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Wifi and Laptops Adds Up To Theft
Ant writes to mention an SFGate article about the increase in laptop theft in the world of ubiquitous wifi. From the article: "San Francisco police statistics show a disturbing trend. Just 18 laptop computer robberies were logged in 2004, but the figure jumped to 48 last year. There were 18 as of the end of March, a pace that could surpass 70 crimes this year. 'It's a changing culture, and crime is following it'"
That there are more laptops, being stolen at the same rate. What does wifi have to do with it?
Attacking someone for their laptop isn't really any different than attacking them for anything else. This isn't new. Whenever you reveal in public something of particular worth, there's a possibility that some moron is going to attack you in the hopes of stealing it from you.
in Milpitas (McCarthy Ranch) that thieves have been targeting. They do there during lunch and right after work, and do "smah and grab" style robberies on cars. The target: laptops in bags left unattended while the victim shops. Police have had to issue special alerts to shoppers.
Put your laptop in the trunk when you leave your office, so that potential thieves don't see you place it there when you arrive at the mall.
I wonder how many were stolen in before everyone had them?
As laptops get cheaper, there are more people with them...ergo greater likelyhood for theft.
If you consider that San Francisco consists of millions of people... is 18 really a lot? I mean sure, stolen property it stolen property, but the figures sound rather minute.
As laptops become more common, an increase in the number stolen ought to be expected. I didn't find it in the article, but an important number to note would be the percentage increase in laptop sales over the same period (2004-2005).
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
In a recent speech Negropante said: "You see. When I said we were building $100 laptops for developing countries, you people assumed I meant Africa. What I was referring to was Caliifrnia. Have you been to some of the neighborhoods in LA? You can get killed for your shoes. In order to make it safer for folks in cities like San Fracisco where, let's face it, they cannot defned themselves, I developed this idea. Give them an etch-a-sketch interface, and an off brand of Linux, and NO self respecting thief would even bother.
Sure, thre will be the occasional bully who takes your cheap computer just to break it and watc you cry. That is life. But there will be no secondary market for these computers. EVAR!
I fully expect to win a Nobel for this."
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
18, 48, and 70? In San Francisco? I would have guessed that number to be several times that.
Hmm...actually, for 2004, there was nearly 5 times as many murders as there were laptop thefts. Moral of the story is that if you carry a laptop, you are 5 times less likely to be murdered!
While it is unfortunate that one person got stabbed for their laptop, I have to wonder if this is somehow being blown somewhat out of proportion. Yes there has been an increase in this sort of crime (at least in the SF area), but how long before Starbucks gets cameras and the like to make these environments less appealing to thieves? My guess is that it won't take long. After all, the laptop user is a user who is willing to pay for their coffee, which means that they want to keep that cash rolling in.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I'm thinking that its just because there are more laptops in general. Five years ago, laptops that I saw were not exactly mainstream, they were for business people, or people like me who can't leave a computer screen. (There are exceptions, as always, but.) Maybe because wifi wasn't as developed and people's main interest in computers is the internet, or maybe just because laptops are traditionally not as powerful as desktops. Now, it seems that when someone buys a computer, having a laptop is seen by most people like having a desktop but more. I don't blame them (see Macbook, yum), but I'm not sure that it's a culture change as they suggest. I think its probably the same ratio, there are just more people with them at all.
Besides, did anyone read anything in the article about wifi causing the problem as the summary suggests? It just said that wireless hotspots are targets for laptop theft..well duh..laptop theft is going to occur where laptop users congregate..
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
Did anyone happen to consider that, since there are MORE laptops in the world, there might be more thefts?
Correlation doesn't mean causation and all that jazz.
(wtf - this is news now?)
"Whenever you reveal in public something of particular worth, there's a possibility that some moron is going to attack you in the hopes of stealing it from you."
That's why I don't take my girlfriend out.
Please check out my reasonably priced notebooks on EBay!
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.
Therefore, property is theft.
In Capitalist America jokes equal FUNNY!!
Please bear this in mind next time.
Isn't this obvious? People take their computers out of the house more, and computers get stolen more.
I'm not saying this is the only precaution one should take, or that it's guaranteed to work. But it's easy to do and increases the likelihood that some evidence will be captured. It depends on the stupidity of the thief, and those kinds of people often just aren't that smart.
Just 18 laptop computer robberies were logged in 2004, but the figure jumped to 48 last year. There were 18 as of the end of March, a pace that could surpass 70 crimes this year.
Maybe if the city would figure out a way to get the 14000 homeless people in San Francisco off the street, there would be less stolen laptops. Priorities, priorities, priorities.
No Sigs!
Or maybe it is global warming...
The real reason is most likely that there has been a big upswing in the use of private laptops. The number of laptops has increased, so more get stolen. Further, in the early days, laptops were mainly exec toys and were well cared for and probably well guarded. Now they're very common and being lost/stolen more often.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
There's nothing to worry about, it's not like 70 crimes is a lot. Anyway, what are the chances of dgafhsuilgruiagheeeeeeejklsd
I have a Thinkpad (pre-Lenovo, so it'a good one) with wifi, and a biometric figerprint scanner. Can I assume that I am at a greater risk of being robbed and having my finger(s) cut off?
That would really be the only logical conclusion.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
How many IPods have been jacked in the same time? Or any other personally portable technology device, but thats all I can think of.
I'd like to see the creation of a publicly accessable stolen property registry, to make it harder for thieves to sell their loot. Auction sites, like eBay, could require sellers to list the serial numbers, if any, of all items that they are selling.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Once again I think the summarizer has confused the words and thus the discussion.
The key word here is robbery, which means violence or intimidation being used to steal the property.
I'm sure the number of laptop thefts is vastly higher. I worked at one company in the south of market area a few years back that was broken into several times and lost nearly 10 laptops alone.
Hmmm...
"So far, San Francisco appears to the only major Bay Area city to be hit by the problem. San Jose has been hit by laptop thefts, but it has yet to experience many of the robberies. "We haven't seen it yet,'' said Sgt. Nick Muyo of the San Jose police."
I doubt there's a correlation, but SF recently voted against gun ownership. In theory, everybody in SF is now unarmed, but there's a chance for legal carry in SJ.
More laptop thefts in an unarmed city?
- sitting back to watch the fireworks...
Instead of blaming WIFI hotspots, why not do a correlation between # of laptops stolen vs. # of laptops owned. If the ratio stayed the same over the same period of time, then maybe I could see blaming hotspots.
Seems to me there's a couple things one could do as a precaution:
- Load an application that would have the laptop occasionally contact a server to see if it's been reported stolen, and if it has been, start reporting IP and MAC addresses it hears on WiFi in its vicinity, connections it has made for landline internet, perhaps taps on email going through it, and so on - and turn on the WiFi transmitter to broadcast the occasional "Here I Am" packet for direction finding.
- Record the WiFi MAC address of the PC and sniff for it once it's stolen.
- Record whatever info the PC will use to identify itself to Microsoft if/when somebody tries to register/authorize a fresh load of one of their products. (Here's where Microsoft could do the law abiding a service by reporting IP address and date/time to law enforcement when a stolen machine is reauthorized.)
Sort of a software LoJack.
If the theives don't eload the software the PC will "phone home" once the ultimate recipient starts running it, and it will be trackable. If they DO reload it the may call the cops down on themselves directly - and even if they do workarounds they still need to leave enough identity info on the machine for it to be usable - and forgeries in a global namespace also leave tracks.
Wardrivers could do a service by reporting approximate locations of reported-as-stolen MAC addresses, as a starting point for a direction-finding bunny hunt. A public-service distributed application (in the same vein as SETI-at-home) could do the same - or could blanket userland with beacons of known location for a WiFi-only replacement for GPS that would let the phone-home software identify its own location (if it can't do that adequately via currently known WiFi beacons such as hotspots.)
Recover a few (and identify and question the people who got them, with the threat of a "receiving stolen property" bust if they don't cooperate) and police can work back up the reselling chain to the thieves.
And yes I'm QUITE aware of how such systems could be abused.
Note that some of these can be done privately and in a moderately secure fashion. (For instance: open source phone-home app with strong encryption, using an owner-generated key to enable its reporting functions.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The number doesn't seem very high to me. How many cellphones were stolen in the same time period? Probably a lot more, I'm guessing...
The real danger is that a lot of laptops are actually owned by corporations that lend them out to travelling employees. The loss of a laptop in this scenario could also mean potential compromise of sensitive company data (SSNs, Bank Account and Routing numbers, etc.) Here at Bank of America, all employee laptops are required to come pre-installed with EFS (Encrypting Files System). Every file on the drive is encrypted, with the exception of the Windows system files. Which means that even if a thief is able to boot the machine without proper credentials (and we all know how easy that is), they still will not be able to access any data stored on the HDD. Their only option will be to a) spend months, if not years attempting to crack the encryption, or b) give up and reformat the drive.
Most criminals will simply go for option b - and since all the machines are insured, the company doesn't lose any money on the laptop, and the far more serious consequence of loss of sensitive client data is averted.
Are they shitting me? 48 laptop robberies last year? They had 96 homicides in the same period - I doubt this %266.67 increase in laptop robberies (a rate of increase that hasn't continued, mind you) is at the top of their priority list.
sic transit gloria mundi
Sounds like everyone needs that new MacBook alarm that enables itself through the FrontRow... http://youtube.com/watch?v=KkAtRfA1UXc if you haven't seen it yet...
Does a rise in the number of laptop thefts really mean that the culture is changing? Maybe just more people are bringing their laptops into situations (public places) where they may be stolen? Nah. BE SCARED OF CRIME!!!!
Yeah, and ANYWHERE in the world, a moderator posting in a thread he has moderated as an anonymous coward equals cunt.
I'd tell you to bear this in mind next time, but you're obviously already well aware of what a huge gaping cunt you are.
Remember, this is just the number of reported laptop thefts in SF. The actual number is probably higher. People are less likely to report the theft of a laptop than, say, if their car got stolen. Especially if it's not a brand new laptop, though those are probably less likely to get stolen.
I work at a large book retailer that has a well-established network of coffee bars outfitted with wireless hotspots.
This company loves for customers to hang out for hours (and truth be told, many hang out all day and night several days a week) because they invariably buy more stuff the longer they stick around. The longer they stay, the more relaxed they become. When it comes time to get a new book, many will simply get up and walk away from their unattended laptop for anywhere between 1 and 20 minutes (don't get me started on table camping). Many days I've stood there during slow periods in amazement at the amount of very expensive hardware just left in the open with no one to watch it.
It's inevitable that thieves will begin to exploit this as I've seen the same level of carelessness at similar retailers and sister stores in several states. There really isn't much I can do about it other than make friendly reminders when talking to customers - which risks offending the all-too-common customer with the over-inflated sense of self importance who finds any suggestion that they alter their behavior in any way (even if it will benefit them) as a severe insult.
I try to keep an eye on things, even though it's not my responsibility, and I'm usually too busy to notice what's going on in the seating area unless there is a major disturbance (in other words: never).
"Casual" laptop theft is going to increasingly be a problem, but not one that I fear to any great extent as in most cases it can be defeated with the help of common sense which itself is a rare commodity these days.
As you point out, the mac identifies the computer. So, if you steal a laptop, you have to replace the nic. Plus, as you point out, there are call home programs. If the laptop has wifi, it doesn't even have to be connected to the net to report its approximate position. It should be able to do so even if it doesn't look like it's turned on. On the other hand, I've never heard of a laptop being recovered that way. You're also right about the deterrent effect. If it becomes known that lojack is common in an area, car thefts go down. (Mind you, they go up in neighboring areas.)
I was recently given a laptop for parts. The owner had died and the family couldn't get past the password. His brother brought it in to work and the computer guys couldn't get past the password. Now I have it, in trade for a little electronic work. Once I get a chance, I'll take it apart and see if I can erase the cmos. It's an old laptop. On a new Thinkpad, I wouldn't even bother trying. Maybe the thieves know something I don't.
I know that people steal laptops because we hear about it on the news when a laptop containing sensitive information gets stolen. The guy I buy parts from says he gets calls all the time from public telephones asking if he buys laptops. He says: "Sure, if you've got the bill of sale." click
I'm guessing that a thief will take a laptop once and discover that he can't unload it and will never bother to steal a laptop again.
I was thinking of getting a security cable that on one end, would go into the laptop, and the other end would be a loop with a bolt, which would go through a single handcuff (cut the other one off with bolt cutters) and then put the handcuff around my wrist. Worse that can happen, they grab the laptop and jerk me along with it. There'll likely be some damage to the laptop in the ensuing melee, but hopefully just the visible handcuff attached to the laptop will be a deterrent.
There are plenty of people who work in cafes on laptops who are not using wifi, so I don't see where there is any correlation between wifi and the (supposed) increase in the number of thefts.
... A shocking discovery concluded that:
the presence of cars increases car theft
the presence of tv sets increases tv set theft
the presence of jewelry increases jewelry
the presence of [valuable object] increases [valuable object] theft
Property is theft!
West Philadelphia to be more precise. I've seen cars broken for much less valuable stuff ... (like a pack of softdrinks, if you can believe it). Living your purse in a car in a conspicuous place is simply dumb around here.
The Raven
So, this is because of wifi? how so? I would of thought that the mass increase in laptop sales would cause the stolen laptop rate to rise too, but hey, thats just logic and when is logic correct....
That's way too much credit. According to the article, the kind of person who's going to stab you in the chest for your laptop is going to sell it on the street for two hundred bucks. The article did not say so but they are junkies. They are not going to take the time to turn it on, much less check that it works. There are other dirtbags out there, the kind who steal textbooks and sell plasma. They won't stab you but will steal your laptop just the same.
The only thing that will work in the long term is to not buy laptops off the street. If you see someone selling, watch out! Stay out of reach or you will be the next victim. Smile as you move away and say something like, "Wow, that's nice but I don't have enough cash right now." Do what you can to get where lots of people are fast. When you are clear, call the police. Long after people start watching these dirt bags and their dealers will still be passing stories around about making hundreds of bucks off such an easy theft. It will take a long time and many loser examples before it stops. In the mean time ... watch out.
I'm glad my laptop is a piece of shit. It's too bad a junkie won't know any better.
I'm going to stay away from places close to where the bums are for a while.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Thefts of Model T Cars are at an all time low.
The $100 computer could just as easily have Konqueror, which highlights your spelling mistakes. That's the beauty of free software, programs that cost nothing works better than the OS that costs more than your hardware. I should know, my spelling is terrible.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
We've been talking about this for some time at (another shameless plug) WiFiMaps.com. I invite readers to visit over the summer, we're doing some updates, and this is on the list.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Look, this is San Fran and whatnot. BUTCH UP A LITTLE. That's it! You can have any lifestyle you want, no one cares, but if you are getting robbed part of that is a professional victim mentality. I've had people try to rob me, and threaten gross physical harm, several times actually, guess what? They DIDN'T succeed. Why is that? I'm a small human, don't look very tough or anything but I long ago decided I would *never* be a victim of bullying, robbery, etc and stuck to that and developed the mindset to NOT be a victim.
I use learned skills, techniques and tools to not be a crime victim. YMMV, but what I have works for me.
People have to determine first though that their right to not be victimised is the primary human right.
Get the mindset first, the nuts and bolts will follow.
I'm a big proponent of human rights and civil rights, but until people can grasp that that starts with THEMSELVES they won't get past first base in really understanding what that means.
That's why you need to know that some moron thinks your laptop is valuable. This has not always been the case. Paw shops have traditionally shied away from computers because they are tricky to fix and their value falls too quickly. Ebay has changed that. The reality of the situation is not as important as what the dirtbags think. It's a trend and it will spread as the bums migrate north and east for summer.
You also should know to NEVER buy a laptop on the street. No matter how good the deal looks. You are looking at a thief and you might be their next victim. Get away cleanly, without resistance, and report the suspicious activity to the police.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If people would not leave their laptops sitting unattended on a lone table in a dark corner while they make a phone call outside, the amount of thefts would probably drop to 3 or 4.
Spend a couple hours one day in a coffee house, and see how many people wander away from their valuable electronic devices assuming that everyone there must be a "Nice Guy" who wouldnt steal.
I am glad that they have such a positive view of the world, but hey, welcome to reality, people suck.
Walk away with an old junk laptop in an area where it is sure to be lifted. Put one of those exploding handshakers from the Adams pranks rack in between the screen and keyboard, and then close it. Stand off in the corner somewhere and wait for the thief to become the victim. Kevin Dill http://ushightech.com/
"Wife and Laptops Adds Up To Theft." Yes. Yes they do.
'It's a changing culture, and crime is following it"
FUCK!!!
You mean the War on Crime isn't working?
Ok...quick, close down more of those stupid public support programs so we can better fund our law enforcement agencies!
The article is about robbery, a violent crime involving force, not theft, involving stealth. This whole thing is significant because it is an in-your-face (or other parts) violent act against your person, not someone running off with your Ipod when you weren't looking. I say this having been a victim of a robbery (not just a theft) in my home.
It's robbery, not theft, so by definition there's the use or threat of force involved.
I read an interesting statistic a while back. In the US, most home crime is theft. Crooks try hard to avoid contact with people since they never know who's armed. In the UK, most home crime is robbery.
I don't know if it's true, but it does drive home the fact that criminals adopt to their environment.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
40 people died in the time it took me to log in and post this. More were born, probably. Think about it. Not big in the scheme of things.
I make websites and stuff. Buy one.
Whether it is a theif staking out a location where victims are likely to have swag to steal, or a lion waiting for a weak antelope to visit a watering hole with the rest of the herd, there is a relationship between areas where prey collect in larg numbers and areas where bad stuff happens to prey. Sure, as more people are able to afford laptops, there will be a corresponding rise in laptop thefts. However, there will be certain spots that will attract predators. If anyone was really interested in tracking thefts and armed robberies of illicit drugs, all you would have to do is go down to an area where illicit drugs were sold. The volume of crimes of that nature would be higher in that area than they would be in areas like say, a church in an affluetn area. Cause and effect. Statistics can be made to prove ANY point, but sometimes thing s are just.......frickin' OBVIOUS.
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
I have two lappies. Neither are newer than 2000. One's a clamshell iBook, running Mac OS X "Panther." One's a ThinkPad 600x, running Debian Sarge Linux with a smidge of Sid for spice.
If you want a really nice computer, keep it on your desktop. Don't take anything with you you can't replace.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Here are some tips for theft and loss protection for laptops and notebooks. This article is dedicated to Linux users, but some of the tips are applicable to other operating systems as well. Some of the techniques work for other portable electronic equipment (PDAs, mobile phones, et. al.), too. But note: some devices which are offered to provide physical security can be by-passed easily. For example there are different approaches for hacking laptop and notebook cable locks.
hilarious
So why not concentrate a few plain-clothes cops in the same areas and tip the balance the other way?
Police budgets being what they are, the cops aren't likely to be hanging out at coffee joints - there's always people screaming about how the cops have the wrong priorities. The police won't be spending much time on these "yuppie" property-type crimes unless someone dies, and then only due to the publicity.Waitaminute. An increase to 48 laptop thefts is considered alarming by the SF police? That's just over half as many murders were committed in the city that year. Priorities?
... like the Q-Ships of WW1, the cops could deploy a few laptops that, when attacked by a thief, would deploy Taser darts....
... to be followed by lawsuits, of course.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
It's covered with Defcon stickers.
The latest Slashdot meme.
I've noticed that, at the library where I work, people have decided it's OK to walk away from their laptops with the misguided notion that they're safe. We had one individule, "run an errand," and leave the notebook unattended for about half an hour. Of course, it was stolen. Police report and all that good stuff. Look, just because you're at a hot spot with other users, even a city facility like a library, don't think your equipment is safe. Lock it down, hide it in your car, or take it with you.
A whole 48 laptops were stolen in San Franciscoe! There are more laptops being stolen in San Francisco alone than the number of people who committed Internet Suicide in Japan!
Apply common sense. Does anyone actually believe that only 18 laptops were stolen in SF in 2004? Me neither. How about 48 last year? Didn't think so.
So, if I'm right, you have massively underreported data, from which the best conclusion that can be extracted is that the reporting is becoming somewhat less hideous.
If I'm wrong, you have a "crime wave" of one laptop a week being stolen in a city of 3/4 million people. Why can't the police deal with such an insurrection? "It's hard to do a stakeout,'' Capt. Ehrlich said, "because it's not happening with any regularity in time or place.''
Duh.
KeS
It's nice to see someone taking the other side of the situation into account, but in my area, the starving muggers trying to feed starving babies are more like addicts looking to score cash for their next fix, or idiot kids looking to get their next $300 Sean John sweatsuit to wear to school. Unfortunately, the law does not make this distinction.
Your argument is in my opinion invalid, as there are much better ways to get food for your starving baby, or your next overpriced clothing article. We are not living in an impoverished country, and jobs (not necessarily six-figure, but jobs nonetheless), government aid, and private help systems (think food drives and charity locations) are readily available.
As for having to live for a month off of soup, please spare me. If these people were willing to work and use the resources made available to me, they could eke out a decent lifestyle legally for themselves and their families. The ones that resort to crime are in desperate circumstances (which is still not an excuse) or just too lazy to do something constructive.
And a victimless crime? Hardly. How many people have theft insurance on their laptop? How many want to spend the extra cash on it? Not I, and not many people I know of.
Perhaps if muggings only happened to the upper class, I would not be so concerned. Someone that makes $5,000 in a week is not going to be troubled too much to spend $3,000 on a new set of toys. Someone who had to work all summer for that one laptop or iPod (and, in my experience, students with a passion for tech like myself are much likelier targets because we have no choice but to go through dark, poorly-policed areas to get to and from school/work.)
Granted, my perspective is biased from having been the victim of several muggings and assaults myself, but here in NYC, the most common type of mugger is in high school, listens to 50 cent, and has absolutely no legitimate means or need to dress himself in $300 sneakers to show that he is "pimp" to his classmates, which he sees about once a month in class and about thrice a day smoking weed, an activity also largely funded by this type of action.
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
Police budgets being what they are, the cops aren't likely to be hanging out at coffee joints
I don't know what universe you live in, where cops don't hang around at coffee joints...
Next thing you know, you'll be telling me that Homer Simpson doesn't like doughnuts.
mmmm. doughnuts.
Bullshit. I know a couple of people who've been mugged; they've both been injured in the process. Nothing too serious - a broken wrist, a sprained arm, a broken finger (which is never going to be straight and will always be scarred, by the way).
It's a NON-VIOLENT crime (unlike the invasion of Iraq).
What does that have to do with anything? My friends didn't order the invasion or take part in it.
THERE ARE NO VICTIMS.
Tell that to my friend who's still afraid to be out of her house after dark.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
calls home if it's online -
:(
if it is stolen, someone turns it on, plugs it in or picks a wifi network
and it starts reporting it's IP address and a traceroute to it's location (plus some other stuff) and uses scp to copy the log to a remote server
I'd be able to give the police an exact location as long as they didn't wipe out the OS or discover and disable the logging.
I had my laptop stolen out of my car in SF about 1.5y ago.
Not that any of this would do much good if I got stabbed though
stories like that make me think more people should carry guns in public
The increase YtY may well be triple figures, but how many laptop are circulating in SF?
"linux" is a very common word and was not included in your search.
70 laptops, why that's nearly $100,000-worth. Who'd have thought crime in San Francisco was such big business? Knuckles and I will be hotfooting it from Chicago as soon as we've got some decent gats.
We are not living in an impoverished country, and jobs (not necessarily six-figure, but jobs nonetheless), government aid, and private help systems (think food drives and charity locations) are readily available.
The unfortunate thing is that a 40 hr/wk job paying $300-$400, or waiting in line all day long or days or weeks for government aid, does not seem like something a smart person would do vs spending 5 to 30 minutes a week scoping out an easy target and make between $200 and $500 by performing a simple theft where the odds of any negative consequences are about 0. An overachiever could work 30 minutes to 2 hours a week and could come out with $2k/wk in high demand stolen goods.
Just look at the amount of IPods that are getting stolen now compared with 10 years ago. Oh, wait a minute...
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
I'm AFRAID to be IN MY HOUSE after dark!!! Me and the Major try our best to keep the Matthias and his band of white-eyed zombies out, but damn if they don't keep on trying.
I love it! In the article, the police say that they don't have the time or money to fight the problem. But, they definatley have the time and resources to prey on regular citizens that go a few miles over the speed limit or have expired tags. Let's see...stabbings, low priority...speeders, easy to ticket and make the city/county money. I was robbed a few years back, but the officer said they didn't have the resources to investigate the crime. However, they were nice enough a few days later to give me a speeding ticket for going 56 in a 55 zone! Police don't give a crap unless it's easy for them to fix a problem, or to prey on the regular population. They let the criminals roam free, as long as they keep a low profile.
Okay here's an example of easy target. 4 feet 11 inch young girl, looks kind of hippy, but still reasonably wealthy. The mugger would be surprised with his blunt metal object, when the girl draws japanese short sword from her bag. If she for some reason doesn't happen to have that with her, she could simply break his leg with single strong kick.
There are many people who look easy targets but most certainly are VERY deadly. An granny that has revolver in her bag who is really paranoid of muggers can be pretty dangerous target. Then the guy with black suit can be either business man, or FBI.
Of course the skinny guy could be just a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do. Or some ex martial artist who has forgotten all the non-deadly ways of self defence. [Which happens when you practice the strikes and kicks all the time, while the other techniques less often, the result for that is forgetting the practical self defence is quick but forgetting the deadly strikes takes decades.]
Then there is point of hitting a guy when his brothers with guns are in visible range but at the moment they just leave him alone for doing his computer stuff on the laptop that they know is important for his career, but they could care less about computers. But suddenly if someone tried to mug their brother...
Odds of negative consequences close to zero. Hell no. I'd say do it often enough and you get the negative consequence that is enough to overcome all the benefits from all the other times. Then there is higher chance of someone taking picture of the event and giving it to police and they find the mugger. Or someone takes picture and vigilantes search you up and sink you to the bottom of the sea.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
Police, who discriminate against smart people, should be implicitly expected to have done a proper study on exactly what the causation of laptop theft actually is. They should be at least as credible as people looking for the effects of prayer on patients' recoveries. Google would never claim those folks were wrong. You can't forget our friend at http://www.venganza.org/ who points out that pirates cause global warming, either. It's awfully easy to get something wrong when you're trying to pinpoint a cause for some effect any my money is on there being more laptops, not wi-fi attracting thieves like moths to a larcenous flame. Of course, McDonald's is a more likely burglary target than a 7-11, so I may actually be wrong. Darn you, Nintendo. Next they'll be encouraging children not to go into piracy for a living, leading to a precipitous change in global temperature.
I went to the site and clicked on the BUY button. I got a message that I was using an unsupported browser and that I would have to use IE. Forget it guys. If you were real security experts, you wouldn't insist that people use the most insecure browser in the universe.
Why can't people just congregate at home?
My friends and schoolmates actually do that on a fairly regular basis. Our porches and patios are usually covered by 802.11 so it doesn't really matter if you arrive before the host either. Coffee is a hell of a lot cheaper too.
I know this article was posted last night, so no one will be reading my reply, but I just had to make the point...
The article talks about the rise in laptop robbery, the unlawful taking of a laptop by use of force or violence, not laptop theft, the more general unlawful taking of a laptop.
The rise in laptop robbery is a worry because it's not just loss of property, but also the endangerment of life.
If the article were about theft, I would agree with everyone here that the rise in theft would probably be more aptly attributed to the rise in laptop ownership, than it would be to the rise in wifi hotspots. But, as the article is about robbery, and to commit robbery a robber needs someone to harm or threaten physically, and a person is much more likely to be near their laptop if they are using it, and they are more likely to be using it if there is a wifi connection, I'd say the article has probably found a meaningful correlation.
OK, so far it's the same as everyone else has been suggesting. However, my change is to NOT boot up if step 2 fails. Instead I'll display the following honeypot:
And once that has been displayed, do as it says and shut down. The idea is to tempt the thiefs greed into wanting more.
There are other things I'm going to add e.g. even if they do get the machine connected, it still won't boot. Not without my USB keychain containing the encryption keys to all the user data. In the case of this server I am going to get a USB extension cord and hide a USB keychain somewhere, possibly glued to something heavy. If I am broken into, they'll just unplug the box and not bother with the wires. Almost like a bee-sting, but backwards.
If they expect Mr Average to carry a gun, they'll probably shoot first.
617B3B7F7E7C7D7F00EOF
The article summary talks about laptop theft but the article refers to robbery - they're not the same thing. Robbery has an element of violence to it which explains why the number of robberies lower than expected. Walking off with an unattended laptop is theft; using a knife to take a laptop that's being used by its owner is robbery.
... it's just this easy to break into a Kensington laptop lock.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
Increases in technology thrawt crime or makes it less profitable in the long run. I had a theif break my car window and steal a cd case full of CDRs I had burned.
;)
Didn't cost me nothing except $200 to replace the window (bastard), but I bet the theif was in a suprise when he looked in the case and found nothing but CDRs.
Secondly, those were MP3 cds...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Apparently, somewhere else is San Francisco
As far as I can figure, so the thieves would troll around in their van is residental areas. Anytime they detect a wireless network and don't see anybody about, they break-in. That just sucks. I guess I'd want to hide my wireless network.
After one grand jury failed to indict Goetz, a white, middle-class victim of a previous armed robbery, for shooting and critically wounding several African-American teenagers whom Goetz said had threatened him with a sharpened screwdriver on a subway car, the New York prosecutor submitted the case to a second grand jury, which did indict Goetz. Goetz was acquitted of all charges except illegally carrying the handgun he had used to defend himself, and served jail time on those gun charges.
Borrowed from here: http://www.pulpless.com/jneil/indefnra.html
The bar has been raised. You now have to kill all involved, including witnesses, and either do it in a place without surveillance or you have to destroy the surveillance data, and then kill anyone who could attest to the destruction of the surveillance data.
Granted, Goetz did not follow the laws for carrying a handgun, and I don't know what those are. I would guess that they vary from state to state, and are very complicated, and even if you legally shoot someone, a) its not an easy task. Some people never get used to killing other people, despite the practice. b) Its not a cut and dry thing, and the odds are much greater that you will have legal problems being the victim vs being the criminal.
I'd say it is perfect timing.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Laptop theft is the least of SF's criminal problems. SF has the largest absolute population of homeless individuals in the whole country. Considering SF's relatively small footprint, this is astounding. With that many hungry, poor, desperate, and possibly substance-addicted people wandering around, crime in general will go up. It is true that laptops are a lucrative target and WiFi hotspots encourage a greater density of targets.
However, all this article says to me is that if you create an environment where vagrancy and homelessness is subsidized (both by public and private money), immigration and other laws are not enforced, and people are not permitted to defend themselves (handguns are now illegal in SF, and forget about getting a CCW in any metro. area in CA), then crime will thrive.
Laptop theft is but an unfortunate symptom of a much larger problem.
Drug related gang activity is way up this year. Daytime crime especially. Laptop theft is just one aspect of it. They seem to be targeting daily working people. The problem seems related to Meth drug activity and is organized with groups of two or three people men using a stolen car. If you monitor the crime stats - they target specific neightborhoods in one day in rapid fashion. A word of caution - it seems that they are quite well armed since there are two or three of them - the best bet is to just call the cops. Yesterday, one guy in Pinole spotted three guys breaking into his SUV in his driveway and confronted them. All three pulled handguns, pushed him back into his house, cut the phone lines, and stole his wallet and took his SUV (see Contra Costa Times). Don't know what the police are going to do about this besides target drug dealers and gang leaders. Some Federal agencies (DEA, FBI, ATF) have been called in for the larger groups. Seems like they bust one and someone else takes their places.
Breakfast served all day!
More people than you realize already have this type of coverage. Many types of homeowner's insurance cover property theft, whether or not it occurred at home. Renter's insurance is a good value at only $10 to $12 (USD) per month for $10K to $20K of coverage and may also cover this scenario; the cost is minimal, but the benefit is potentially significant. YMMV.
Not enough people understand the benefits of renter's unsurance (a lack of financial education in the general population); those same people go on to not understand their homowner policy either.
Except for
Sounds like there are many victims, and the original target is victimized several times over
And, yes. (Rice and wheat, actually, but the same idea.) Still isn't an excuse for theft.
Think about what all you have in /home. There are the projects you work on, but there also might be configuration files for your email client, which store authentication info. Maybe web browser files containing cookies or "password manager" info that authenticates you to websites.
That's why my /home and swap are encrypted. No casual thief is going to crack Blowfish or AES -- I'm not worth the trouble. This is very easy to do on Linux using cryptsetup; there's just no reason not to be ready for unpleasant possibility. You're ready for what happens when you lose your laptop, right?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Lincoln Spector of PCWorld gives an overview of laptop security products in the April 2006 issue: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,124780, 00.asp
The 3 methods are 1) lock, 2) encrypt and 3) have the laptop call a central server to report it's whereabouts.
Spector doesn't mention combination approaches: CyberAngel reportedly ( http://www.sentryinc.com/sohoapp.html ) encrypts and calls home automatically upon login failure.
Full Disclosure: I don't own a laptop yet, though I am in the market for one.
Just make your laptop really distinctive.
;).
Your laptop is only worth the _fence_value_ to the thieves/robbers.
You can reduce the fence value of your laptop by magnitudes if you had a hard to remove design/decoration airbrushed or painted onto your laptop.
It most certainly doesn't have to be ugly - if you've seen those electric guitar decorations/artwork.
And it doesn't necessarily have to reduce the legal resale value - it may actually increase the legal resale value depending on the quality of the artwork
No criminal would dare steal a laptop near a free donut stand.
Xenu loves you!
Here's a quote from the link you provided.
What does it mean for considering a robbery a nearly zero risk, easy income. Which only a moron wouldn't take that road instead of going for wellfare.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
I opened the page to read this story and there is a popup without a way to close it covering the story?
Yeah, thats it, we'll create a popup they have to click on. That won't annoy them.
Chris McElroy aka NameCritic http://www.blogs.pn
so the real trend is 18/#laptops in use 2004 vs. 48/#laptops in use 2006
this could acutally result in a percentage reduction.