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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."

10 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. some good detective work... by wcitech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...and a little luck.

    While some good detective work was done by the MoDaCo admin(s?), a lot of thanks can be given to chance, because the cultprit was stupid enough to unlock his phone a) from a source well known to MoDaCo and b) from the same IP address. I'm calling it 25% good sleuthing, 75% dumb criminal.

    1. Re:some good detective work... by empvirus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Reminds me of a story a retired officer told me. Here's how it goes: A guy goes to rob a quickie mart with a plastic bag over his head, yet forgot something seriously critical to the "mission". He forgot to make an air hole so he could breathe. And while attempting to rob, he began to suffocate. The officer got there just in time to save his life. He would not stop thanking the officer as he was arrested. It's amazing how stupid some people are.

      --
      Sometimes I comment just to hear myself typing.
    2. Re:some good detective work... by egburr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Every hotel I have stayed at in the past 10 years has NOT put the room number on the keycard. Some have some kind of code number, not the room number, but most are blank. They have a stack of cards at the front desk; when you check in, they pick one up and scan it, then write your room number on a piece of paper separate from the card. I only need to know the number to find the room the first time, then I just find it by physical location and usually forget the number quickly.

      I always assumed this is done for these reasons:

      • If you lose your card, someone finding it can only identify the hotel but not the room it belongs to. This way, it can be returned, but using to to enter a room would require you trying it in every door till one opened, which could attract some attention.
      • The hotel doesn't have to maintain specific keys for each room. If a keycard is lost, they just invalidate that card's code and issue a new card. In the old days of actual keys, they would have to change the lock to prevent the lost key from being usable.
      --

      Edward Burr
      Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
  2. Re:How about the bandwidth thief? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I got 503s for an hour or two. The AP wire has been down since 8 p.m. Eastern, but it seems to have returned since about 11 p.m.

    Crazy.

  3. The rat speaks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here is the turd making a comment on the thread regarding the event and the missing phone.

    http://www.modaco.com/Event_pictures_and_a_plea_-t 225214-s15.html

    What an idiot.

  4. Happened to me by drgonzo59 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I was asleep in the library at my school and someone stole my backpack with my cell phone in it. I found my backpack later in another part of the library with my cell phone missing.

    I went to the campus police and filed a report. They said they'll get their detective to work on it later that day. I fought it was just a waste of time at first but then I slowly realized how stupid it is to steal a cell phone. Any call from that phone can be traced by the phone company. And sure enough that evening the police called me and told me to come pick up my cell phone. They called this idiot and told him that he better return it, to make it easier on him. He claimed that he didn't steal it but bought it from someone for $30. Yeah right! Anyway he returned it and I got my phone back.

    Later the police gave me a copy of the sheet he singed when he returned the stolen item and the sheet has this guy's home address, date of birth and social security. I checked his court records and he has like 10 convictions on his record for theft, drug charges and some smaller things. I thought of posting his info out on the web, for people to have some fun with, but that would be a little too evil for me.

  5. Re:Set a Thief To Catch a Thief by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And the other people, who haven't stolen anything, now have the same expectation of anonymity: none. Of course, if they pay attention, they shouldn't have that expectation of privacy; they're trusting the server too much. But of course most people using mobile phones, even smartphones, even unlocking websites, aren't quite sophisticated enough to see how their privacy is exposed by such a simple operation. Like you, for example.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  6. Re:You are missing the real issue. These guys are by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And, per the Data Protection Act (unless you can justify that the backup block you store cannot be used to identify a living human, which you have just counterexampled), does your site make it clear that you may also use the temporary copy of the flash block to track down living humans for vigilante purposes?

    Doesn't matter how obvious it is to you or any other civilian that someone has broken the law, without the intervention of the Police, the DPA says you simply can't implement new convenient uses for personal data unless your users accepted it when they supplied it.

    If you are under EU jurisdiction, you broke the law, sorry. Whether any affected party cares or not will determine whether action is taken against you (ie almost certainly none).

  7. Re:Why would you do it? by Pulse_Instance · · Score: 2, Interesting
    They remind me of the heartless things people say about the homeless. It's not a choice, it's an illness. We should treat these people with consideration so they can become productive members of society, not lock them up or beat them down.
    Let me guess, you live in the suburbs? You see homeless people on a irregular basis. I live and work downtown every day I have people ask me for money, then you see them later that day drinking booze or passed out in some sort of puddle. Then there are the aggressive hobos, they ask for money and get violent if you don't give them anything. There are probably cases where they can become productive members of society but most of the time they have either some mental disease or have made decisions whether they realized it or not that has put them in their current situations. Just like the rest of us.
  8. Re:You are missing the real issue. These guys are by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Hypocrisy is what I call it. If the govt had done this and not you,your knickers would be ALL in a twist over this. There would be protests outside 10 downing st., fat middle-aged bearded men would chain themselves together outside of police stations. It would be CHAOS! BUT! If some admin out there wants to violate everyones privacy and break the DPA...then..well THATS OK because we allll know a crime was being committed. And the ends justify the means! I call BS. You report a crime to the police and they handle it. YOU ARE NOT ABOVE THE LAW!