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Tracking Down a Cell Phone Thief

Posted by Zonk on from the not-a-good-move dept.

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."

7 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Why would you do it? by fgl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  2. Re:some good detective work... by jeblucas · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'm calling it 25% good sleuthing, 75% dumb criminal.
    You just figured out about 95% of police work. Despite what shit-shows like CSI, Profile, &c., would have you believe; catching most criminals usually comes down to finding the dipshit dumb enough to leave his stuff all over the scene.
    --
    blarg.
  3. Re:some good detective work... by Alex+P+Keaton+in+da · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  4. Good thing this was in the UK... by Goldenhawk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

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    --Brandon / Split Infinity Music

  5. Re:Set a Thief To Catch a Thief by Nogami_Saeko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  6. Re:text of the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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.

  7. Re:Happened to me by drsquare · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.