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iPod: This Season's Must-Have for Muggers
KH writes "West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price." Apparently, muggers recognize the headphones and target passersby for muggage.
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Well people will kill each other over sneakers so to mug for an Ipod doesn't surprise me. From the article: "The Sun quotes one iPod representative as saying: "There are guys who?d rather be robbed than change the color of the headphones." " = Darwin strikes again.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
thats how i got mine :)
I keep the mini-iPod in a ... hidden place... that's very snug. Muggers never look there, and really, who wants to pull the cord out of there?
Like my mother used to say: "Can't we have nice things!"
This iPod-carrying bon vivant isn't going to hand over his beloved music player without a fight.
I've hacked my iPod to shoot pepper spray! Ha!
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
iPod -- with LoJack!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
let a mugger have it and have your insurance buy you a replacement.
Dude, I'm, like totally understanding of your verbage, but, like, there might not be others, that, like, know.
But rock on, Dude! Awesome!
How about an iMace accessory?
target passersby for muggage
:)
eh? 'excuse me sir, I noticed you passing by and wondered if you'd like some hot, sweet muggage. only $1 a bowl.'
Mugger: "Your I-Pod or your life..."
Mr Benny: ...
Mugger: I SAID, your I-POD or your LIFE!
Mr Benny: Hold on! I'm thinking!
buhbumpbump...
Now that we know this our social lives will improve, since getting mugged is better than no social life at all.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
couldn't apple help with this? like register the unit's id, and everytime it tries to sync to i-Tunes, it checks a global database or something...
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Even muggers recognize that the higher price of Apple hardware goes into quality.
Most muggers don't realize they'll be replacing that little battery for $99 in a couple weeks' time.
Yeah, the white headphones do give it a way, but this paragraph is badly written!
The thief then asked Baskerville if he was listening to an iPod and, receiving an affirmative answer, he "pulled a knife out and started waving it at me, saying: 'Well hand it over, then.' I gave it to him and he ran off. He must have known I was wearing an iPod because of the white headphones."
Of all the nice design aspects of the iPod, as far as Apple are concerned those distinctive white headphones have to the best. Portable devices need to be small, discrete, and easy to slip into a pocket, so you never really see them. Is that person with the headphones on listening to a Rio player? iRiver perhaps? Maybe Neuros? Or just a discman stuck in their bag? But you know damn well when you see someone listening to an iPod.
I'm surprised the others player manufacturers never cottoned on to this one: get the customers to do your advertising for you!
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
and aren't just wearing white earbuds to make yourself look cool.
The mugger may get pissed and pop a cap in your ass when he find you only have an old walkman.
Apple UK's wave of iPod advertising may be making the product a 'must-have' accessory for street criminals. It's also possible that UK journalists, disappointed at Apple's recent news that its much-anticipated iPod mini won't ship until July, now also have Apple in their sights - as was the case with the recent battery bad news stories.
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
This reminds me of what my mother used to say:
Be careful of how hard you try to get attention, you may not garner the type you intended.
By your logic, you should be put to death. You just stole some of my life because I read your inane post.
Mugger: so is that an ipod you got there mate? ::mugger takes out knife:: ::mugger takes ipod and runs off:: ::mugger comes back::
Guy: uh, yeah.
Mugger: alright, hand it over.
Mugger: uh, you haven't had this for 18 months or so by any chance?
I don't really understand the need to use the stock headphones anyway. Is using the white ones meant to be like a staus symbol? Sure they sound better than most earbuds that come with CD/MP3 players, but there are much better one's to be had, provided that you don't mind paying a little bit for them. In fact, I've yet to take the white ones out of package they came in.
...sux. Had some street dude try to mug me before, downtown atlanta. Was getting off work, that day in the merchandise mart doing tradeshow set-up. Was tired and not in the mood to get mugged. This doofus walks up to me in the parking lot across the street as I was loading my tools back in the ride, waltzs right up and demands cash, Sez Mr. mugger wannabe -> "gimmee 20$" then some cursing. I stepped back, swung my vest open and started to draw my piece. Sez me ->" How 'bout 45 instead?"
heh heh he took off running.
Just an anecdotal story, doesn't mean much except to point out muggings happen everywhere,all around the whirrled, just sometimes they have a happy ending.
There's an old saying I am fond of:
"God made man - Then Colonel Colt made them equal"
The police should have issued this warning... Don't worry about flashing hundred dollar bills, or flashing your credit cards, or wearing flashy gold jewellery because it has become evident that muggers will only attack you if you have an Ipod.
Wake up!!!
My advice is don't talk to muggers
"Most muggers don't realize they'll be replacing that little battery for $99 in a couple weeks' time."
:)
Then YOU apparently don't realize they'll just be mugging someone else in a couple weeks' time. Duh
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I wonder if the RIAA will sue these muggers for stealing copyrighted music? Knowing the RIAA, they are more likely to sue the victims for distributing copyrighted material.
_____
Thank you.
I bought my 5gb iPod the day Jobs announced them. My only complaint was the poor quality of the buds.
Replaced them with Sony MDR-E888 the day after, which sound incredible.
I bought my iPod because I love music, not as a "fashion accessory."
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Use the headphones but plug them into an old, big-ass, tape deck that's playing "Wham" (George Michael) on it. Realizing what's going on the mugger should shit his/her pants and run for his/her life...
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
As much as MP3 jukeboxes and digital cameras keep getting smaller, they keep becoming better targets for thieves. Someone walking down the street with a 20 GB iPod, a Palm Tungsten C and a Minolta dImage is carrying about $1000 (US) in potential swag. That makes a car stereo system look like chump change. Sure, the fence would have to sell the items without accessories, but you can usually get those for a fraction of the cost of the item.
Now will someone please mod me Insightful.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Not saying that muggers aren't criminals and shouldn't be punished, but give me a break. I'm a Texan, and I find that a little harsh.
It's as if they tied me up for 30 hours.
Now, now, now, you were on to making a good point, and then you had to go get hysterical. No, it is not like they "tied you up for 30 hours." Yes, it sucks, but no, it is not false imprisonment.
Plus, chances are, you didn't actually WORK those 30 hours, but merely 15, and spent the other 15 reading slashdot, which is actually theft from your employer, so maybe he should kill YOU!
On second thought, why not just get it over with, and go for the gusto. Call it 'terrorism'.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
All I have to say is, have fun circumventing the serial number protection. Someone buying a stolen iPod is in for a suprise.
postmodernsideshow.com
One fake iPod case: $50.
One receiver: $50
One transmitter: $50
One kilo C4: $150
One mugger exploding when he runs more than 50 feet away from you: Priceless.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Technically I think this would be a neat feature Apple could integrate into .Mac for all it's products.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
This opens up the market for 3rd-party iPod cases with exploding dye packs, like banks use when they get robbed. Good luck trying to sell a bright-pink-stained iPod! ;)
sudo eat my shorts
for stealing mp3's ....
That's easy. Just alert the RIAA they stole your iPod without paying them license fees.
I think that repeat theifs should be killed. They aren't stealing just property but really they are stealing a part of their victim's life. Say it takes me 30 hours to earn the money for the iPod, if I get mugged and they steal my iPod, they just stole 30 hours of my life. It's as if they tied me up for 30 hours. I just think that people who steal life from others should have their life taken away from them.
Well once they've stolen you're Ipod surely they've effectively got an illegal copy of thousands of RIAA protected songs and under a secret clause of the PIRATE act anyone under suspicion of violating intellectual property can be killed without trial so you might get your wish
In Soviet Russia Slashdot cliches use you
you're blaming the company?!
first you should blame the muggers.
then maybe you should blame people who have flashy things in questionable surroundings.
*last* should be the company. Are you going to blame every luxury product manufacturer? And then every manufacturer of anything of value? "Apparently McDonalds would rather see their customers mugged than produce Big Macs made out of radioactive dirt? (because someone might try to steal clean dirt)"
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
or else meet certain death...
This is a Slash-mugging! Close your browser and give me your laptop!
Now!
Letter
Oops, nevermind...
Though I'm sure there's a Soviet Russia post to be made out of this...
Scenario:
---
Frankfort, Kentucky, makes it against the law to shoot off a policeman's tie.
I want to get an Ipod and use my old pair of big ass 70s style radio shack headphones. big and bulky with the 1/4 inch jack and cover up your entire ears.
F na me=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F007%5F003%5F004%5F0 00&product%5Fid=33%2D1176
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5
While they can be spotted at a distance, a mugger might thing I have a portable 8-track and not steal from me.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I never take the iPod out because I feel like an asshole for wearing the white headphones. I feel like I'm advertising for apple and showing off my expensive nerd toy. I've been planning to get new headphones, and this is another good reason to get a pair.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I've had my ipod since the 3rd generation came out about a year ago and I've been using black headphones for about 7 or 8 months- I foresaw it as an obvious downfall to wear white headphones at night in chicago if I keep the fscking thing. I still have it and no one is the wiser about I'm using for music anymore- it's none of their business.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
As soon as the mugger steals one, a newer cheaper iPod comes out for mugging the next week. The vicious cycle repeats infinitely.
...I carry an iPod and also an H&K USP .40, fuck with my iPod and you're going to have some extra holes in your ass. Oh, sorry, I forgot you can't own guns like that in England, my bad :-/
-- Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin
As a resident in Birmingham UK (The West Midlands) i might add that people world wide probably don't really need to worry to much. Birmingham has quite high crime rates and a lot of rich boroughs surrounding it - people are prime targets. People need only remember the shootings that took place over new years eve last year.
Why do you lay your troubles on an already troubled mind? Can't you see we grow tired of your... malcontent - your... fearmongering?
Too long have you watched my iPod. Too long have you haunted its backlight.
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
"You don't look too bad, here's another."
Yea great solution. Killing someone to protect to a $300 piece of silicon is a great idea. Really worth it. Why don't we add rocket launchers to our cars so we can blow up anyone who cuts us off while we are at it.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Jeez- I submitted the original telegraph.co.uk story yesterday, it being rejected then too. These editors are so fickle.
And someone needs to reboot images-aud.slashdot.org so my little mozilla firefoxy thingy stops spinning.
It will distract the mugger so that he demands your hat, and you will escape with your precioussssssssss ipod intact.
This procedure also helps to hide ketchup stains on your shirt.
Okay, all that slightly offtopic stuff said, wearing white headphones will not get you mugged. However, if some guy on an empty street stops you and asks you if you have an ipod, and you stop walking, look at them, and respond... well that may get you mugged, as it did the victim in the story.
Great, Pudge didn't do his homework on this one.
I considered submitting this story, but I was busy and now I regret it because according to this MacWorld UK article, this is just an unsubstantiated media frenzy. The proof of how widespread these muggings are is still pretty sketchy.
Anyway, the people with IPODs are no being mugged becuase of the IPOD. They are being mugged because of what the IPOD signifies. Someone who has an IPOD probably access to disposable cash and so make a richer target then other people. Also since this person is the kind of person to get an IPOD they are also less likely to put up a fight (ok I just made that up)
Anyway, the point is that Muggers are using IPODS for selection of their targets *and* they get a cool IPOD to boot
I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Heh, when i bought my ipod, i didn't bother using the stock earphones, granted i tried them, but i find them very good. Plus i didn't want to show the world that i owned an ipod and so carried on using my beloved Bang and Olufsen earphone ( They may cost $150 but they are the dogs ). I lent my ipod earphones to a mate who had a crappy 128MB MP3 player and he had the pleasure of people asking him if he had an ipod. Plus he looked stupid when he pulled out a battered MP3 player
Ditch the white earphones, period. If you're going to spend a few hundred bucks on a portable music player you may as well spend a bit more to actually be able to experience the full sound quality the iPod is able to provide. My recommendation: Etymotic ER-4P. Anyone who's heard them plugged into an iPod will see that the original white earphones are laughably bad in comparison and do not do the iPod justice. It's like a night & day difference. The etymotics just sound so much clearer, crisper and better in every way...
Can't find the link right now (damn badly indexed megaretailer sites!), but I've seen a fry's a bulky waist-worn iPod pouch with (get this) a series of blinking LEDs on the outside that pulse their blueness to the world.
... mug wearer -- iPod enclosed... mug wearer - iPod enclosed ..."
I wonder if they blink Morse for "mug wearer -- iPod enclosed
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
They finally have some basis for what they have been saying this entire time. Someone is really stealing music now.
Teach someone to use the net and they won't bother you for weeks; show them Slashdot and you may never see them again.
But it's so sexy that I could make love to it!
In Hong Kong there are plenty of rip-off white headphones so mugging these people is likely to get you a $10 FM radio :-)
-- Sig meltdown immine...
"I'm so cool... I could've got an MP3 player that does more for less, but instead I sunk half a grand into this shiny Apple one! Marvel, peasants! Marvel at my excessive wealth!"
"*YOINK!*"
"Damn! Ah well, the battery was starting to go anyway. I'll have to buy another one tomorrow."
LOL :-)
The $500'000 question is: Are the modders having fun with these mods, or are they just brainless zombies?
You know what? Let's ask the moderators!
For zombies, please mod me redundant
For having fun, please mod me insighfull
Here it is, but I think paid subscription to the Economist is required.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Set up a decoy squad of people with nothing but really twangy country and western tunes in their ipods. I doubt many muggers will try it again after they get a taste of ol' Merle in his prime.
Well, you did just post again.
Heh: there's just one problem about sending such messages in a volatile society, especially when you can't hear what's going on around you. The distance from preening signifier to damn easy pickings is much shorter than many realize.
Put these ingredients together--frontin' hipsters oblivious to their environment, the anger and hunger of the street, and the value of the iPod both as tech and music motherload--and it's probably poised to replace car stereos as the quickest score a thief can make.
I'm the last person to promote use of lethal force for protection of property. However, you're not understanding the nature behind the argument I feel.
A mugging is a violent act. In normal thinking parts of this world (IMHO) it's prefectly legal to respond to a lethal threat of violence with lethal force.
If I walk up to you, 10 feet away, and demand that you tell me you like me while pulling a gun on you to insure compliance I have put your life in danger. The level of my demands does not in any way, shape, or form effect the perceived threat level to your own person. It shouldn't at least. I don't care if somebody demands a stick of gum or my car -- if they pull a weapon my life is in danger and I not only have the natural right, but often the legal right, to respond with deadly force to neutralize the threat.
The wording of your reponse, "Killing someone to protect", just screams to me that you do not have any background in such areas. You do not shoot to kill, ever, you shoot to stop. A very small caliber round will kill a human being if given enough time. That is not the goal. The goal is to deliver a massive amount of trauma to their body to immediately stop all action on their part. That does not mean that you're trying to kill them. People shoot center of mass not because it's deadly, but because it's likely to stop the person. A shot to the upper thigh (if you hit a major artery) is horribly fatal despite what you see in the movies, however it's unlikely to IMMEDIATELY stop the attacker. Stopping is the goal, not killing.
I wouldn't shoot somebody over $300 dollars. I wouldn't shoot sommebody for any sum of money. The whole situation turns though once the perp presents the threat of deadly force.
I find it interesting that someone modded you interesting.
If a thief tries to take my iPod, I'll just bludgeon them to death with it.
So radio tags are bad because they track peoples' habits. Product activation is bad because it ties a product to a specific user. Global databases are bad because it's a violation of your privacy. However, when we are talking about your $300 iPod, then it's all good?
DISCLAIMER: the logic in this post is based on my opinions.
Answer: Yes, because the intended purpose would be for something the customer wants as opposed to what Big Brother would want. Chances are it would be an opt-in type thing if it was for the customers, and if it wasn't, THEN it would be a bad thing. However, Apple knows how to treat its customers and chances are they wouldn't intstitute anything like that.
The difference with MS is that noone trusts them and chances are they'd force registering on all of their users if they were to kick something like that into gear.
You know, I'd really rather not kill someone. That's the sort of thing you'd have to deal with for the rest of your life. I'm pretty jaded, but I'd like to think that it would bother me a lot to take someone's life.
Which is not to say that I wouldn't do it (or try to) if the need arised, I'd just like to avoid it.
Anyone have a statistic on what percentage of armed robberies involve actual shooting/stabbing? And what percentage of those where it was because the victim resisted? I'll agree that you don't give in to a rapist, but if it's just property, give it up.
Another question would be, do these robbers understand how to control a victim? If I rob you, you will not be able to pull a gun on me. I'll make sure you don't get the opportunity. If you try to do something, I'll use my weapon first. If you pull a gun, you'll probably die. As long as you behave and don't threaten me, I'm content just to wave my weapon at you.
So, nonlethal weapons, assuming they disable the attacker, solve two problems: They leave the guy alive, and they don't escalate the situation as much. He's less likely to kill you if he doesn't think you can kill him, especially if he doesn't even recognize the weapon.
Other than theft... It would be interesting (satisfying?) if the RIAA would bring the hammer down on these muggers for turning legit music into stolen music! Suddenly a petty crime would now get a $10,000 fine per song (or whatever the absurd fine is).
It's prolly illegal, but I imagine bear spray would stop just about anyone, if it would stop a charging grizzly.
I was hiking once, and got near a mom and cubs (I saw a cub dart up a tree and heard a big thing coming through the brush). I took off the other way, pulling out my bear spray as I ran*. When I got it out, I turned around and saw nothing. The bear was just fronting a little. But I walked backwards for a while, away from that spot.
Here's the point of my story: I realised that I had never even tested the thing to see if it worked. So I pointed it downwind (I'm not an idiot, but the wind was very slight), and let loose as short a burst as possible. Then, satisfied tha tit worked, I walked away -- upwind -- and a few seconds later had trouble breathing for the sharp peppery shit that burned my sinuses. It soon cleared up, but I couldn't imagine getting a facefull of that stuff. Seems like it'd stop anyone. Of course, I've never been up against anyone on PCP...
*I later learned, there's literally a 1 in a million chance of getting mauled by a bear. You really don't need bear spray when you're hiking.
c-hack.com |
If they'll send a teenager to court for offering a gig or two of mp3s, surely they'll happily beat the life out of a mugger that steals 10-20-40GB of mp3s!
It probably predeces even the usenet.
From the Jargon file, under "Hacker Writing Style":
There is also an accepted convention for 'writing under erasure'; the text
Be nice to this fool^H^H^H^Hgentleman, he's visiting from corporate HQ.
reads roughly as "Be nice to this fool, er, gentleman...", with irony emphasized. The digraph ^H is often used as a print representation for a backspace, and was actually very visible on old-style printing terminals. As the text was being composed the characters would be echoed and printed immediately, and when a correction was made the backspace keystrokes would be echoed with the string '^H'. Of course, the final composed text would have no trace of the backspace characters (or the original erroneous text).
Accidental writing under erasure occurs when using the Unix talk program to chat interactively to another user. On a PC-style keyboard most users instinctively press the backspace key to delete mistakes, but this may not achieve the desired effect, and merely displays a ^H symbol. The user typically presses backspace a few times before their brain realises the problem -- especially likely if the user is a touch-typist -- and since each character is transmitted as soon as it is typed, Freudian slips and other inadvertent admissions are (barring network delays) clearly visible for the other user to see.
Deliberate use of ^H for writing under erasure parallels (and may have been influenced by) the ironic use of 'slashouts' in science-fiction fanzines.
A related habit uses editor commands to signify corrections to previous text. This custom faded in email as more mailers got good editing capabilities, only to take on new life on IRCs and other line-based chat systems.
charlie: I've seen that term used on alt.foobar often.
lisa: Send it to Erik for the File.
lisa: Oops...s/Erik/Eric/.
The s/Erik/Eric/ says "change Erik to Eric in the preceding". This syntax is borrowed from the Unix editing tools ed and sed, but is widely recognized by non-Unix hackers as well.
Guns make society safer? I don't think so.
Absolutely they do. If gun ownership were outlawed, period, do you think that violent criminals are going to respect this law? of course not!
Outlawing guns would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. All the criminals who wanted a gun to commit a crime would still have one, and all the law abiding citizens would be easy, unarmed targets.
Gun ownership discourages violent crime.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.