Slashdot Mirror
Tracking Down a Cell Phone Thief
Zone-MR writes "Last Saturday, MoDaCo (the world's largest smartphone community) held a get-together for their forum members. Unfortunately the positive community spirit was soured by an individual who decided to steal one of the charity raffle prizes - a C550 mobile phone. Check out the story of how we tracked the thief down, got the phone back, and secured the thief's place in the interweb's hall-of-shame."
Was Slashdot just slashdotted?
That has to be the dumbest thing ever. Stealing something guarenteed to broadcast its presence. And from within a tech convention?
Go Away! Not for Sale
blarg.
Most crimes are solved because the criminal tells someone, or does something stupid. (I don't mean miniscule stupid things like you see on TV with CSI, I mean really dumb things...)
Sure there are some good, and thus rich criminals out there. But the majority of them are fairly dumb.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Good thing this was in the UK... seems like decrypting the info to retrieve the IMEI information would violate the DMCA here in the states.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Sure there are some good, and thus rich criminals out there. But the majority of them are fairly dumb.
Yup, the majority of people who find themselves in the "life of crime" don't do it because they're criminal masterminds looking to build their great underground lair, but because they're dumbasses who fall into the "lowest common denominator" of how to survive in a world with no marketable skills and few personal assets. Of course there are a lot more that do it to support drug habits and such.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Did you even bother to read the article?
The only "personal info" they found was the IMEI (serial number) of the phone that was unlocked, and the IP address that the request was generated from. Neither of which is "personal", BTW (the phone was stolen, and the IP address belongs to his ISP).
They just matched that IP address against people who post in their usergroup forum and tracked the guy down.
So the only "personal info" they used was the phone's serial number and the IP address the server logged the request coming from. So I fail to see the point of your rant.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
That's actually a good point.
The guy goes and decrypts a bunch of info from everyone's phone using a script.
So, he violated everyone else's privacy as well.
Never mind the fact that he took info from a web server and told someone else another user's IP addy to 'track them down'.
Probably violated his own website's privacy statement.
Like heading a corporation?
I fought it was just a waste of time at first
I bet you thought learning to spell was a waste of time too
Now in most states (not in Ohio, Hamilton county yet), there are companies that will compile and publish the records online for a fee. Some counties just publish it themselves. It is always fun to check out your professors' or co-worker's traffic tickets and other run-ins with the law.
...and I'm sure that you respond to people being called a dick (or any other variant) in the same way. Or is it only women that deserve respect?
Mod me down by all means, I guess we don't really need this kind of discussion in a phone article.
Has anyone noticed that the way they caught this person shows that they are collecting PII that their site policy says does not happen??
Getting IMEI's from users that have been told it would NOT be collected. Isn't that bad? Maybe a little worst then a phone missing. I sould never use thier service - I could be tracked and my info given to the man.
Typical Slashdot hypocracy.
You're supposed to take the sim card out. That's what normally happens. If your phone's stolen you've got about a 0.001% chance of getting it back.
That makes it impossible to just call that phone, yes. But the phone's IMEI number doesn't change, and that's what can be used to track it as well.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.