a less attractive target when the default assumption is that it's locked, and would be a large undertaking to put it into a state useful for the thief's personal use or resale. Making locking convenient enough that everyone does it (and the phone's physical security strong enough that it's an actual ordeal to bypass) would build a herd immunity for smartphone owners.
- lnanek2 12y ago
  I don't think any current locks prevent clearing the device for resale, which is the main thing needed by thieves. An iPhone, for example, you just hold down power and home and connect to iTunes in recovery mode. Apple may in the future decide to do this, but I don't think any other OEMs could. They all have romance the carriers to get into stores and the carriers want good serviceability since the way you make money at places like AT&T is by cutting costs down to the bone. More unrepairable, unrefurbishable devices that need to be replaced with new units causes the opposite.
  - hrrsn 12y ago
    If 'Find my iPhone' is enabled on iOS 7, once it's restored it won't activate without the original owner's Apple ID, marked as lost or not.
  - mieko 12y ago
    Yeah, for this scheme to work, a locked phone would need to be a brick, short of desoldering the flash. Unauthenticated recovery modes destroy this. I can see a scheme where each device has a specific unlock/recovery keypair in its keychain out of the factory (or first activation). It could be requested from the manufacturer from the service center. This would at least have accountability ("AT&T Store #451, Employee #8 requested unlock key for Device #123456"). The manufacturer's service could deny the request if the phone was reported stolen, or contact the rightful owner via other channels before releasing it. Or just revoke access to service centers with a history of abuse (e.g., the thieves have an "guy" at a strip mall).
pskittle 12y ago
Something similar happened to me. It was a thursday , I was slightly under the weather and decided to take a cab to college as i had an imp exam that day. On my way I was doing some last min revision and i 20 mins the cabbie dropped me, I found my wallet to pay him for the ride and got off. Less than and a minute later i realized that i left my phone in the cab. I could still see him driving off and decided to just run incase he got my attention, but the guy sped away. I walked back to the college gate and found my friends who were wondering what had got into me and why was i running. On explaining them what happened my friend offered me his phone. I Used his phone to call my cell atleast five times , hoping the cab guy would realize that there was a phone in the back seat and come back. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I went and sat for my exam , but was annoyed at my carelessness. Tried my phone again only to find it switched off. This time was more than annoyed. I went to the police and also spoke to the other cabbies near the area i got a cab from telling them what happened. A few months had passed , I got another phone and forgot about it. interestingly enough had the same exam but finals this time and was on my way to college. I spotted the cab guy who previously took my phone parked waiting for a passenger to hail his cab. I went upto him and confronted him . he said he didn't hav it and maybe I was mistaken. I knew his face and told him i wasn't and asked him to return my phone. This time i took down his cab no and told him if he didn't i would just hand his details to the cops . He hesitated and said he would bring it back the next day , as he had given it away . I asked him to whom and he plainly said ,"Ma'am I'll bring it back to you. He gave me his no voluntarily". I did get it back but it was slightly broken.
- skelsey 12y ago
  And then you reported him to the local taxi commission, right?
  - pskittle 12y ago
    nope! he was like i have young kids and i didn't really pursue it after that. was happy i got my phone back.
bdcravens 12y ago
My iPhone was recently stolen. Within seconds, I had a pretty good idea of who had it. The insurance I had from carrier meant I'd have a new one in 2 days for a $249 deductible. What are the odds of a confrontation costing me more than $249? Even going to police has the potential of costing me more than $249 in lost time, and that's IF I can convince them to do my personal bidding.
strictfp 12y ago
Soo... The police won't help you get your stolen property back and encourages you to drop the issue altogether. Doesn't that count as encouraging crime? I would hope that they would start taking the smaller crimes more seriously, as they did in New York.
- protomyth 12y ago
  The college where I work has a bit of a reputation now for sending police to the thieves door with a nice printout of where the phone / iPad is. It also helps we have a good set of security cams. I have noticed we seem to have had a long period now where the little thieves know not to take any Apple product. I figure its a big city vs little town thing.
doxology 12y ago
I'm seeing a lot of NY Times articles on HN lately, and it's pretty lame stuff too. Is it my imagination or is HN and NYT in cahoots?

55 points by kanamekun 12y ago

> “This would all be moot if we had an industrywide kill switch,” Mr. Gascón said. And there you have it, the real purpose of the story, to push the killswitch agenda. Let's give the government full unfettered access to our mobile phones. What can go wrong with that?...

Joeboy 12y ago
I haven't thought about it much, but I don't see why you need to give the government full unfettered access (or any access) to implement a kill switch.
- psykovsky 12y ago
  I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right? EDIT: Do you often downvote people just because you disagree with them? You said it yourself you haven't given it much thought and your reply adds nothing at all. If any reply should be downvoted, it's yours. Have a nice day.
  - Joeboy 12y ago
    Although I would be interested to know more about the killswitch agenda you mention, which I am not currently really aware of, I don't really want to pursue a conversation with you in the manner you apparently want to converse. I didn't downvote either of your comments. In fact I'm not able to downvote your second comment (which frankly I think does deserve downvoting), I think because it's a reply to mine. I hope you also have a nice day.
    - raldi 12y ago
      I hope you don't mind if I steal this text the next time I find myself in a similar internet situation.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    I assume you also don't see anything wrong about reporters pushing agendas instead of just reporting, right? The statement you mention is a quote, and a relevant one at that. But let's be clear - there is no way in which a "killswitch" requires "unfettered access to our mobile phones." Indeed, the UK (and I believe the wider EU?) has a global register of blocked IMEI numbers to which mobile phones are added - while it's possible to circumvent this in various ways, there are also more steps that could be taken to achieve the required outcome without handing over the keys. Or if you want to push it a bit further, it's not hard to design a system in which an owner can cryptographically prevent the use of their phone without handing the keys over to a third party. However, the struggle here is that users would not engage with this system well, rendering it pretty useless.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      And yet despite the IMEI block register, phones are still stolen in large numbers.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    You're being downvoted for the frankly absurd and incorrect position of asserting that a relevant quote from a DA interviewed for the article is "pushing agendas". And a bit more for the incorrect assumption that a kill switch requires government access of any kind. And probably more for complaining about being downvoted in an accusatory tone. So. Being wrong, being wrong, meta noise, bad attitude. Any questions?
- JTxt 12y ago
  Probably not, but who would have access to this kill switch/phone bricker? The customer with a private key? (...with no way it could be activated by the phone manufacture/service provider/legally forced by governments.) Probably not, because it's not user friendly enough, or some excuse. It's a problem that needs solving so we actually own and control our property.
raldi 12y ago
The kill switch, as designed by the civic agencies asking for it, would be undoable by the owner: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0951-1000/sb_962_bill_20140206_introduced.htm http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/sen/sb_0951-1000/sb... A key quote: "The rightful owner [...] may affirmatively elect to disable the technological solution" It's nothing like "giving the government full, unfettered access to our phones."
- JTxt 12y ago
  Where is this killswitch proposal? I'm curious who and how it could be activated and how you verify the owner.
- JTxt 12y ago
  Thanks for adding the link! Here's the latest version: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140SB962 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?... A part I'm concerned about: "(d) Any request by a government agency to interrupt communications service utilizing a technological solution required by this section is subject to Section 7908 of the Public Utilities Code." Skip to 7908 here: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&group=07001-08000&file=7901-7912 http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&gr... So, this kill-switch may not be 100% controlled by the device owner. I'd be OK with a required/opt-out kill-switch only if I was the only person that could possibly brick my device with it. (That's a hard problem to make user-friendly and educate people about. A private key I create and store physically/securely somehow?) Otherwise, I don't really own my device. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing "TC is controversial as the hardware is not only secured for its owner, but also secured against its owner."
joosters 12y ago
Do you realise how much Apple / Google can already screw up your phone today, even without a kill switch? Your phone is already constantly contacting their servers and running code from them. If they wanted your phone to stop working, they could do so today.
- JTxt 12y ago
  That's correct. So, let's get further away from this cliff of not actually owning/controlling our property, not closer. Edit: Down voting because you disagree? It's a problem that needs solving; I hope we can discuss it.
  - JTxt 12y ago
    I literally used a slippery slope in that argument. :| I'll try again: No-one but ourselves should be able to brick our devices. We don't actually 'own' our property if we can't 100% control what and if it runs. But that's a hard problem to solve in a secure and user friendly way. ...and there's not enough financial incentive by consumers (and certainly by device makers, cell networks, law makers...) to solve it yet.
Nikker 12y ago
IMHO I don't think the 'kill switch' agenda has that much to do with government access but more to do with increased sales of handsets. Right now you can use various software to track down stolen devices, this leads to the owners to pursue the item and try to get back their property. While this method can be dangerous there 'could' be some type of support from law enforcement to help you acquire your stolen items. Instead they just "kill switch it" and now your item is useless to everyone, your only recourse now is to buy the item again. This kill switch is really only good news for the companies that make these products. One possible idea that might help is pooling fees similar to an insurance (lets say $20/item in advance or $50+ when stolen) and find private investigators that are willing to get it back for you. The PI will have the resources necessary to get the item back safely and you don't have to pay for a $400+ device. What do you guys / gals think?

Zigurd 12y ago

It is disingenuous to position a "kill switch" as the best alternative. Kill switches can be circumvented. Phones can be sold for parts. And it's an excuse for police to be unresponsive. Whereas if phones can be located, it seems like a great opportunity for repossession companies to offer a phone retrieval service, and for police to aggregate data on recovered phone to identify theft rings.

probably_wrong 12y ago
I'm not sure I agree with that point of view. Phones currently can be located, and yet there are no repossession services around already. And police is already unresponsive when it comes to this* (I don't know if they uncover theft rings, though). I think phones fall under the same category as bikes - good resale price, low risk[1]. A kill switch doesn't have to be perfect, I think. It only needs to be hard enough to circumvent to make the effort worthless, the same way that the woman in the article found her phone despite it being relatively easy to circumvent the "find my phone" feature. * Results may vary according to your city and country. [1] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-stolen-bicycles http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-t...
PeterisP 12y ago
I believe that kill switches. In my area at around year 2000, when 'dumbphones' were common but still rather pricey, theft or mugging of phones was a common crime. It dropped significantly overnight when IMEI blacklists were implemented and reported stolen phones wouldn't work on local networks. There were still some thefts of luxury phones, where it made sense to export them abroad, but it was a huge reduction. Even if kill switches can be circumvented and phones can be sold for parts - it significantly reduces the incentive for someone to steal phones, as selling them is more effort and less money; such changes do affect behavior of criminals.
- JTxt 12y ago
  The idea of a kill switch is great if it can only be controlled by the owner of the device. (The person that purchased it to use.) But we have not solved that problem yet. We are still using short passwords instead of strong private keys; we give unencrypted access of our data to cloud providers to make things easier for us. How can ultimate authority/access of our property be made user friendly enough for joe user/sixpack?

lalwanivikas 12y ago

Not iPhone, but it's related to my stolen MacBook Pro. 'Find My iPhone' doesn't always work and I think we can have a better solution. This is my story: A few weeks back, there was a theft at my place and I lost all my valuables (cash, credit cards, headphones) but most importantly my laptop. I'm tired and frustrated of going to Police station to inquire about it. I want to fix it! Here is what I propose: We can use the power of crowd to locate lost devices. I think most stolen laptops are sold second-hand in grey markets. If we can tell a buyer somehow that the laptop he is about to buy is stolen, there is a high probability that he will not buy it. We can make a mobile app/website where anyone who has lost a laptop can enter basic details of his device ( Serial No., Model etc.) and whenever anyone is about to buy a second-hand laptop, he can check our app/website and immediately know whether the laptop is stolen or not. This can help people locate their lost devices and can lead them to the thieves. What do you guys think? This is just one idea that can help people recover their lost devices. There might be many other ways, and we can brainstorm them here. Let's shoot! PS: Please drop me a line if you are interested in working on this problem!

cones688 12y ago
We already have this in the UK and its run by the British Police forces. https://www.immobilise.com/index.php https://www.immobilise.com/index.php
psykovsky 12y ago
Something like http://www.tracechecker.com/ http://www.tracechecker.com/ , maybe? > Checking by citizens and Police on Trace is FREE.
wellboy 12y ago
Great idea, but I think it has a hard chicken and egg problem. You can have lots of people who put their lost serial number on the website, however until until not more than 100k people have heard about your website and are engaged with it, very few people who lost their device will have a match. I think also there is quite some lots and found websites out there, so maybe it's a better idea to talk to them about implementing your mechanism.

topdownburglar 12y ago

Interesting sentence. " The officer, who asked that his name not be used for fear that civilians would follow his example,"

fromdoon 12y ago

In India, when you loose a phone, you buy a new one ... often a less costly one. No one ever even thinks of trying to find who stole the phone.

bananas 12y ago
Not sure why you got down voted for that. I did this not when stuff was stolen but when expensive stuff packed in. I now tend to use budget devices (Moto G and old thinkpad). If you can't afford to replace it, you probably shouldn't have bought it.
alistairSH 12y ago
The difference could be that the US market for smart phones is warped through carrier subsidies. A $600 iPhone only costs a consumer $199 up front (they pay the difference through larger monthly fees). So, at purchase time, an iPhone isn't an expensive phone. But, if you have to replace it off contract, it's very expensive. When it gets stolen, that $200 phone suddenly becomes a $600 phone, which probably leads people to more drastic action, like following criminals to their homes.
calbear81 12y ago
It's not really about the value as much as it's about the principle of the matter. Maybe it's an American thing but we have a sense of justice that makes us do irrational things when rationally it shouldn't. For example, someone broke into my car and ended up taking a tennis racket from my trunk. It wasn't expensive to replace but I got in my car and drove around to see if I could spot someone walking around with it. I would have confronted them and fought them if they didn't hand it back. Even then, I would probably call the cops and report the person.
- ryandrake 12y ago
  I'm an American, and I think a more important principle is you don't risk an encounter that may end in injury or death over mere "stuff". There's no justice in getting shot trying to recover a phone you were too drunk to keep in your possession. Replace your phone and be a little more careful next time you go out.

mieko 12y ago

As ineffective as biometric unlocks (TouchID, etc) are in targeted data retrieval scenarios, I'd wager their wider adoption would effectively kill casual smartphone theft. Every 5S owner I know actually uses TouchID. I'd guess around half of the 5/5C users I see bother to use the four-digit PIN, because it's a longer process to unlock. Smartphones unattended on a bar will be a less attractive target when the default assumption is that it's locked, and would be a large undertaking to put it into a state useful for the thief's personal use or resale. Making locking convenient enough that everyone does it (and the phone's physical security strong enough that it's an actual ordeal to bypass) would build a herd immunity for smartphone owners.

lnanek2 12y ago
I don't think any current locks prevent clearing the device for resale, which is the main thing needed by thieves. An iPhone, for example, you just hold down power and home and connect to iTunes in recovery mode. Apple may in the future decide to do this, but I don't think any other OEMs could. They all have romance the carriers to get into stores and the carriers want good serviceability since the way you make money at places like AT&T is by cutting costs down to the bone. More unrepairable, unrefurbishable devices that need to be replaced with new units causes the opposite.
- hrrsn 12y ago
  If 'Find my iPhone' is enabled on iOS 7, once it's restored it won't activate without the original owner's Apple ID, marked as lost or not.
- mieko 12y ago
  Yeah, for this scheme to work, a locked phone would need to be a brick, short of desoldering the flash. Unauthenticated recovery modes destroy this. I can see a scheme where each device has a specific unlock/recovery keypair in its keychain out of the factory (or first activation). It could be requested from the manufacturer from the service center. This would at least have accountability ("AT&T Store #451, Employee #8 requested unlock key for Device #123456"). The manufacturer's service could deny the request if the phone was reported stolen, or contact the rightful owner via other channels before releasing it. Or just revoke access to service centers with a history of abuse (e.g., the thieves have an "guy" at a strip mall).

pskittle 12y ago

Something similar happened to me. It was a thursday , I was slightly under the weather and decided to take a cab to college as i had an imp exam that day. On my way I was doing some last min revision and i 20 mins the cabbie dropped me, I found my wallet to pay him for the ride and got off. Less than and a minute later i realized that i left my phone in the cab. I could still see him driving off and decided to just run incase he got my attention, but the guy sped away. I walked back to the college gate and found my friends who were wondering what had got into me and why was i running. On explaining them what happened my friend offered me his phone. I Used his phone to call my cell atleast five times , hoping the cab guy would realize that there was a phone in the back seat and come back. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I went and sat for my exam , but was annoyed at my carelessness. Tried my phone again only to find it switched off. This time was more than annoyed. I went to the police and also spoke to the other cabbies near the area i got a cab from telling them what happened. A few months had passed , I got another phone and forgot about it. interestingly enough had the same exam but finals this time and was on my way to college. I spotted the cab guy who previously took my phone parked waiting for a passenger to hail his cab. I went upto him and confronted him . he said he didn't hav it and maybe I was mistaken. I knew his face and told him i wasn't and asked him to return my phone. This time i took down his cab no and told him if he didn't i would just hand his details to the cops . He hesitated and said he would bring it back the next day , as he had given it away . I asked him to whom and he plainly said ,"Ma'am I'll bring it back to you. He gave me his no voluntarily". I did get it back but it was slightly broken.

skelsey 12y ago
And then you reported him to the local taxi commission, right?
- pskittle 12y ago
  nope! he was like i have young kids and i didn't really pursue it after that. was happy i got my phone back.

bdcravens 12y ago

My iPhone was recently stolen. Within seconds, I had a pretty good idea of who had it. The insurance I had from carrier meant I'd have a new one in 2 days for a $249 deductible. What are the odds of a confrontation costing me more than $249? Even going to police has the potential of costing me more than $249 in lost time, and that's IF I can convince them to do my personal bidding.

strictfp 12y ago

Soo... The police won't help you get your stolen property back and encourages you to drop the issue altogether. Doesn't that count as encouraging crime? I would hope that they would start taking the smaller crimes more seriously, as they did in New York.

protomyth 12y ago
The college where I work has a bit of a reputation now for sending police to the thieves door with a nice printout of where the phone / iPad is. It also helps we have a good set of security cams. I have noticed we seem to have had a long period now where the little thieves know not to take any Apple product. I figure its a big city vs little town thing.

doxology 12y ago

I'm seeing a lot of NY Times articles on HN lately, and it's pretty lame stuff too. Is it my imagination or is HN and NYT in cahoots?