Tracking Thieves With 'Find my iPhone'

An anonymous reader wrote in to say "A friend of mine who just got an iPhone 3GS and has Mobile Me just used the "Find my iPhone" feature to track down his lost and subsequently stolen iPhone. This story involves three nerds wandering sketchy streets with a MacBook, and ends with a confrontation at a bus stop."

Comments

Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[eldavojohn]

It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood.

Us three skinny white guys walked at a rapid pace in the direction of the circle.

It talked to you in Spanish. And you saw three skinny white guys prowling in the street with a laptop computer open.

So you take off down the road, and to your shock and horror, the honkeys follow you.

Nice story and great news for iPhone users. Glad you got your phone back. I'm also glad the altercation ended without violence. I could have done without the above emphasized details. I'm not exactly sure what ethnicity had to do with the theft or why I had to be reminded that you're white ... or why you would assume that the thief uses racial slurs to identify Caucasian people.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see him implying ethnicity had anything to do with the thief. However, being the wrong race in any neighbor hood isn't easy and it's an important part of the story.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[conspirator57]

perhaps because you have a self deprecating sense of humor?

amongst other things, i'm an American of predominately Scottish and Dutch descent, and i refer to myself by a large variety of slurs.

maybe we'd all be better off as a society if everyone just took a chill pill and enjoyed a good laugh at our own and each others' shared expense without getting so wrapped up in labels that most people don't even know the origin of.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the point in constantly referring to the ethnicity of their 3 man crew was that 1) they were in an area predominantly occupied by another ethnicity which often leads to violence according to the area 2) there's nothing _less_ intimidating than 3 scrawny white guys... seriously.. what combination of people is less intimidating based solely on ethnicity and bein' scrawny?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[JCSoRocks]

Seriously, can we make the PC train stop? It's ruining comedy. I can't believe comedians are apologizing for half of what they say now. It makes you wonder if Richard Pryor, as he was, could even exist in 2009.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Old97]

I tend to agree with you, but I live in Chicago a few files from the area he's talking about. I been there a few times. Generally in our big cities and Chicago for sure, race or ethnicity can matter - more so in some neighborhoods than in others. It's a fact relevant to the story. I suppose he dwelled on it a bit to heighten the drama for his readers - playing on their own fears/prejudices. If he were a black man writing about 3 black geeks in a white or hispanic neighborhood would you have been offended?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

How come the story doesn't refer to three gay boys cruising around a macho neighbourhood while hunting for a ring?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Angostura]

Perhaps he was trying to explain the part of the story where he translated the message into Spanish. Or should he have self-censored that aspect?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[happywaffle]

Author here.

First, I was being self-deprecating, since I felt like the opposite of a badass iPhone tracker as we walked up and down this block.

Second, ethnicity is completely relevant to the story in that we were out of our element and quite visible prowling up and down the street with our laptop. The stares of the local residents confirmed this.

Third, other than the self-deprecation, I don't believe I said a single negative thing about anyone's race.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[damburger]

Being dead, he clearly could not.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood.

Us three skinny white guys walked at a rapid pace in the direction of the circle.

It talked to you in Spanish. And you saw three skinny white guys prowling in the street with a laptop computer open.

So you take off down the road, and to your shock and horror, the honkeys follow you.

Nice story and great news for iPhone users. Glad you got your phone back. I'm also glad the altercation ended without violence. I could have done without the above emphasized details. I'm not exactly sure what ethnicity had to do with the theft or why I had to be reminded that you're white ... or why you would assume that the thief uses racial slurs to identify Caucasian people.

Not to mention the (not ironic, just stupid) slur used for whitey

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the one drawing attention to ethnicity. The are different races accept it.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[ReverendLoki]

'Cause this blog post wasn't written by JRR Tolkien?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

An Essay on Race
by me, Anonymous Coward

Yesterday, me and my friends were walking through an inner-city neigborhood. Everyone we saw there was black. The houses looked really unkempt, some even had broken windows. I looked in some of them, and saw black people looking back at me. We felt really uncomfortable, since we were white and everyone else we saw there was black. We passed a group of people on the sidewalk, everyone of whom was black. We were white. They gave us weird looks, presumably because we were white and they were black. We saw a bunch of kids playing on a yard, they were playing soccer or something. They were all black. We walked past them and we were white. After about fifteen minutes of walking, we finally made it out of that place, and took a taxi downtown. The taxi driver was Puerto Rican or something.

The End

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[dtmancom]

In the future history of Star Trek, mankind was only able to evolve beyond petty political correctness with the Zephram Cochrane's 2nd most famous invention: anti-wadding panties. When no one was able to get their panties in a wad, everyone was finally able to relax and stop being personally wounded by silly words. See also: Zephram Cochrane's business rival, the invention of Skin Thickiner. Never made it to market because the FDA wouldn't approve over the counter DNA therapy. Some say Cochrane used a portion of his crazy warp-drive money to bribe FDA officials. We may never know.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[dzfoo]

Which begs the question, if a dead man falls in the forest, does it really exist?

      -dZ.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to say anything negative to be labeled a racist.

Since you dared to even *mention* the race of a minority group, you deserve to be strung up in public by your toenails.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[flibuste]

So, nothing in your text correspond to anything said by the author. Aren't you glad you made an arse of yourself, once again?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[MaggieL]

Well, while you're posturing about how superior and un-racist you are, you might want to drop your implicit assumption that there was danger of violence. Of course that wasn't condition by the racial spin. Was it?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[clone53421]

Confronting known thieves should always include the implicit assumption that there is danger of violence.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Duradin]

Xenophobia was a survival trait. It's part of being human. So is being able to use reason to overcome it when it is not appropriate.

It's sickening to here all the newcasters or commentators saying "how could anyone do this?" or "how could a parent ever do this to their child?". They know how someone could do it. We all know. Some people just don't want to admit that somewhere in the dark recesses of their mind are hidden away all those thoughts. The fact that they never act on those thoughts never occurs to them. They are just taught to be ashamed for the mere existence of those thoughts, free will be damned.

Political Correctness will be the doom of us all while we sit around going "la la la I'm not thinking what I just thought" with our ears plugged and eyes closed.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[nizo]

...windows. I looked in some of them...

BTW, most communities have laws against this kind of thing. Obviously the folks in that neighborhood were pretty tolerant of your bizarre behavior, walking down the street and peeking in windows.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[phrenq]

Us three skinny white guys walked at a rapid pace in the direction of the circle.

Offensive to pedants and grammar Nazis, too! "WE three skinny white guys." Seriously, my eyeballs are twitching after reading that.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

They are just taught to be ashamed for the mere existence of those thoughts, free will be damned.

I agree. I'm sick of being ashamed of wanting sexual intercourse with every good looking women I see. We should be allowed to violate them and just enjoy it. Free will forever!

Also, you're fat.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[clone53421]

If you're standing on the public sidewalk you can look anywhere you want.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[nsayer]

Well, whatever's left of him still exists.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[linux_stu]

Maybe I just don't have much of a sense of humor, but I didn't find the racial comments in the article to be humorous in the least bit. Do they really add anything?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that's true, you didn't slur anyone in real life. But in the PC world of the liberals, just the mention of another ethnicity by a Caucasian is a slur. See, as a white guy, you're an oppressor, so you have no right to mention another's ethnicity.

But, "those people" can refer to you in any number of ways and that's OK.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[sbeckstead]

While on a business trip to New York, actually just Long Island, I drove back to the airport down the Long Island Expressway. My Memory is not exact here but I needed to re-fill the rental car with gas and never having been in this particular area before I waited until I could see a gas station from the road. That was not an easy task but I think I was somewhere in Queens (near Kennedy airport but not too close) when I pulled off the road. Assuming that there was no danger of violence I pulled into said gas station and when I went to pay for the gas I was told by the attendant, "get your gas and get the hell out of here fast if you want to keep your hide in one piece" , and so I did and so I did. But making assumptions of no danger of violence has gotten people into trouble that don't know the character of the neighborhood in L.A , Louisiana, Alabama and other places as well.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Hognoxious]

If you're standing on the public sidewalk you can look anywhere you want.

Unless you're Google, in which case OMG evuhl korporationz 1984!!!!

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

You might like the song "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" from the musical Avenue Q.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true.

you know, all whites, blacks and hispanics are all 100% the same.

The problem is money... Poor black area? lots of crooks. Poor hispanic area? lots of crooks. Poor white area? lots of scumbags and cars up on blocks.

Heres' the difference...

Blacks and hispanics choose inner city for their poor areas. Whites choose trailer parks and the country for their poor areas.

they all speak like uneducated morons, just with different accents. Except for the ones that have 1/2 a brain and want to get the hell out of the self destructive culture they live in and better them selves with college.

Blacks get called "acting white" when they get good grades or speak clear english, Hispanics get the same.

Poor white kids simply get beaten and sent to buy more beer and smokes for their deadbeat father.

Poor people steal, rich people have iphones.

It's an us and them.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[eldavojohn]

If he were a black man writing about 3 black geeks in a white or hispanic neighborhood would you have been offended?

I don't know, what racial slur referring to African Americans would he have used to describe himself when he interacted with the residents of the Hispanic neighborhood? You substitute white with black yet you conveniently avoided the two places where he used the word "honkey." Tell me, what would have replaced "honkey?" I'm guessing whatever your answer is I would not be considering it a valid news source if I were reading it.

Did you notice how only when he interacted with locals in the neighborhood did he refer to himself as a "honkey?" How you think people view you says a lot about how you feel about them. That's all I was pointing out and is what I refer to as Us V Them mentality or latent xenophobia or whatever you want to call it.

He's free to say whatever he wants and I'm free to opine that when you're reading things on a "news for nerds" site, it's nice not to come across racial slurs regardless of the target or the person who is "reporting" the story. Mod me offtopic or consider me a liberal moron, I don't care. I think this is one of the last biases in society today and when it is ok to say (in this story) "They looked at us honkeys" or (in the case of Middle Eastern countries in conflict) "they don't like democracy" etc. You're still stereotyping people.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

"We parked along Medill and hopped out. It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood. On the south side of the street, an outdoor birthday fiesta was convening, and some of the participants eyed us three honkeys questioningly."

I live about a block from where that party was going on. Calling that particular portion of Logan Square a Puerto Rican neighborhood is inaccurate (despite there being a Puerto Rican credit union there, many of my neighbors are from Mexico or are descendants of Swedish and Armenian descent).

The party that was having a birthday celebration had turned into a street soccer game around 9 PM. (Did you see the pinata with the big CA on its chest?) You had jack-shit to fear from that party other than them wondering what the hell good could come from three goofs who clearly didn't live there wandering up and down the street. Overall crime in that section of Logan Square is pretty low---at the point you passed the birthday party, you were about a block from Goethe Elementary's schoolyard. You would have raised a few eyebrows---not because you're white ( there were plenty of your cousins around that night, myself included) but because you were clearly doing something strange. When people who look confused walk through there it's usually to get to the Congress theater, and they may have figured you got a bad batch of X and forgot where your car was parked.

Honestly, it's a phone. If you lose it, you lose it. I see this story as just being a self-congratulatory geekoff. Had you entered a really, really sketchy neighborhood, I'm sure this story wouldn't have happened--you would have all turned around and walked out before things got weird. You felt comfortable enough whipping your hardware then, but after the fact, after a couple beers and with a few retellings i'm sure this all sounded like quite the adventure, the skintones of the participants got darker, the streets narrower and your courage only deeper.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait? Troll.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[mactard]

I'm from Chicago too, and it's not even a bad neighborhood. There are plenty of white yuppies that live right there. There's a difference between walking through a bombed out area and seeing mexicans and flipping out about how it's unsavory.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[rockNme2349]

Ah, when will man learn that all races are equally inferior to robots.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[morgan_greywolf]

Actually that depends. In some neighborhoods, you'd only need his corpse, a live chicken and $200 in cash,

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[bFusion]

This reference brought a smile to my face, love it.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Me up all night hugging me horn, for porn, porn, porn.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[mrchaotica]

If you're standing on the public sidewalk you can look anywhere you want.

Unless you're Google, in which case OMG evuhl korporationz 1984!!!!

More like, unless you're doing it systematically and making the images public.

What Google does is justifiably treated differently than what this guy did in the same way that armed robbery of a bank is treated differently than a 5-year-old stealing a candy bar from a store.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[bennomatic]

I understand, and although I probably would have told the story a little differently--you probably could have guessed you'd get that reaction--I had a similar experience a while back.

I was visiting Japan, and I was walking through an area of Tokyo where there were not many other gaijin, and I saw someone, probably a quarter mile away, who clearly looked more like me than anyone else. He was about 6' tall, like me, light brown hair, like me, and a full beard, like me.

Right then, seeing him standing out against hundreds of locals who were--for the most part--shorter, with darker hair and little or no facial hair, I thought, "Gee; I really stick out like a sore thumb here, don't I?"

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[conspirator57]

or maybe he was suggesting the intimidation he and his friends felt at being out of their element and in a new, strange, and oft stereotyped setting with real, if frequently overplayed, possibilities for eruption of violence.

maybe he over-empathized with those around him as a manifestation of his "white guilt". i know my primary inhibition with respect to new acquaintances from different American ethnic groups is my own self consciousness about the possibility of offending them. i think that sucks and we will only be able to make claims regarding the elimination of racism when *no one* has any particular feeling regarding their fellow man other than those merited by the facts of the interaction. (dude looking for a seat in the cafeteria: fine; dude robbing me: bad)

how else would you have described the setting to portray your feelings of isolation and perception of personal risk, justified or not? perhaps, "we were in a socioeconomically depressed region of town and felt odd"? this misses mounds of social context of both the part of the neighborhood denizens and the nerds.

racial tension is real. ignoring it and not communicating openly about these perceptions will not make them go away. in fact, lack of open communication will only stopper up and push these feelings underground where they will fester and gain new currency. on the other hand, i view this sort of description not as particularly racist, but as a step away from racism. can it be better, more harmonious, whatever? sure. gradually. as reality allows, descriptions of one's circumstances in odd situations will be based in that new reality that developed from today's which is, in turn, dramatically different from, yet traceable to our worst days as a racist society.

on a lighter note, isn't the term nerd a pejorative assigned based on extrinsic features observed by the cool kids? yet we own the term and generally rejoice in our nerdiness. and in our interactions with the world around us, we are gradually becoming normal in society.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[conspirator57]

actually, it raises the question.

http://begthequestion.info/

don't worry, you're in good company. the whole spectrum of major media get it wrong too, from NPR to Fox.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[mrchaotica]

In the future history of Star Trek, mankind was only able to evolve beyond petty political correctness with the Zephram Cochrane's 2nd most famous invention: anti-wadding panties. When no one was able to get their panties in a wad, everyone was finally able to relax and stop being personally wounded by silly words.

More like, mankind didn't evolve beyond it, and racism only quit being an issue because they had other species to fear/hate instead.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[clone53421]

BadAnalogyGuy would be impressed.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[dzfoo]

That would be fine if the context of my comment had anything to do with logic postulates; but as it stands, the word "beg" is used in its common dictionary definition of "to ask earnestly" or "to implore". The phrase, thus, is intended--and can easily be understood--to mean "the premise entreats us in earnest to raise the following question".

http://dictionary.reference.com/dic?q=beg&search=search

I'd say that Fowler's literal translation of "petitio principii" is the faulty one, and as such the "original meaning" that you contend is merely an accident of history.

Don't worry, you're in good company. There's plenty of pedants and pseudo-logicians that insist in debating linguistic prescription without regards toward semantics and historical context.

        Cheers!
        -dZ.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Anyone who has a problem him mentioning the general ethnicity of the neighborhood is an ass. There is nothing wrong with describing people by ethic background.

He stated it because he was making the point that he was out of place. He was a fish out of water and did not know what to expect if he had entered deeper into the community as an outsider not being aware of the nature of the area.

He could have been confronted by some Puerto Rican street thug with a gun, and he was just a skinny white guy. Thats the point. Its not racist, its just that he was out of place and did not know what to expect. OBVIOUSLY whoever took his iPhone is a peice of shit theif... so its reasonable to assume that the person could have been capable of far more violent acts or trouble.

The point was... he simply didnt fit in, and did not know what to expect and that they stuck out like a sore thumb (which would have made it easier for the theif to notice 3 white guys with a macbook looking for their stolen phone)

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[conspirator57]

since i work with digital logic, i'd hardly consider myself a pseudo logician, but you're entitled to your opinion. and while it may be an accident of history as you say, the fact remains that the usurpation of btq leaves those like yourself with two viable, commonly understood phrases and logicians and philosophers with zero. i think that's a bit greedy.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm black and I use the phrase "nig heist" a lot. I swiped it from an old 80s punk band that I liked a lot.

My "nig heists" usually mean swiping french fries from friends, so go to hell if you assume black = thief. Only said because this is slashdot country and I'm always nervous when surrounded by whitey.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[dzfoo]

Point taken.

Now, shall we discuss grammar and the proper use of capitalization and punctuation? Linguistic prescription, indeed!

      Regards,
      -dZ.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[conspirator57]

meh. even with my online grammar and capitalization errors i'm still a better than average writer for an engineer. further the lack of capitalization is intentional: it is less formal and thus less pompous and pedantic. it also rarely gets confused for ONLINE YELLING. :)

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[turbidostato]

"actually, it raises the question.
http://begthequestion.info/"

Or not.

If you read your cited pages it is *them* which effectively beg the question in case (from the very example: "I think he is unattractive because he is ugly." while, at the same time, all their argument it "it is wrong because it is not that way" instead of "it is wrong because it *can't* be your way").

The fact is that "begging the question" can be perfectly understood as a kind of affirmation that is crying for a question to be made so, for instance if someone says "He deserves winning the lotto, after all he is blond" obviously is begging for somebody asking "yeah, so what the hell has to be being blond and winning the lotto?". It begs a question as much as a polite gentelman will beg your pardon if needs your attention or an unpolite molester is begging a fist on his face.

So, surprise-surprise: an idiom can really mean more than one thing. Who'd imagine, uh?

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[TPJ-Basin]

Legally? Yes. But that won't stop someone inside from kicking your ass.

Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* do something.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're still stereotyping people."

Everybody abuses stereotypes. What the hell "African American" is but a stereotype to cover racism with "political correctness"? A black man is a black man is a black man, and a black American citizen is a black American citizien, not that the fact of being black adds or rests anything to his "americanism" as a blond American citizen is an American citizen with yellow hair, not that the fact of having yellow hair adds or rests anything to his "americanism". African American, Italo American, Jews, WASP... hell, USA seems not to be a country but a gettho holding!

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[turbidostato]

" i think that sucks and we will only be able to make claims regarding the elimination of racism when *no one* has any particular feeling regarding their fellow man other than those merited by the facts of the interaction."

I remember a South African adverstisement on the early days post apartheid: it was about a school bus full of angelical blonde boers fitted to play soccer, I think they were green shirts, let's accept that being the case. When they get to destiny they get out of the bus, see the team they are going to play against and suddenly all their faces sadden. Camera points were they were looking at and we see the other team is made up full of black children.

Then, one of the white boys, still saddenned, asks his trainer: But, but... they wear green shirts too! How will we distinguish between us???

Finally one of the teams go playing with shirt and the other without to resolve the problem, both teams laughing with the joy of sports.

I *never* have seen a better presentation of what racism is and what the goal to achieve should be.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[ins0m]

Indeed. Had this been Garfield Park, Englewood, or Fuller Park, this might have been cause for concern, but dicking around out by the West Loop/Logan Square area isn't cause for concern. For the most part, you're pretty spot on. Cool, the MobileMe service worked, but it's not nearly as dramatic as people are making it out to be. I don't get the submission myself, but then again, I'm just another jaagov slumming around in the Kedzie industrial corridor who can keep his phone in his pocket when he's had a beer or three.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[inject_hotmail.com]

We need more people like you on this planet...things would be way better.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

begging the question: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html

Please, use it correctly or don't use it at all.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Pryor could exist in 2009. Have people already forgotten about Dave Chappelle? The thing about Pryor is that he was a genuine man and one of the funniest people. That itself is awesome.

The problem with anti-PC humor is that it is humor made by assholes. If it anything, it makes comedy worse. It makes it seem that being anti-PC is an essential way to be funny. Now just any asshole with a microphone - be it at a comedy club, radio show, at home in front of the computer, or anywhere that can be broadcast - or with anything to write just say "OMG NIGGER/SPICS/JEWS PISS ME OFF. FUCK THE PC POLICE!" and makes the morons grunt a chuckle. Want proof that they're assholes? Browse the -1 comments here at Slashdot and see how often they spam their humor. There is a very good reason why they are generally hidden. They turn message boards into shit holes. Anyway, why give assholes the benefit of making you laugh?

For every Richard Pryor, there is a Rush Limbaugh, an Adam Carolla, a Carlos Mencia, some douchebag duo on the radio, and probably even more assholes elsewhere. For every Matt Groening (whose humor is not anti-PC), there are at least 10000 wussy losers on the Internet making some "LOL MINORITIES SUCK" joke. (For the record, I don't think happywaffle is one of them.)

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Renraku]

Still, there should be no commercial business in the USA where the threat of racism-induced violence is so great that you should be afraid to go to those places. You usually only see hate crimes being prosecuted against white people, but I'd like to see any kind of cross-racial violence in one of 'these' areas prosecuted as a hate crime as well, since that's what racism-induced violence falls under.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? It's a perfectly good survival instinct that's been around since humans existed. The sooner you realize that not everyone has been brainwashed into the "happy-happy joy-joy, let's have a group hug and sing kumbyja(or however it's spelled)" mindset, the better.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Kneo24]

It's called flavor. Useless details add more to a story to captivate your attention. If every story got straight to the point... well, we'd be a boring species.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

what do you have against dead people???

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[turbidostato]

"He stated it because he was making the point that he was out of place. He was a fish out of water and did not know what to expect if he had entered deeper into the community as an outsider not being aware of the nature of the area.
He could have been confronted by some Puerto Rican street thug with a gun, and he was just a skinny white guy. Thats the point. Its not racist, its just that he was out of place and did not know what to expect."

He, being a black man from Harlem, could have been confronted in Wall Street by some ashkenazi jew thug with a gun, and he was just an O.J.Simpson-like with afro curly hair black man. Its not racist, its just that he was out of place and did not know what to expect. Oh, wait...

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Falconhell]

Y'know if it was not for the last line that post would be insightful rather than a troll.

If you could just have kept the classwarfare bullshit out of it.

Assholes come in all races, genders, sexualities and operating systems. How much money they have has no bearing on whether they are an asshole or not.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Mirell]

This is another one of my favorite comments! Win, sir!

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[cerberusss]

Ah, when will man learn that all races are equally inferior to robots.

Say what you will, but when the revolution comes, count me in with the robot smashers.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[dzfoo]

Oh! Another context-challenged logician splitting hairs, how nice.

Please, read my previous response:
        http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1277369&cid=28427099

By the way, here are some rules on capitalization:
        http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/capital.asp

Shall we call it a day now?

        -dZ.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, if you're one of those obnoxious but-it's-my-right!-back-off-before-i-call-my-lawyer type of assholes that are abundant these days.

If you have any decency you let other people be and mind your own fucking business.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[clone53421]

I'm not one of those people, but if I'm walking down the sidewalk and I happen to glance at your house just at the moment you're looking out, don't whine about me looking in your windows. Because, technically speaking, I was, and also, technically speaking, there's nothing illegal about it as long as I was on the sidewalk.

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're Google, in which case OMG evuhl korporationz 1984!!!!

I am Google, you insensitive clod!

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

"He, being a black man from Harlem, could have been confronted in Wall Street by some ashkenazi jew thug with a gun, and he was just an O.J.Simpson-like with afro curly hair black man. Its not racist, its just that he was out of place and did not know what to expect. Oh, wait..."

Your example makes no sense.

Remember this is a skinny bald white guy with a macbook running around in a neighborhood looking to confront a THIEF!!!!! He does not know what kind of THIEF this person is.

Its not racist to assume that a THIEF is a thug.

Do not confuse my statement with hating Puerto Ricans. That is your own interpretation or prejudice.

It is possible for a theif in a Puetro Rican neighborhood to be a street thug. Remember this guy was chasing a thief!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re:Please Drop the Us V Them Mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the point that was trying to be made. But it is kinda stupid, missing out the single most obvious feature of their appearance for the sake of trying not to be racist. Like it or not, your skin colour is the first (or one of the first) features of someone's appearance you'll notice (most of the time, at least).

It is not racist to describe someone using their skin colour, just as it isn't racist to describe someone by their height.

If that is the best presentation of what racism is, perhaps you don't really understand what racism is.

Racism is holding a prejudice against someone because of their ethnic background, which can happen even with people of the same skin colour.

The goal to be achieved is everyone be treated equally regardless of their ethnicity, not to avoid the fucking obvious differences.

Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[MiKM]

I would have been somewhat amused if their laptop got stolen as well. Yes, I know I'm a terrible person.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Goffee71]

Nerd Theft Gizmo, the game that's sweeping the nation"

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[SchizoStatic]

Or he got beat down by his own phone

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the story wouldn't have been told.
They'd just walk away whistling.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[eln]

That wouldn't be a problem, he's got an app to track his MacBook on his iPhone. Oh, wait...

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[dupup]

I would have been somewhat amused if their laptop got stolen as well. Yes, I know I'm a terrible person.

Exactly, to put it differently, "steal an iPhone one day and have a free laptop delivered to you the next."

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[MaggieL]

Too bad it wasn't an Android phone. "Where's My Android" doesn't need a laptop to track a phone.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess only people that buy $600 cell phones are the only ones that care if they are lost/stolen. Also, I don't understand why people walking around with their "coolfactor" badges don't, you know, lock the device so thieves can't use them (thus draining the apparently extremely weak battery life which hardly exceeded 20 missed calls in the authors own words).

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've given a complete business plan and fucked up the meme.

1 - Steal and iPhone
2 - Have laptop delivered
3 - Profit!

Now I have nothing left to laugh about.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

nice try buddy, "Where's My Android" won't locate a phone in this same manner without a laptop or GPS device to process the coordinates.

Or would you walk around Chicago listening to for your ring tone?

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like playing Apple Bingo for armed robbers...

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[StikyPad]

Need to wait? There's an app for that.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time ago, there once were these strange drawings on compressed pieces of dead tree: squiggly lines, strange colors, letters, numbers, and a grid. The grid used these funny units called degrees that were not referring to the temperature of the drawing, but rather it's exact location on a large, mostly blue ball that floated in space.

It's nowhere near as easy as using a GPS device or a laptop, but you do not actually need either of those things to determine the precise location of a set of GPS coordinates. All you need is a map.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[sabt-pestnu]

He might not just have a macbook. He could have his own Android with him.

Would you REALLY want to face some geek's GIMP?

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Ultra64]

And how does he get the GPS coordinates without a computer?
Will his phone send them by TCP over carrier pigeon?

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[sabt-pestnu]

Nope, he'd use Skynet...

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[blueskies]

I care if my $100 phone is lost or stolen. How is it a negative to care about losing something expensive? If it was the other way around you'd make fun of yuppies that don't care if their $600 phone is stolen because they are so casual with money.

Geez. Only on slashdot would you find people bitching about a good feature. God, what a fan boi. he only has an iphone because it makes him coffee and gives him blowjobs every morning. What a loser.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[atomicthumbs]

He could use his phone to check his email. OH WAIT

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

That wouldn't be a problem, he's got an app to track his MacBook on his iPhone.

Oh, wait...

iphone locating another iphone, if the image doesn't post check out flickrDOTcom/photos/whitakerz/3652760684

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Xyde]

Yes but chances are nobody would bother stealing a G1. Mod me flamebait you know it's true.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[smiling_s]

I care if my $100 phone is lost or stolen.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Golddess]

All you need is a map

Unless, y'know, the object you're after moves, in which case with the running back and forth between your computer (to get the new coordinates) and where the object was when you checked the coordinates, you may never get your object back.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[Anonymous Coward]

flickrDOTcom/photos/whitakerz/3652760684 proof that you can use an iphone app to locate your friends iphone.

Re:Walking around "sketchy streets" a Macbook?

[MaggieL]

People with Android phones often have friends who have Android phones.

"Buddy".

(-15 for assuming I'm male.)

(Posted from my Google Ion)

LoJack for your iPhone?

[Lucas123]

In other related news, the number of deaths among tech nerds increased this month, some officials believe as a direct result of iPhone owners attempting to retrieve their stolen phones from violent thugs.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Tubal-Cain]

And here I thought it was exposure to sunlight.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[mveloso]

It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[pete-classic]

Weird. Most of the geeks I know are far from defenseless.

-Peter

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[happywaffle]

Yeah, that's kind of what I think with every "You're glad you didn't get shot!" comment. It wasn't that bad a neighborhood. There was a kid's birthday party going on on the corner, for God's sake. And the number of thieves who are packing heat and ready to use it is relatively small. Not saying I wasn't acting a *mite* imprudently - we were just acting in the moment - but I still don't feel particularly foolish in retrospect.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it shows how screwed up US suburbanites are. People that actually live in the city are mostly level headed about the "dangers" of the city.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[hedwards]

Not really, name me one place where going to find somebody that you know is receiving stolen goods doesn't raise that possibility. This is hardly just an urban thing, trying to get things back from thieves is potentially very dangerous, you never know when that thief is going to turn out to be a two strikes offender.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[JCSoRocks]

Mom says it's dangerous to leave the basement.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[clone53421]

If the thief was a two-strikes offender he should be glad that the cops didn't get involved. The property can be returned and everyone walks away.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[mcgrew]

Indeed. I live about three blocks west of 11th street, anything east of that is the ghetto. My favorite bar is on 15th street, and I walk there frequently. Aside from hookers and dope dealers soliciting me, I've had no problems despite my hazel eyes. Now, if I were to "go off" on one of these folks, I'd probably be in trouble.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mentality of urban fear?

I couldn't agree more. The prevailing mentality of responding to violent thugs with fear and avoidance is precisely what is wrong with most US cities. It does nothing but reinforce and enable the thug's antisocial behavior.

But I suspect you weren't advocating changing laws to allow people the means to defend themselves from physical violence (aka guns so they can shoot the bastards).

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[BrokenHalo]

It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.

True, but even so, TFA's author's actions are very much those of an optimist. He could easily have been shot or had the crap kicked out of him.

I would suggest that a pragmatic approach might be the ability to remotely disable the phone totally so that it has to be sent some sort of authenticated authorisation code to be used at all.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[rcamans]

They were all out at night

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[skine]

Weird. Most of the geeks I know are far from defenseless.

-Peter

Yes, but trebuchets and USB missile launchers aren't very good at short range defense.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[flibuste]

No, it shows that US society is screwed, not just suburbia, since nobody can trust anyone to not get shot in the face, in any kind of situation. This is sad, but it's the reality.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

"little did he know I had a loaded 12 guage..
one sucka dead L.A times front page."

What a Great Adventure 3 lego convention members tracking someone down and using "intimidation"
to get a iphone back. There are some real gangsters out there representing Apple, I hope I never come across one.....
my Linux affiliation could get me killed.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[OglinTatas]

It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.

because elsewhere in the world when you confront a thief they just say "my bad" and give back the loot.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I thought it was exposure to sunlight.

I have Solar Urticaria, you insensitive clod!

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[digitalhermit]

I live near Miami. I remember once telling my cousins in the UK that I really enjoyed Florida. They responded to the effect, "How can you live in Miami? Don't you worry about the assault rifle wielding drug dealing, ganster thug rapists?"

Recently in Philly, driving along one absolutely normal looking city block, my friends said remarked that they were surprised that people were walking around *at night* in this warzone.

It's one thing to be careless but this irrational fear of cities is mindboggling.

To see real urban ganglands, you need to walk through the gritty Weston neighborhood along the I75 corridor near the 'Glades. Some real thugs hang out here.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[cayenne8]

"Yeah, that's kind of what I think with every "You're glad you didn't get shot!" comment. It wasn't that bad a neighborhood. There was a kid's birthday party going on on the corner, for God's sake."

Well, that sad truth of it is...people who live in highly ethnic, poor neighborhoods TRY to have normal lives too (they're not all bad, no), but, I've heard story after story about shootings breaking out, and kids at an outdoor birthday party getting injured or killed in the crossfire.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the offer of a $50 reward was a lie I take it?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[vertinox]

True, but even so, TFA's author's actions are very much those of an optimist. He could easily have been shot or had the crap kicked out of him.

Good thing he didn't run into any cops.

But seriously, most people (except people on crack) won't mess with you for no good reason. Drug dealers in particular aren't interested in causing trouble or having trouble in there area.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

And where did GP mention cities?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[MikeS2k]

You got your iPhone back, right?
You weren't foolish at all :)

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter, have to stand up for yourself

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't return the call and they had to find him. Thus there is no reward

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[jcnnghm]

It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.

Perhaps they just aren't as naive as you. Here's a neat map showing crime reported in Baltimore over the last 11 days. You'll notice all the fists and cross hair icons. Those are assaults and shootings. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that cities aren't overrun with dangerous thugs. The ghetto is a dangerous place.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is with assuming every geek is some 5 foot nothing skinny weakling?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[clone53421]

The default view is for the past 2 months, not 11 days.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[jcnnghm]

The default view is for the past 2 months, not 11 days.

The default view is for the last 300 records, which only covers the last 11 days.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[BrokenHalo]

most people (except people on crack) won't mess with you for no good reason. Drug dealers in particular aren't interested in causing trouble or having trouble in there[sic] area.

Hmmm. Maybe you live in a nice neighbourhood. Where I was living not so long ago in a not so salubrious area of London, it was generally expedient to both (a) be very careful and (b) carry a weapon of some kind (however basic - a set of keys has served me well) for use as a last resort - since one can usually expect to be outnumbered.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[HTH NE1]

If you read the comments, you find he did offer $30 anyway, but the guy declined the money.

His statement that he was intending to track them down from his end but was intimidated by the messages may have been genuine. He might have been fearing a beatdown from the owner (no good deed goes unpunished), or wanting a neutral location at which to make the exchange away from family.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[argStyopa]

Never actually HAD your ass kicked downtown, have you? I'm not saying that everytime you go through an urban area it's The Warriors 2009, but seriously, if you think the whole "urban fear" is just an invention, you're simply naive.

From the article: (the guy was thinking)"You probably think the angels of death have found you."

No, what crossed my mind was that if he was an actual criminal and not just some opportunistic teen, his thought would be more like "Sweet iPhone, and there are 3 dickweeds running around with a laptop too. All we have to do is roll them, and we get a laptop as well."

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

"But seriously, most people (except people on crack) won't mess with you for no good reason."

Point well made. I live in a city currently undergoing a major gang war. A quick google search showed 27 murders in Vancouver Canada in a three month period. This is a city that averages around one murder a month. Interesting fact, no innocent bystanders have been killed.

So despite living in the middle of a gang war. I will still walk down any street in my city at any time of the day or night.

For the pedants out there I consider the Surrey 6 murder to be a trigger for the current situation, but not truly part of the situation.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[HTH NE1]

I prefer the personal touch you only get with hired goons.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[TheThiefMaster]

However home-built tasers are pretty good for short range.

You can get a reasonable jolt out of a battery connected to a relay which has been wired through itself so that it is normally on and turns itself off when it gets power. Connect prongs on either side of the relay coil. It gets power, the coil charges a magnetic field, flicks the relay switch, which breaks the circuit. The coil loses power, the magnetic field dissipates, through the coil, creating a several hundred volt (and low current) spike across the prongs I told you to connect to each side of the coil, or more importantly whatever you've plunged the prongs into. The spring in the relay then pushes the switch closed again, and everything repeats.

The low current means that it hurts like hell* but isn't that dangerous. Keep away from hearts and pacemakers, don't apply directly to eyes, etc etc. Don't have it active for too long or the battery could explode, you are shorting it after all...
* Actually the 9V version doesn't hurt much normally, but might if you use sharp pins and break the skin. Don't build one with three 9Vs and a 25V relay, or a 2A lab bench power-supply. Then you possibly cross the border into dangerous.

You can power it up by putting a second coil around the first with more turns, and connecting THAT to the danger prongs. It makes an impressive show, with a near constant visible spark between the prongs. My high-school physics teacher had built a contraption like that, can't remember what he was demonstrating.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[clone53421]

I stand corrected.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Kneo24]

I would suggest that a pragmatic approach might be the ability to remotely disable the phone totally so that it has to be sent some sort of authenticated authorisation code to be used at all.

Because, you know, once the phone is rendered disabled for the person who stole it, they're totally going to keep it instead of tossing it off to the side or selling it real fast for a few bucks.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[davester666]

It's not US society is any more screwed than any other society (aside from perhaps having more guns around), it's the image the media pushes 24/7/365.

All the US 24 hours news channels are desperate for a) ratings and b) news. Events like Columbine (a high-school shooting) are portrayed as not being a lone incident, but rather happening (or likely to happen any day now) across the country. Every event is blown completely out of proportion, to try to make the story more compelling.

Yes, in some area's, you are more likely to be mugged/attacked/possibly killed than other area's, but the actual rate of incidence is incredibly low. The news channels work have to make sure you know about the former, but not the latter.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[anaesthetica]

Philadelphia has over 400 murders a year, and has for the past couple years. My father is a doctor, and apparently Scandanavian doctors come to Philadelphia with the express purpose of studying gunshot wounds, since there are several per day in Philly.

If you were driving through North Philly or parts of West Philly, your friend very well may have been right that you were driving through a 'war zone.'

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[StikyPad]

I live near Miami. I remember once telling my cousins in the UK that I really enjoyed Florida. They responded to the effect, "How can you live in Miami? Don't you worry about the assault rifle wielding drug dealing, ganster thug rapists?"

Did you then clarify that near Miami is not in Miami?

Reminds me of the kids in NoVa.. "Yo dawg, we live in the Murder Capital of the World. This shit be hardcore!"

"Dude, you live in Fairfax."

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good riddance

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Logan Square is fine, especially in the middle of the day. There were probably some suburban kids already lining up for a concert at the Congress down the street.

Personally, after retrieving the phone I would've headed over to Los Comales at Milwaukee and Francis for some victory food. Yum.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[StikyPad]

My BCGs have always been an excellent form of short-range defense, especially against girls and their yucky, yucky cooties.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[nickyj]

A gun isn't the only thing that could kill you. Any blunt object can become a deadly weapon, or a knife, or bare hands. Not every neighborhood is bad where you might get shot, but almost every neighborhood is bad enough where you could get beaten or choked to death. Kid's party or no, crazier things have happened in the presence of children because the adults involved don't care.

It was stupid to go searching for an iPhone from a criminal (regardless how petty this one was). This is why I don't have MobileMe for my iPhone, I just have enough sense to keep my phone in my pocket (the front pants), and not let it out of sight just like my wallet and other personal possessions.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree entirely, and what's more the same people would probably have "not getting your ass kicked" as a reason for not stealing an iPhone as well. Really, if you had stolen a phone and they were able to track it, I'd say you've got as much a chance of getting your ass kicked as kicking ass. Particularly if your victim had rounded up a few friends, which is likely.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[ArsonSmith]

Area of Philly = 127 square miles
Area of Iraq = 170,000 square miles
or Iraq is about 1300 times larger than Philly
American Deaths per year in Philly = ~400 (average)
American Deaths per year in Iraq = ~571 (average)

If Philly were the size of Iraq
American Deaths = 520,000

If Iraq were the size of Philly
American Deaths in Iraq less than 1

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[selven]

The problem with that is that it ignores the higher population density of cities. A city with 50 times as much crime per year per square kilometer is still safer if it has 60 times as many people in it.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course. Baltimore is full of niggers... think about it.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[FunkSoulBrother]

Thats an asinine comparison. Did you know Australia has a tiny number of American deaths per square mile too? I wonder why?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

funny

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[blueskies]

In other new, 1 billion people went about their day without getting shot in the face today. Yeah, its such a reality.

Swingers: Like house of pain was going to do anything.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[blueskies]

Drive around the "right" area of philly at night long enough and you'll change your mind.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[kalirion]

Aside from hookers and dope dealers soliciting me, I've had no problems despite my hazel eyes. Now, if I were to "go off" on one of these folks, I'd probably be in trouble.

I'm confused, what else are you supposed to do with hookers?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[someonehasmyname]

..or he makes sure the cops aren't involved by shooting/stabbing you asap.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[FatAlb3rt]

This is why I don't have MobileMe for my iPhone, I just have enough sense to keep my phone in my pocket (the front pants), and not let it out of sight just like my wallet and other personal possessions.

Ya know, you shouldn't tempt karma like that...

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Baltimore is not the most representative example here....

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[PaganRitual]

If they've got a bazooka don't run away, it's easier to hit someone from a distance.

Run towards them and grab hold of them.

"Back off! We're both going together!"

That's just handy
in case someone pulls out a bazooka.

[/Eddie Izzard]

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[RobertLTux]

some phones have the ability to go into a hard lock mode that requires a full firmware reload to unlock
(the phone displays "Return to %carrier%")

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[turbidostato]

"It's not US society is any more screwed than any other society (aside from perhaps having more guns around), it's the image the media pushes 24/7/365."

Yes, including damn FBI and its damned official statistics about violent murderings stating that chances of being assassinated in USA triplicates or even quadruplicates those of countries like France, UK or Sweden and is about ten times more than chances of that happening in Japan.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[turbidostato]

"But I suspect you weren't advocating changing laws to allow people the means to defend themselves from physical violence (aka guns so they can shoot the bastards)."

Well, murdering rates overall Europe are about three/four-fold less than those in USA... surely it must be because they are so easy on guns there, yeah, sure...

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[turbidostato]

Population of Philadelphia ~1.5M
American troops in Irak ~150.000

So chances for an American being killed in Irak are roughly ten times those of Philadelphia.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[anilg]

Trebuchets are alright.. but if you really want to hurt use Lucida Bold or Impact. Boy, those hurt. And don't get me started on wingdings.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's this mentality of urban fear that shows how screwed up US cities really are.

Perhaps they just aren't as naive as you. Here's a neat map showing crime reported in Baltimore over the last 11 days. You'll notice all the fists and cross hair icons. Those are assaults and shootings. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that cities aren't overrun with dangerous thugs. The ghetto is a dangerous place.

Well..thank god they weren't in freaking Baltimore, and they weren't in a ghetto.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Bungie]

No, it shows that US society is screwed, not just suburbia, since nobody can trust anyone to not get shot in the face, in any kind of situation.

The reason above is also why people are less likely to pull out a gun, because they have to be damn sure that no one else around them is going to do the same.

Approaching people with caution is a smart and common practice used all over the world. Just because there's less risk of getting shot somewhere else, doesn't mean you can automatically trust everyone. People can still pull out a knife, pipe etc. and kill you in any kind of situatuion.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Falconhell]

(aside from perhaps having more guns around)

Ketchup? On Lobster?

Head explodes.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Falconhell]

aka guns so they can shoot the bastards

Yep, more guns ALWAYS helps.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Adam Jorgensen]

Pish pish, US cities? Don't make me laugh? Try Rio or Johannesburg if you're looking for crime.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[L4t3r4lu5]

"get" off.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[dkf]

Trebuchets are alright.. but if you really want to hurt use Lucida Bold or Impact. Boy, those hurt. And don't get me started on wingdings.

Use Papyrus and Comic Sans on alternate letters. Guaranteed to make even the most hardened font geek shudder!

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[TheLink]

Who knows. Maybe he hadn't really decided what he was going to do with it. He might have actually been intending to steal and sell it, but pro thieves will turn off the phone immediately. So if he's really a thief he's clearly an amateur.

So the owner gave the guy a chance to not be a thief, and he got his phone back in working condition, nobody had to bash anybody up, nobody had to deal with the cops (which can often be more unpleasant than dealing with criminals ;) ).

Win-win.

As Sun Tzu said: "Leave an escape for a surrounded enemy".

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the next time the old gun ownership debate comes up, we'll be repeatedly told (most likely by the same people) that you have as much chance to be shot in the UK as you do in the US, regardless of gun laws.

Yet somehow I can walk the streets of my city centre and the surrounding areas every night of the week without once hearing a gunshot, let alone seeing anyone get shot, and only have to worry about physical assault in the space between 3am and 4am on a friday night.

So which is it - are the average city dwelling American as safe as we Brits, or not?

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[HTH NE1]

I don't think the area of Iraq is evenly distributed with Americans, let alone remotely as evenly as Philly.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[ArsonSmith]

Obviously there isn't a war there.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[ArsonSmith]

I'll use my facts you use yours and we'll see who can generate more FUD.

You lose the journalism game.

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[Killjoy_NL]

Yet :)

Re:LoJack for your iPhone?

[cabinone]

You had me at "USB missile launchers"...

Amazed ...

[OzPeter]

From TFA

"I'd been amazed that the phone had enough battery life to make it through the night and still beam its location;"

How much juice does one of these things consume??

Re:Amazed ...

[Norsefire]

How much juice does one of these things consume??

While they're constantly pushing data? About as long as a standard phone lasts while browsing the web.

Re:Amazed ...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

Based on that statement I'd guess one carton of apple juice a day. At least.

Re:Amazed ...

[L3370]

They might be speaking of the battery usage of GPS rather than battery use of the phone in general. If they were constantly looking for the phone via GPS I can understand their amazement. Try using a handheld GPS device and many of them crap out within hours without a plugin.

Re:Amazed ...

[happywaffle]

I'd been using it all day the day before, so its battery was already pretty low. So, it was bound to hit zero at some point.

Re:Amazed ...

[T Murphy]

How much juice does one of these things consume??

I've poured a whole gallon of orange juice on my iPhone and it still won't turn on. I've got to run to the store to get more- I think I'll try grapefruit this time. I wish they would warn me about this when I bought the phone- juice is way too expensive these days.

Re:Amazed ...

[dzfoo]

If you had an Android phone, you could have used V-8 juice to power its browser, at least.

      -dZ.

Re:Amazed ...

[Colonel Korn]

They might be speaking of the battery usage of GPS rather than battery use of the phone in general. If they were constantly looking for the phone via GPS I can understand their amazement. Try using a handheld GPS device and many of them crap out within hours without a plugin.

The WinMo programs that do this same thing for lost phones only pulse the GPS on at specified intervals (which can be changed remotely). My phone lasts about 3 days with that level of activity, and I think the iPhone would do at least as well, assuming this app has the common sense not to continuously blast data and gps location.

Re:Amazed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only compatible with apple juice.

Re:Amazed ...

[IAmGarethAdams]

Obviously you should be using Apple juice...

Re:Amazed ...

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone runs on Apple juice. Duh!

Re:Amazed ...

[shutdown -p now]

I've poured a whole gallon of orange juice on my iPhone and it still won't turn on. I've got to run to the store to get more- I think I'll try grapefruit this time. I wish they would warn me about this when I bought the phone- juice is way too expensive these days.

iPhone is only compatible with Apple-certified fresh apple juice.

Re:Amazed ...

[GF678]

Obviously you should be using Apple juice...

Man WTF is "juice"?

Pour on some Apple drink!

Memo to self

[davidwr]

When stealing electronic equipment immediately disable all radios or remove all batteries.

While I'm at it remember to never plug it into any network until I'm sure it's not going to phone home.

Re:Memo to self

[dzfoo]

And don't forget the most important lesson: Do not be intimidated by (however many) guys coming at you with a laptop, especially if there's some sort of geeky toy convention nearby.

      -dZ.

Re:Memo to self

[oneirophrenos]

Memo to self: do not post plans to steal electronic equipment on /. without ticking the "Post Anonymously" box

Re:Memo to self

[RedK]

Wait, how do you remove the iPhone's battery again ?

Re:Memo to self

[Volante3192]

There's an angle that hasn't popped up: impossible to remove batteries = additional theft deterrant.

(No, it's not perfect, you can just turn the stupid thing off, but it's just one extra thing to keep track of, and most criminals don't remember to cover all the bases, especially people who snag lost phones)

Re:Memo to self

[hedwards]

That's why Steve's slaving away at an iZapper app. It randomly zaps the users with about a thousand volts just to make sure they meant to be holding it.

Re:Memo to self

[clone53421]

-1 not geeky enough.

A small, portable Faraday cage should do the trick until you're in the clear, when you can take the appropriate steps to make sure the device can't be tracked.

Re:Memo to self

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Luckily, your shiny, new, five-finger-discounted phone will be really useful without its radio...

Re:Memo to self

[Jeremi]

Wait, how do you remove the iPhone's battery again ?

Tin snips do a pretty good job...

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it in a tin foil bag. That's how they get passed shop security sensors.

Re:Memo to self

[MrCrassic]

OP got really lucky this time. I'm *really* glad that he got his phone back, as that's a rare occurrence with high-tech toys in a big city, but even a half-witted thief would have at least turned the phone OFF.

Most thieves usually flip stolen goods anyway, so they would have no reason to use it until it times to clean it up and sell it.

Re:Memo to self

[Kamineko]

Would an Altoids tin or a tin of travel sweets work as a Faraday cage?

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally, an advantage to the iphones hard to remove/replace battery!

Re:Memo to self

[Archimonde]

The authors of the story were very lucky because the "find my iphone" feature is easily disabled. All it takes is to flip a clearly labeled switch in mail settings to OFF. Or disable location services (easily done too), or just format the iphone as a new one.

For this feature to truly work it would be great if they put a password on it and to be restore/format/network settings proof. That would be completely another story.

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, how do you remove the iPhone's battery again ?

Like this (or 1st gen).

Re:Memo to self

[sheph]

How about just don't steal shit? It's a novel concept I know.

Re:Memo to self

[elrous0]

With a hammer, of course.

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Memo to self: nice try throwing the /. masses off with a second user id.

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

By leaving it on for 30 minutes? *ba dump cha!* ;)

Re:Memo to self

[Anonymous Coward]

First you download the app...

Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[rodrigoandrade]

Yeah, the tech works alright, until you find out it's in the hands of a drug lord in the ghetto. Go get it tiger!!

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[BitterAndDrunk]

GHETTO DRUG LORD
(eating with chopsticks, to iPhone owner)
Grab a seat there, boy. Want some dinner? Grab yourself an egg roll. We got everything here from a diddle-eyed-Joe to a damned-if-I-know.

IPHONE OWNER
No thanks.

GHETTO DRUG LORD
No thanks? What does that mean? Means you ate before you came down here? All full. Is that it? Naw, I don't think so. I think you're too scared to be eatin'. Now, see we're sittin' down here, ready to negotiate, and you've already given up your shit. I'm still a mystery to you. But I know exactly where your ass is comin' from. See, if I asked you if you wanted some dinner and you grabbed an egg roll and started to chow down, I'd say to myself, "This motherfucker's carryin' on like he ain't got a care in the world. Who know? Maybe he don't. Maybe this fool's such a bad motherfucker, he don't got to worry about nothin', he just sit down, eat my Chinese, watch my TV." See? You ain't even sat down yet. On that TV there, since you been in the room, is a woman with her titties hangin' out, and you ain't even bothered to look. You just been starin' at me. Now, I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties.

IPhone Owner takes out an envelope and throws it on the table.
IPHONE OWNER
I'm not eatin' 'cause I'm not hungry. I'm not sittin' 'cause I'm not stayin'. I'm not lookin' at the movie 'cause I saw it seven years ago. It's "The Mack" with Max Julian, Carol Speed, and Richard Pryor, written by Bobby Poole, directed by Michael Campus, and released by Cinerama Releasing Company in 1984. I'm not scared of you. I just don't like you. In that envelope is some payoff money. MyiPhone's moving on to some greener pastures. We're not negotiatin'. I don't like to barter. I don't like to dicker. I never have fun in Tijuana. That price is non-negotiable. What's in that envelope is for my peace of mind. My peace of mind is worth that much. Not one penny more, not one penny more.

(with NO APOLOGIES to Quentin Tarrantino)

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Burning1]

Drug lords don't steal iphones, they sell drugs. Drug users on the other hand...

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Psyborgue]

Ah. Judging people by personal choices. So if a person makes a personal choice to be a Muslim, does that mean they are more likely to blow themselves up and it's just ok to judge them all by that slightly increased tendency. It's prejudice. Nothing more.

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Burning1]

It's important to separate cultural traits from genetic traits, learned environmental traits, and out right bais. There are differences between cultures, and denying them is nothing more than a stop-gap measure between outright racism and true equality.

True racism is about preventing an individual from achieving their potential due to our beliefs about their race, whether those beliefs are founded on experience or outright racism.

And for what it's worth, I have absolutely no idea how you got on the subject of racism from my post. I observed that drug dealers are in the business of dealing drugs. I doubt that a successful dealer would have to resort to petty theft. A hard-core addict is often a non-productive member of society, and more likely than a dealer to finance his habit through theft.

I think your leap of logic from drugs to race speaks more about your bias than mine. Personally, I've found drug use to be a problem among all races.

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Psyborgue]

I didn't say racism. I said prejudice based on personal choice (not race), whether that be religion or what one chooses to put in one's own body. How many "hard core" addicts do you know, other than what you hear of on TV. There is such a thing as a functioning addict, and even the word "addict" is an artificial distinction applied to "one who consumes regularly what we disapprove of". Words used to label people as "other" is nothing new.

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Psyborgue]

The point is that based on a steriotype, you're judging all drug users and completely ignoring the silent majority that do so discreetly and responsibly.

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Burning1]

I know, and am friends with many drug users. I'm judging the people who live up to the stereotype.

I apologize if that wasn't clear from my original post.

Re:Fiund my iPhone, Now Go Get It

[Psyborgue]

No offense taken. I'm not a drug user myself, but I know many and few of them live up to the stereotype (in fact, it's them that convinced me that my pre-existing notions of drug users was incorrect).

No remote shutoff

[Norsefire]

Something that occurred to me while reading was that if they hadn't found it, while there is a way to remotely wipe the data there isn't a way to remotely lockdown the phone.

A way to remotely set the phone to full volume and play a siren-tone non-stop would be nice too.

Or a remote self-destruct feature.

Re:No remote shutoff

[CXI]

Um, call customer service and report the phone as stolen?

Re:No remote shutoff

[NivekEnterprises]

A way to remotely set the phone to full volume and play a siren-tone non-stop would be nice too.

Or a remote self-destruct feature.

Isn't that the same thing?

Hammer meet Super Loud Electronic Device.

Re:No remote shutoff

[Anonymous Coward]

They won't do a thing if you report it stolen.

Honkey?

[linux_stu]

It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood... [people] eyed us three honkeys questioningly.

Why does he feel the need to refer to his friends and himself with such a racially charged word as "hokeys"?

Re:Honkey?

[Volante3192]

Why not? What's wrong with a little self-depreciating humour now and again?

Re:Honkey?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had to walk through an ethnic neighborhood and started to notice people watching you, most of whom could probably twist you around their little finger without breaking a sweat, you'd probably feel like a honkey too. In other words, out of place, rather uncomfortable, and not willing to stay there any longer than absolutely necessary.

Summary

[brunes69]

Idiot steals phone

Idiot not keeps using it with the SIM it came with, but also doesn't turn it off, because he is an idiot

People can track down the phone, because, again, the theif is an idiot.

Anyone with a clue knows you can trace a stolen SIM. Most people would just toss the SIM the instant they find any phone they did not plan on returning.

Re:Summary

[Norsefire]

Anyone with a clue knows you can trace a stolen SIM.

Generally people with clues don't steal phones.

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure who's the bigger idiot, the one you claim is stealing the phones, or you for thinking that most people who steal phones are techies who understand what SIM cards are.

Re:Summary

[James Skarzinskas]

Many new users generally just assume that you're just turning the iPod/iPhone on and off when you're really just toggling standby. Oops.

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

So does that mean most ebay-users are morons?

Re:Summary

[chaim79]

Unless the iPhone is jailbroken or the thief Jailbrakes it you can't swap SIM cards, the iPhone only works with specific SIM cards that have to be registered at AT&T (USA only, other countries my have other policies).

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also track the IMEI. It's a unique identifier for the phone (any phone I've seen).

I used to work for one of the GSM carriers in the US and after a customer called in to get a new phone because he had lost his old one, I took it upon myself to grab his IMEI number from his records (both the user account and the *phone records* record the IMEI, Tower, SIM, etc). I then did a search in the system for that IMEI and sure enough I found someone else using it! I called my manager who authorized me to call the person using the stolen phone, we offered him a new phone (with contract of course) if they brought the phone to a T-Mobile store.

The person had bought it (they said) and were happy to bring it in and exchange it for a new model. I called back the original customer and told him where he could pick up his stolen phone.

So moral of the story? Even phones that have had their SIM cards removed can be tracked. Only issue of course is if your phone is taken to a different carrier (then that carrier would be the one to call to find your phone). Of course, the operator has to want to help you and many if not all know about IMEI tracking. I know we would check IMEI's in the phone record to check up on customers who tried to scam us by saying that a phone that we mailed to them never arrived - again, call records would show what phone they were using.

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, Generally people with clues don't get caught stealing phones.

Re:Summary

[kevinNCSU]

Unless that phone contains their next clue!

Re:Summary

[Lumpy]

But it works with other AT&T sims as well as go phone sims (at&T prepaid.)

At least he 1st gen iphone does.

It's not locked to that sim card.

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Just music and software? Oh right, those are "backup copies."

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally people with clues don't get caught stealing phones.

FTFY

Re:Summary

[Cro Magnon]

Generally people with clues don't steal phones

Or at least they don't get caught stealing phones.

Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[gubers33]

This is probably one of the more intriguing stories I have read on Slashdot recently. It was both amusing and informative. The best part is that this is pretty much free advertising for "Find my iPhone". Not only free advertising, but great advertising. I would bet money that half the people who read this article are going to download this app when they are done reading for the exact reason they want to be able to find their stolen iPhone.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[mrdoogee]

This service is not just an app though. Find my iPhone requires a MobileMe account ( the new branding of .Mac) which will cost you $99/yr. As a questionably useful insurance policy on finding your phone, not really a good deal, however MobileMe does have many other great features that make it worth the money, but I wouldn't sign up the service just in case I ever lose my phone and want to confront a thief.

ymmv though.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[happywaffle]

Well, consider that 99% of the use cases are tracking it when you've just flat-out lost it somewhere. I totally did not expect to use it to track a thief. ...Until I did, that is.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so the G1 doesn't feel left out, this is very possible and free on an Android phone. With Latitude enabled on the phone it is simply a matter of signing into iGoogle and checking your Latitude location.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[moon3]

Yep, and kudos to Apple marketing team.

I down want to tarnish your enthusiasm for the story, but it has all the signs of an intended viral, paid up by Apple marketing. Do not forget all the stunts they pulled. I would say, 10% this is a genuine story.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[hesaigo999ca]

I would use it to purposely lose my phone somewhere where a thief would take it, then track him down and webcam the whole thing, then do a "dog the bounty hunter" session on the guy, come in with guns waving in the air, that would be so cool....I might just youtube this!

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[dzfoo]

Do those signs include bad grammar and lame story telling?

      -dZ.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[e9th]

Kudos indeed. s-waffle's UID show he signed up not long after I did, which would make him one hell of a mole.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Professor_UNIX]

Why don't they just link this feature to your iTunes account since you need one to activate your phone? That way everyone could benefit from this feature.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Minwee]

I'm sure that "Nerd videotapes own knees being broken" would be a big hit on YouTube.

Good luck with that.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[AngryNick]

Just so the G1 doesn't feel left out, this is very possible and free on an Android phone. With Latitude enabled on the phone it is simply a matter of signing into iGoogle and checking your Latitude location.

Latitude works on Blackberry as well. I'm sure my wife uses it to track my location.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[joNDoty]

For some reason people think all thieves are badasses that will kick your ass if you mess with them. Thieves are scum. That doesn't make them tough.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Minwee]

That doesn't make you any tougher either.

Hey, let's play a game. I'll flip a coin and if it comes up heads you get a dollar. If it's tails I get to smash you in the face with a lead pipe.

Do you think this is a good game to play? How about if I roll a die instead, and if I roll a one I stick you with a knife. But if the roll is anything else, you get _five_ dollars.

Would you encourage all of your friends to play this wonderful game?

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[hesaigo999ca]

I guess the assumption on your part that all geeks are wimps, is probably the bigger spin here!
I bench 400....I doubt that the thief in question could do the same, and even if he did,
I would love the fight, as there is not enough big guys in weight division!
The only thing I would have to worry about is if he had a gun,
but I would make sure not to let him see me coming!

"Have you made someone tap lately?" :P

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[lazyforker]

The Darwin Awards website called. They want to record you performing this stunt.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Kesch]

What size die? d6, d20, or other?

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

He meant with his little brother...

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[iamapizza]

I'm going to buy everyone on /. a sarcasm detector for Christmas.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Suuuuure you do.

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[Minwee]

I bench 400....I doubt that the thief in question could do the same

Ah, so that makes you invulnerable.

What if the thief, or his friends, break with tradition and decide to settle things with something other than a polite bench-pressing contest?

Re:Single Best Story I have read on Slashdot

[hesaigo999ca]

That would be why I made sure to include in my post "unless they had a gun...." piece.
You remind me of a girl I once knew, she would always extract a small group of words
from what I would say, which on its own, would make the rest of the sentence useless..
or unimportant or worse, totally off topic, yet I find reassurance in this point...
knowing that her kind is not endangered. O_O

This is awesome.

[SeeSp0tRun]

The issue brought up that some folks may get hurt over the service is valid, but that is the fault of the person chasing the offender.

Why not have it endorsed by law enforcement? You go to the police, say my $400 (and to some $600) phone was stolen. Maybe a lawyer can verify this, but I recall the grand theft charge being lowered to something around there.

The issue would be getting the police to believe that the little blue dot is a real blue dot, with someone's real stolen phone at that location.

Re:This is awesome.

[MBGMorden]

I wonder the actual legal standpoint though. Technically, the phone here was not really stolen. It was left behind unattended and then picked up.

There's some grey area on how long it can sit there before someone laying claim to it, but make no mistake that any property left unclaimed will be claimed by someone else. Back in the days we even had the basic concept codified into salvage rights.

Now, any decent person should give the phone back if they can ascertain the owner of it (as the guy in the article was obviously reluctant to do), but still, getting the cops to go after your phone if you lost it but know someone else found it seems like it would be a lot harder than if it was actually stolen.

Re:This is awesome.

[sexconker]

Problem:
Police don't give a fuck about you or your phone.

Re:This is awesome.

[multipartmixed]

Tell them you tracked the owner doing 3 mph over the speed limit, and that the phone took a picture of him smoking marijuana.

He'll be served with a no-knock warrant and shot in the face faster than you can say "thank you!"

Re:This is awesome.

[1u3hr]

The issue would be getting the police to believe that the little blue dot is a real blue dot, with someone's real stolen phone at that location.

It wasn't a "blue dot" but a circle, the size of a city block.

Even if the police believed it, they're not going to bust down the doors of a whole apartment building to search for a phone.

Re:This is awesome.

[Volante3192]

Lifting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost,_mislaid,_and_abandoned_property , which is quoting Michael v. First Chicago Corp., 139 Ill. App. 3d 374, 382, 487 N.E.2d 403, 409 (1985):

A finder of property acquires no rights in mislaid property, is entitled to possession of lost property against everyone except the true owner, and is entitled to keep abandoned property

This is likely a clear cut case of mislaid property.

Re:This is awesome.

[damburger]

And then the police will keep your phone as 'evidence', and it will vanish in the evidence locker alongside everything else valuable.

Re:This is awesome.

[icebrain]

The real issue would be getting the police to care in the first place. They often have bigger things to worry about than random petty thieves; property crimes are probably pretty low on the priority list (unless someone got hurt in the process). They might write up a report declaring it stolen, and put it on a "stolen goods" list, and advise you to call your phone company and get the phone canceled... but unless they're really, really bored, they aren't going to go after it.

Chasing it yourself can be pretty stupid; confronting the thief is beyond idiocy. I'm all for citizens reacting in self-defense when threatened with immediate bodily harm--but that doesn't excuse doing so for mere property crimes, or vigilantism. Chasing criminals and stolen property is the job of the police. One might justify following discreetly and calling in the police from a safe distance, but walking up to a known criminal and saying "hey dude, you stole my phone!" is just plain stupid.

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd moderate you funny if I had mod points. No cop is going to do jack squat for a 3 mph over, and most of them don't give a shit about weed either.

In fact, here's a (non-exhaustive) list, for the uninitiated, of things most cops don't give a shit about:

– speeding, less than 10 over (unless it's a speed trap, and less than 8 over if it is)
– domestic violence, unless bones are broken, hospitalization results, or many people call it in
– marijuana, unless you're dealing
– underaged drinking
– underaged smoking

About the only thing they will take seriously is DUI/DWI, if the stolen property was worth a lot, or when it involves a gun, hard drugs, prescription drugs, or underaged sex (ZOMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN!).

Re:This is awesome.

[iphayd]

At least you can verify that it still is in the evidence locker, using MobileMe.

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

– underaged drinking

The Minor In Possession misdemeanor charge (drunkenly stumbled out of a house party with a beer in my hand, was 19 at the time) that sat on my (otherwise nonexistent) criminal record begs to differ.

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd simply been drunk, they probably wouldn't have cared. Since you were actually carrying the evidence, they were somewhat obligated to arrest you.

That aside, I see two other possibilities: you were in a rich, up-scale neighborhood where the cops actually do give a shit, or you were in some po-dung hick town where the local Sheriff thinks he's bad-ass and jacks off at night over the power he has to squash "all them punks".

Re:This is awesome.

[s73v3r]

"Chasing criminals and stolen property is the job of the police."

"They often have bigger things to worry about than random petty thieves"

So he should just let his phone go? Let the bad guys win? You just said that he should leave this to police, and that the police won't give a shit about it.

Re:This is awesome.

[PPH]

The real issue would be getting the police to care in the first place.

Quite true. We're still trying to get the county sheriff to take reports of some guy jacking off outside kids' bedroom windows seriously.

Chasing criminals and stolen property is the job of the police.

So, what are they going to do if you take the initiative? File a union grievance? This isn't a joke. The Seattle police did just this when fire department divers would show up at a drowning first and attempt a rescue. Union rules. That's the cops job in this town. Sorry about your kid drowning. The divers were on a negotiated break at the time.

Be prepared to defend yourself and your property. The cops aren't 'jack booted thugs'. More like Barney Fife, and the criminals know this.

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

From same wiki page,
Mislaid property ...Under common law principles, the finder of a misplaced object has a duty to turn it over to the owner of the premises...

If the true owner does not return within a reasonable time ... the property becomes that of the owner of the premises.

Re:This is awesome.

[Kabuthunk]

Generally... yeah.

Around here at least, the gangs are so large and the police are so useless that if something's stolen... your only choice is to write it off to bad luck, forget about it, and get a replacement.

It's truly both sad and pathetic. Primarily, this is see with car break-ins. Some people (can't find news articles at the moment, but it's been brought up) don't even bother calling the police or Autopac, and just get it repaired by their own means. It costs a lot less, and there's a lot less hassle and paperwork.

Oh, and we're usually the murder-capital of Canada too, due to the violent nature of said gangs... so going after them yourself is generally not wise.

Random statistic to throw out there... March 3rd of this year was the first entire day in decades in which a car wasn't stolen. Of course, one has to note "not one person in the whole city reported a stolen car". I can't prove it, but I'd put good money on that some just put it off until the next day, or didn't notice until the next day.

But yeah, in short... if a crime is done around here, you roll over and take it, and move on with your life.

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also known as the, "finders, keepers" law to most kindergartners

Re:This is awesome.

[dzfoo]

>> Quite true. We're still trying to get the county sheriff to take reports of some guy jacking off outside kids' bedroom windows seriously.

Would it bother the community less if the guy was doing it in a happy and light-hearted manner? I'm just saying. Perhaps you should post a sign on the street or something.

        -dZ.

Re:This is awesome.

[icebrain]

So, what are they going to do if you take the initiative? File a union grievance

No, they'll probably prosecute you. We had a case just recently where a guy's truck was stolen; he encountered it later that day and gave chase, with the police on the phone. They didn't give a shit until he said "oh, and once they stop I'm going to pull my shotgun out and hold them for you". That got them to respond real quick.

I'm not saying it's right to just have to write off stolen property... but quite frankly, I don't want somebody getting hurt and then suing my ass claiming I told them to take matters into their own hands.

Re:This is awesome.

[clone53421]

We had a case just recently where a guy's truck was stolen; he encountered it later that day and gave chase, with the police on the phone. They didn't give a shit until he said "oh, and once they stop I'm going to pull my shotgun out and hold them for you". That got them to respond real quick.

Bingo. They don't give a shit unless somebody's about to get shot, cause then they'd have mountains of paperwork...

Re:This is awesome.

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem: Police don't give a fuck

How robust is this service?

[goto begin]

When the blue ring on the map was quite large, no doubt the phone was indoors - perhaps the apartment block that was mentioned in the story. Aside from the GPS signal being obstructed, what else can go wrong with this service? Do you have to have the GPRS/3G data network enabled and connected? Does the phone have to be on?

Re:How robust is this service?

[Norsefire]

what else can go wrong with this service

Battery dies (pushing data constantly uses a lot of power) or they turn the phone off.

Beat down

[PeeShootr]

I'd prefer to lose my phone and shell out another $500 then receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug.
It was pretty stupid of these guys to go after the phone.

Re:Beat down

[DinDaddy]

Which is why they need to add the "disable iPhone thief" feature where all the remaining power in the battery is converted to a taser-like discharge through the housing at your command.

Extra fun for hacking into your friends' phones and doing this to them at inopportune times (all of them I guess).

Re:Beat down

[cjjjer]

You would think, but what would be worse:

Having to deal with your friends saying "remember the time when you left your $800 one week old iPhone 3GS at that resturant and someone took it"

Or

Getting beat down by some street thugs trying to get it back.

Most people would have the issue with the friends making fun of them.

Re:Beat down

[maxume]

Or not, they didn't actually get hurt and they got the phone back.

I doubt they even reached 500 car-miles of risk.

Re:Beat down

[Per Wigren]

I'd prefer to lose my phone and shell out another $500 then receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug.

Why would you want to receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug?
I'd prefer to just lose my phone and shell out another $500 than receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug.

Re:Beat down

[schon]

Why would you want to receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug?

Well, obviously he's a masochist, and he would need the violent beating in order to reassure himself that it's his fault.

Re:Beat down

[macmastery]

Actually, it was probably not an iPhone 3G S.

Re:Beat down

[Rude Turnip]

This is the type of pedantry that keeps me coming back to Slashdot.

Re:Beat down

[Archangel Michael]

"I'd prefer to just lose my phone and shell out another $500 than receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug."

And that is what is wrong with our society today. People are scared of violent street thugs and would rather not bother them, and leave them to be ... violent thugs wondering the streets searching for their next victim.

I guess it is too hard to get yourself trained and armed and stop thinking the police will protect you, because they won't, unless it is convenient to them to do so.

I would confront the asshole, and if he wanted to kill me for my iphone, then that person should be OFF the streets anyway. Life is too short is be a coward waiting to be the next victim.

Seriously, what is wrong with the world today, have we so much to lose that we allow thugs to knowingly roam free for fear of losing more???

We've already lost if that is the case. It is only a matter of time before we realize it.

Re:Beat down

[Markemp]

I agree. Except when your plane gets hijacked. Then the safest thing to do for yourself and everyone else is to sit quietly in the back of the plane and wait for the situation to get resolved peacefully by the proper authorities.

Re:Beat down

[MrCrassic]

So you're basically saying that you'd rather put yourself on the line for a completely replaceable material item.

Just sayin'.

Re:Beat down

[clone53421]

That was true until 9/11.

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of aircraft *looks up*.... *Whoooosh*

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the type of pedantry that keeps me coming back to Slashdot.

You had me at "pedantry [...] keeps me coming".

Re:Beat down

[oblivionboy]

Welcome to America, huh?

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to make sure I'm following your logic:

"And that is what is wrong with our society today. People are scared of violent street thugs and would rather not bother them, and leave them to be ... violent thugs wondering the streets searching for their next victim." -leading to...

"I would confront the asshole, and if he wanted to kill me for my iphone, then that person should be OFF the streets anyway. Life is too short is be a coward waiting to be the next victim." -then you would be likely assaulted/injured, possibly killed... which would make him being off the streets possibly irrelevant for you in the worse case. Are you REALLY going to back your tough talk w/a street thug? See below...

"...have we so much to lose that we allow thugs to knowingly roam free for fear of losing more???" Yes, if you value your health/life more than your iPhone, (benefit for capture & removal of thug from society notwithstanding).

Re:Beat down

[nuckfuts]

I guess it is too hard to get yourself trained and armed and stop thinking the police will protect you, because they won't, unless it is convenient to them to do so.

I would confront the asshole, and if he wanted to kill me for my iphone, then that person should be OFF the streets anyway.

I take it you consider yourself some kind of tough guy. You know how to fight and are possibly armed. You're not going to take shit from any lowlife street thug.

You are also an idiot. Here's why:

• Only an idiot would advocate the kind of vigilantism you're describing, and believe that society would be better if more citizens were weapon-toting tough guys like you.
• Your capitalization of the word OFF suggests you are using it in the colloquial sense, meaning to KILL someone. Perhaps you are more than just an idiot. Perhaps you are a homicidal idiot.
• There are people walking the streets of every city who are crazy. When you confront a stranger you have no way of knowing who you are dealing with. The person you confront could be armed themselves, and mentally deranged enough to use their weapon for no good reason at all.

I've been in altercations with people who were clearly prepared to use a level of violence far beyond what the situation called for - people who were clearly not rational. It's not cowardly to avoid such confrontations. It's the intelligent thing to do.

Re:Beat down

[zojas]

I kind of agree with both parties here; 1. shouldn't just let a thug get away with it, but 2. don't want to get killed in the process.

where I live, it's legal to carry a gun, as long as it's not concealed (you can get a permit to conceal too).

I would think the best thing to do would simply be to wear a gun while tracking down the iphone. I'd imagine that simply having it visible are going to tilt the odds way in favor of the thug either running away, or just handing over the iphone.

basically, once you're armed, you have the capability to handle escalation if it occurs, but until the thug escalates, you are simply tracking him down and politely asking for you iphone back.

note, I didn't say pull the gun out. the only time you draw a gun is if you intend to kill with it; the only time you should be trying to kill someone is if a reasonable person would consider there to be no other recourse; i.e., if he's threatening you with words, don't kill him. if he's swinging a baseball bat at you, rushing you with a knife, or brandishing a gun, then kill him.

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd prefer to lose my phone and shell out another $500 then receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug.

I think ou are settling for too little. In the current economic scenario, you could get much more for $500 than just a violent beating at the hands of a street thug.
Ask any local goon near your steet corner on how to best invest your $500.

Re:Beat down

[syousef]

Like it or not a street thug has nothing to lose. If they end up in jail, or have something added to their criminal record, it's not going to ruin their life. It's another day at the office. Ho hum. Not like they had any job prospects to ruin. Their life sux and they live by the law of the jungle so being injured or killed, while it matters to them is an ongoing possibility. They have some experience in dealing with violence and their instincts are good when it comes to getting out of there.

The law abiding citizen on the other hand doesn't have a criminal record, and it will ruin their job prospects if they get one. Try getting a job at a major bank with a criminal record. As for street smarts and instincts, they have none.

It's not a fair fight. Pretending it's a fair fight or that this is just a question of courage and standing up for your rights is foolish.

Re:Beat down

[Archangel Michael]

That is the problem right there. YOU are saying that the material good itself isn't worth dying over, but it is worth killing over.

Let me ask you this, would you want a guy willing to kill over a stolen iPhone wandering the streets of your town? Because that is the only alternative you have.

I would be willing to confront someone over anything they stole from me. The dollar value is insignificant, whether it is $1 or Million. The fact that you can't see this scares me.

Re:Beat down

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's not a question of being willing to confront someone over a lost item, it's a question of which is more valuable to me; An iPhone, or my immediate health.

I can't put a monetary price on not being stabbed, but I'm pretty sure that if a thug with a knife came up to me in an alley and demanded my mobile phone, my response would more than likely be "Would you like a receipt with that?"

Re:Beat down

[Archangel Michael]

I'll repeat the premise ...

YOU are saying that the material good itself isn't worth dying over, but it is worth killing over.

You are willing to accept a guy killing for an iPhone in your world. I'm not. It is, really, that simple.

I'm the kind of guy who is willing to kill someone to get my stolen items back, if the person is willing to kill me to steal them. I don't want to kill, but I'm willing. The problem is, our society has been so pussified that people like you say that people like me are dangerous, and not the idiot who stole (and is willing to kill) for my iPhone.

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, look at the Internet Tough Guy.

Self-defense is one thing. Hunting down a criminal for some vigilante street justice is entirely another. So basically, "courage" means either (1) "willing to get yourself killed over a stylish and overpriced hunk of plastic and metal", or (2) "willing to kill another human being over a stylish and overpriced hunk of plastic and metal". And someone who isn't willing to do either is a coward representing the downfall of civilization. Right. You're a regular American hero, tough guy. At least your kids will know you died defending your iPhone. That should be some peace for them. Though I guess you're aiming more for "vigilante superhero executing street filth". (They don't deserve to live anyway, right?)

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

You're both dangerous idiots who are willing to kill a man over a physical item of insignificant value (even $1). (Hell, I doubt even a street thief is likely to kill you over $1, but you've said you're perfectly willing.) The fact that one of the two is also a thief is of marginal importance compared to the first fact.

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really value your possessions (in this case a phone) so much that you would lay down your life for it?

The apple fanboys are getting way too devout now.

Re:Beat down

[Anonymous Coward]

I call this bluff everytime someone makes it. Crime doesn't magically stop at a postcode boundary - it's because residents of locality X call the cops and/or get involved more than locality Y. Step up and get in the face of criminals. When you call emergency during in-progress crime, be clear that you're describing the OFFENDER not some 'alleged' person that 'might be involved' politically correct crap.

I'd rather go down fighting a thief and have them subsequently wanted for assault as well (thus more willingness from the police in finding them), than letting it go as 'just a lost phone'. Cowardice changes nothing.

(posted as AC because I see no reason to regiser for /.)

Re:Beat down

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'm the kind of guy who is willing to kill

That makes you and I different, then. The capacity to end another human life is something I never, ever hope I need to test myself for, and I hope that if I does come down to that point that I did absolutely everything in my power to avoid that situation, including personal financial loss.

Any other course of action is called "murder" and has nothing to do with being "pussified." I simply value human life as worth more than $500, no matter the human. Perhaps that's why I vote Liberal, too.

EDIT: Whoa there, I almost missed this gem:

YOU are saying that the material good itself isn't worth dying over, but it is worth killing over.

I said nothing of the sort. I wouldn't risk being killed over a $500 iPhone, and I wouldn't kill anyone for a $500 iPhone. That is what I said. I make no assumptions regarding the value others put on my life, or that iPhone, so I don't test their boundaries.

Go back to Primary School and work on your reading comprehension.

Re:Hokey?

[Mr. Firewall]

Why does he feel the need to refer to his friends and himself with such a racially charged word as "hokeys"?

What's a hokey? Someone from Oklahoma? And what race would that be?

Why should he post anonymously?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he did people would think he'll have something to hide.

Re:Hokey?

[linux_stu]

Aww. My first post on Slashdot, and it has a typo. I guess I should pay attention to the preview from now on.

Dangerous and Stupid

[RandomUsername99]

Being one of the people that has spent a considerable amount of time living in one of those neighborhoods I can definitively say that what this guy did was extremely dangerous and stupid. I wouldn't pull that kind of BS with someone I sorta knew while they were standing in public, let alone in a neighborhood I've never been to before. I'm surprised that the guy who had the phone wasn't using it to call his friends to get down there and kick their asses, if for no other reason than to not appear to have been rolled by 3 scrawny nerds armed with a laptop in broad daylight.

If he stole the phone in the first place, he probably wasn't the most savory character in the world. What if he was on parole/probation/suspended sentence for something serious and could have been locked up? What if he was on some crazy uppers? What if he was actually meeting a large group of his buddies on that street corner? What if he was any of the above *and* armed?

Not trying to be a troll here, but I'm guessing that those guys have never really had their asses handed to them before.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[archont]

Then you'd be shot or beaten up, you wussy. And yes, it was stupid of him to go in unarmed and without a few more people.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[flibuste]

And what if he was simply someone who can't afford an IPhone, living in a poor area of town and not being as rich as the 3 kids with their laptop and their mobile phones, and with nothing else to attack people with than a bus ticket?
Danger starts with paranoia: in your head. The world is much less scary than what people have you believe.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[pz]

Not trying to be a troll here, but I'm guessing that those guys have never really had their asses handed to them before.

It was not only a supremely stupid thing to do without, at minimum, a police escort, but he also didn't pay the thief the promised reward for return of the phone (there was that handshake, see, implying a transaction and binding agreement). The author of the article was acting just like a thug.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[macmastery]

They were hardly kids. Childish, sure. But definitely adult (and not just barely legal either).

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Archangel Michael]

"I can definitively say that what this guy did was extremely dangerous and stupid."

Really? If that were the case, then we've already lost. Our country is filled with cowardice, like yours. As the powers continue to take away your freedoms, one at a time, in the name of peace and security, you sit back and cower in fear of losing more if you "act up" and stand up for yourself.

I'm reminded of the quote ....

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

So, do nothing, be nothing, as cowards usually are. Hide behind your computer screen in anonymity whining about how bad the world is knowing that by being a coward, you have contributed to exactly what you fear most.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

If the cops had been there, the thieves would have just run. What are the cops going to do, pursue? Shoot? Hardly.

You don't negotiate with thugs. Any seeming negotiations we undergo can be considered non-binding if you stole my phone.

'Course, I'd be packing heat, and hopefully I'd be an expert on its use and have a concealed-carry permit. (Not yet, but I definitely would like to take the class and get the permit sometime.)

Good thing it's legal to use deadly force to protect one's property in my state... in fact it's even legal to take them down during the getaway in order to regain property they've stolen. What's more important, some street thug's life or my $500 phone? I think we both know which one I value more...

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Markemp]

He should have asked the thief's address and promised to send him the reward money of $500 to it as soon as he can get to an ATM machine. Then when he had the address in hand, he should have left with the joke: "How do you keep an asshole in suspense?" ... Problem is, I never think of good lines like that during the moment. It's always "I shoulda done that..."

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a word for the attitude above.

Cowardice.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Not trying to be a troll here, but I'm guessing that those guys have never really had their asses handed to them before.

I am sure they have had their asses handed to them AND have dealt some serious ass whooping before... in WoW.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[MrCrassic]

See, there's this thing called "common sense" that kind of tells you that the chances of the thief being someone who's desperate enough to steal an iPhone in a public location might not be so hot.

Having been in these situations before, I can say that they're pretty damn lucky they dealt with a total n00b. If anything, what would have been safer would have been to let the police coordinate with them to really get the guy, since they knew what he looked like and could prove that he indeed stole the item.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

So, to sum up, risking your life to replace material possesion = patriotic. Brilliant.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Not trying to be a troll here, but I'm guessing that those guys have never really had their asses handed to them before.

Bingo. No one who addresses himself and his friends as "three skinny white boys" has any concept of reality.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

You wanna throw your life away on an electronic gadget, go ahead. The rest of us would rather be alive and robbed than dead with the chance of getting our stuff back.

Course, I live in the murder capitol of Canada, so that might have something to do with it.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[foo fighter]

Where is the "-1 Whinny/Pussy" mod?

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[mdarksbane]

Armed? You must be kidding, Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country!

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes for some great chest pounding platitudes but the reality of the situation is that anyone who chases down an unknown criminal in an unknown neighborhood deserves whatever they get, and these guys were extremely lucky.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, so our streets aren't safe because we are giving up freedoms for security? I think you are confusing two issues here...

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[null etc.]

Go ahead, hero, give up your life over an iPhone in order to defend the "cowardice" of this country. I won't cry for you.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another quote for you.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men try to do something dangerous without the necessary tools and get fucked up."

There is no cowardice in knowing your limits and not stepping into a situation, undefended, where you can be hurt or killed. That's called intelligence, not cowardice.

What you do is come back with some sort of protection and then approach the guy who stole your iPhone. It's just common sense.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[indiechild]

Opportunist criminals, like most human beings, are pussies. You just have to keep an eye out for when they call their homies for backup.

I think you'd be surprised at how many "ordinary and everyday" people can be opportunist criminals. If you man up and confront them, they'll often give you your gear back after swiping it a few seconds earlier.

And of course, we're assuming common sense here. If you're outnumbered and you sense danger then you'd obviously back off.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Archangel Michael]

What is worth risking your life?

Honestly I don't care if you cry for me or not. In fact, I don't expect you to cry for me. However, I am crying because you'd rather let a thief get away with it, than confront him because of your cowardice. I cry not for you, but for the thief who got away with it.

So much for leaving the world a better place than when you found it.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Burke almost certainly never said that.

http://tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html

It's not the kind of thing he would have said, as he was against empty yet pithy sayings which could be used to argue for either side.

If you want to risk your life over something, there's plenty of opportunity around the world to do for freedom or against oppression rather than your personal right to own an ipod unmolested.

I think it is true that we have lost something as a community by devolving our powers to hold others accountable for crime to the police, but we have gained a lot too. In particular a more even distribution of justice to those who wouldn't be able to force justice by their own power.

Would you call a ten year old who doesn't chase down an eighteen year old a coward? How about a doddery old ninety year old? How about a weedy geek for not chasing down a thief with a gun? How about someone who only believes that the thief is likely to have a weapon and not be particularly bothered if he kills?

None of that is cowardice. If you are confident enough in your own abilities, that's great for you, and I encourage you to take reasonable steps to defend your property (not including murder... it's only stuff man, life even the life of a thief is more important), but there's no need for your attitude towards others in a different physical situation to yourself.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a poor choice to coerce something from someone without knowing anything about them and not having any methods of protecting yourself if it does turn sour.

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

Where in the your parent's post did it advocate doing nothing?

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Uncle Chop Chop says "Harden the fuck up!"

Re:Dangerous and Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Hide behind your computer screen in anonymity whining about how bad the world is knowing that by being a coward, you have contributed to exactly what you fear most.

... as opposed to hiding behind your computer screen in anonymity bragging about what a hero you are? Or rather what a hero you could be, theoretically, if the situation presented itself, according to yourself.

What a hypocrite.

Re:Hokey?

[maxume]

Bland.

If you don't want to pay $99 for MobileMe

[8127972]

....Perhaps this would be an alternative:

http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/iphone/

Not nearly as cool as MobileMe, but likely as effective (and perhaps safer too).

Re:If you don't want to pay $99 for MobileMe

[SCPRedMage]

Undercover requires that the thief runs an application (disguised as a game) in order to work, were as MobileMe, as an app from Apple, will pull location data in the background.

It can be turned off..

[irchs]

Provided that the phone doesn't have a pin lock, the Find My iPhone feature can be disabled in the phones preferences, rendering it useless... :(

Re:It can be turned off..

[vertinox]

Not having a pin lock is a sign of foolishness.

Re:It can be turned off..

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of idiot would have an iPhone and not have a pin lock?

Re:Hokey?

[hedwards]

Yeah, good thing you're not in or around Virginia Tech, otherwise that could've been awkward.

Re:Hokey?

[The Archon V2.0]

What's a hokey?

A hotkey that opens one's favorite porn site...?

Does this work outside the U.S.? Overseas?

[wisebabo]

Does anyone know if this feature works outside the U.S.? Overseas? If the country the phone is (lost) in does not have Google Maps (like Vietnam) will it just give a geographic coordinate (latitude and longitude)?
Does anyone know if Mobile me will work on a "hacked" iPhone? Unfortunately that's the only kind that works here!
Can the Mobile Me feature be disabled completely by a thief? (I know that the location finding aspect can be disabled by turning off location services, sorry if I spilled the beans). Is it protected by a password? Will it survive SIM removal/replacement? Will it survive a complete OS replacement (I guess not)?
Thanks for any and all answers to these questions!

Am I the only one that wonders

[thijsh]

... WTF is a Lego convention?

Re:Am I the only one that wonders

[Locke2005]

Hand in your geek credentials immediately. You obviously don't belong here. ;-)

Re:Am I the only one that wonders

[Culture20]

Am I the only one that wonders... WTF is a Lego convention?

Fine. LEGO® convention. Sheesh, lego snobs and their insistence on all-caps.

Oh no! A ticket from the PC police!

[SuperKendall]

I'm not sure what your problem was given the account was factual.

Would you rather they have said "Uniquely singular ethnic neighborhood"? Would that have actually served to illustrate what they did was kind of a bad idea?

Why should people be forced to lie because you feel uncomfortable with the truths of how some areas of a city are? Is it not true there are some ethnic areas of a city that are a bit dangerous to wander around in if you are not of that ethnicity?

Lose $500 AND get the beatdown...sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're either a masochist, or poor grammaticist.

I'd prefer to lose my phone and shell out another $500 then receive a violent beat down at the hands of some street thug.

It was pretty stupid of these guys to go after the phone.

Or you could have this all for free...

[GweeDo]

http://www.mobiletipstricks.com/track-windows-mobile-with-smart-phone-tracker/

Oh wait...that is only if you go Windows Mobile.

Re:Or you could have this all for free...

[Colonel Korn]

http://www.mobiletipstricks.com/track-windows-mobile-with-smart-phone-tracker/

Oh wait...that is only if you go Windows Mobile.

I know a woman who did it for free with her WinMo phone. Being smarter than this guy, however, she brought the location to the police and they happily went together to get the phone. In this case it was being used by a kid in school and the impression I got was that he wasn't very threatening, but taking the risk of skipping the police to appear more macho is dumb.

Re:Hokey?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought I was the only one here with a Hokey-Pokey fetish! I'm not alone!

White Geeks Should Buy Replacement Insurance

[Anonymous Coward]

On my normal cell phones, I don't bother signing up for what I call idiot insurance, the no-fault, you drop it in the toilet, your dog eats it, a thug steals it, cell phone replacement plan, because most phones are easily replaced with a second-hand purchase of another phone from Ebay.

However, when my T-Mobile MDA was new, and nobody on earth was carrying around such sexy, attention-grabbing devices, I carried the full idiot insurance for the first two years that I owned the phone. Now that I'm using a Google G1, I'll carry idiot insurance - at a premium of $6.00 a month, until the phones are old news and you can buy them for a song on Ebay. That is why they have idiot insurance, so that affluent white people don't have to chase impoverished people around the barrio for three days in hot pursuit of a stolen IPHONE. You insure it so that if it gets lost or stolen, you call up a toll-free number and file a lost property claim. That's what middle-class yuppies are supposed to do, not take the law into their own hands, which is entirely stupid. There are barrios where the locals will kill you simply for being white and stupid.

Re:White Geeks Should Buy Replacement Insurance

[argent]

These are LEGO geeks. If they lose their iPhone, they make another one out of LEGO.

Re:Does this work outside the U.S.? Overseas?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple stole this idea from an app in Cydia that does the same thing. You can text it from a specified number and it will turn on tracking as well as give you the option to remote nuke. It will even send you a text message if someone changes the SIM on you. I forget the name of it but look it up in Cydia. I believe it gives you the lat/long if your cell company supports assisted GPS

Re:Hokey?

[Drathos]

Hokies are from Virginia. Blacksburg, in particular. It's evidently some weird cross-breed of man and turkey that's good at football and engineering.

Because he's white? And it's not offensive?

[SuperKendall]

Why does he feel the need to refer to his friends and himself with such a racially charged word as "honkeys"?

Who said the word was "racially charged"? I don't use it all the time myself but I'd feel zero offense being called a honkey. And certainly none if I called myself one...

When will the PC madness end? You are giving the word a power it should not have. You chose what power words have over you.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hokey?

[macmastery]

That's an "okie", and a sad, lower life form to be sure.

Hook 'em Horns!

holy shit +5? are you kidding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot must be full of total pussies. Your fear only serves to enable the crooks.

Re:Tell his boss please

[Anonymous Coward]

This thieving scumbag deserves to be fired.

I'd call the cops too, now that you know who did it. He deserves an arrest on his record also.

But what does that solve? Then he's officially a criminal, and out of work. Does this somehow help you or society in general? Or does it just soothe your thirst for revenge? If you think that's going to raise the threshold of him committing another crime in the future, think again. It's going to lower it, now that he has even less to lose.

same feature exists on BlackBerry...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and other mobile phones.

It's always amusing to see iPhone addicts talk about some feature as if it was something new and unique to their toy, even though it's something that the rest of us have had for years. Are they really are that clueless about what's available with mobile phones?

Re:same feature exists on BlackBerry...

[morgan_greywolf]

...and other mobile phones.

And many other phones in fact. But that doesn't matter. Because it's all about the USER EXPERIENCE! Features, specification, blah. Those mean nothing without the User Experience(tm). And only the iPhone has this User Experience()tm)! Amorphous and nebulous as it might sound, that's the response you're likely to get.

Re:same feature exists on BlackBerry...

[MobyTurbo]

But the iPhone added MMS! And can record movies! and do voice recognition! What other phone can do that? ;-)

Re:Dangerous and Stupid (like the rest of life)

[clevergeek]

It's statistics. Point #1: Even in those those areas you're wary of, the vast majority of the people are normal decent folks. Are there scumbags there? Yes, just like there are in your neighborhood. Irrational fear of the unknown doesn't help you with the issue at hand. Point #2: Most thieves are cowards, just like most of everyone else. The logic in "he picked up a phone that had been left on a table when no one was looking, thus he could be a recently paroled dangerous thug" just doesn't ring true for me. Possible, yes. Likely, no. Is there a chance you'd get the beat down (or brutally killed) for trying to retrieve your phone? Sure! Is there a chance you'll get t-boned on your way home from work tonight and have your guts splashed across an intersection? Of course. Why don't you crawl under your desk and go to sleep at the office tonight instead of driving home-- I mean, come on...is it really worth the risk?? Sounds dangerous and stupid to me. It's clearly more safe to be a perpetual victim of what might happen, likely or not.

people don't trace SIMs, phone companies do

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are, the phone company isn't going to tell you where the SIM has been used.

petty theft- not a mugging

[SuperBanana]

some officials believe as a direct result of iPhone owners attempting to retrieve their stolen phones from violent thugs.

The phone was pickpocketed or found on the floor/table. It wasn't a mugging. Violent thugs aren't even the ones who mug you. Violent thugs are the ones who come up behind you, hit you on the head to knock you unconscious / disorient you, and then steal your stuff.

The safest thing to do is FIRST file a stolen property report. Then go hunting. Stay in your car while tracking the phone, then call the police and tell them you're actively tracking your phone. As soon as you cross a jurisdictional line though, call 911 and talk to the city/town you're in now- and get ready to repeat everything, because police departments suck at talking to each other.

Among other things, if the GPS signal says it's in a house and you fill out a theft report, the cops can go in with a search warrant, though good luck trying to get Joe Donut to do that much work unless they think there's a good chance they'll find drugs.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[SethJohnson]

Violent thugs are the ones who come up behind you, hit you on the head to knock you unconscious / disorient you, and then steal your stuff.

This is the absolute truth. Small-time hoods aren't tough. Just like any other predator, they only eat what is small enough to fit into their mouths. If the crime is minor, the criminal is lightweight.

Seth

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[drsmithy]

As soon as you cross a jurisdictional line though, call 911 and talk to the city/town you're in now- and get ready to repeat everything, because police departments suck at talking to each other.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Tie up phone lines people might be trying to use to report life-threatening situations so you can track down a damn phone.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[sabt-pestnu]

That's what police/operator phone lines are for: to report situations for which police assistance is needed. If the emergency operator lines aren't up to you phoning in your "damn phone was stolen", as well as those "life-threatening situations" during normal operations, the system is already broken.

Perhaps you don't think it worthwhile highlighting that as a problem, but I do.

    So yes, I'll report my phone being stolen, or someone's dog is wandering across the freeway, or the neighbors party is keeping me up at 3am. And if the system can't handle it, fix the system. And in a county-wide crisis maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to call for an ambulance when I need one.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[drsmithy]

That's what police/operator phone lines are for: to report situations for which police assistance is needed. If the emergency operator lines aren't up to you phoning in your "damn phone was stolen", as well as those "life-threatening situations" during normal operations, the system is already broken.

Right. Because clearly there's no reason whatsoever to prioritise life-threatening situations and direct more resources towards resolving them. Obviously the person bleeding out after being mugged should wait in line behind the person whose cat is stuck up a tree.

Perhaps you don't think it worthwhile highlighting that as a problem, but I do.

In your fantasy world where there are infinite resources, it's a problem. In the real world of limited budgets and manpower, it's simply appropriate management.

So yes, I'll report my phone being stolen, or someone's dog is wandering across the freeway, or the neighbors party is keeping me up at 3am.

Then you're an ass, and you deserve to be the one waiting on hold while someone robs your house because selfish twats just like you are tying up the lines about next door's party is a bit loud.

Emergency lines are for emergencies. If you don't have an emergency, use the regular channels.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[Anonymous Coward]

Two things:

1) In some jurisdictions, 911 is the ONLY way police are dispatched. If you somehow call one of their other, direct, numbers; they'll tell you to hang up and call 911

2) Today's iPhone thief is tomorrow's car thief, armed robber, mugger, rapist, or worse. It's best to get those kind of people locked away sooner rather than later. So even if the police DO have a separate non-emergency dispatch number; I see no particular problem with calling 911 for actual crimes (as opposed, say, to getting your cat out of a tree). Calling 911 to get the police to you is not going to stop the fire department from responding to a fire on the other side of town. The number is the same, but they're dispatched separately.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's iPhone thief is tomorrow's car thief, armed robber, mugger, rapist, or worse. It's best to get those kind of people locked away sooner rather than later.

The police need to focus their resources on the real criminals (car theives, rapists, murderers etc.) not some petty theif who lifted a cell phone off a table. The report might be used against him in court (if they can link it to him) when he is arrested on other more serious charges. Putting the iPhone bandit behind bars would actually introduce him to more connections with real types of criminals.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[sabt-pestnu]

I beg your pardon, sir.

If it is a situation where, if I handled it myself, I would be in harm's way, it is an emergency situation. If it is a street hazard, it is an emergency situation.

I have in the past called the "business line" for the police about something as simple as a car broken down and blocking a residential street. I was directed to call the emergency line. I've been told the same for reporting a carpet roll on the side of the road.

If my phone is stolen, I might well call the 'business line' first. And I'm almost certain to get redirected to the emergency line. Even more so if I report that I've got the phone located to a searchable area. The police do not want you to handle situations like this yourself. (See earlier comments by others about getting yourself shot...)

Then you're an ass, and you deserve to be the one waiting on hold while someone robs your house because selfish twats just like you are tying up the lines about next door's party is a bit loud.

You amuse me, sir. If the emergency services are so hard hit, then it is I who will be on hold. As will ANYONE calling in, for any reason. Do you perhaps imagine that the emergency operators do not transfer people to appropriate parties (police, fire, etc) once they identify the call? Do you then imagine that a "someone is killing my husband" call would not get priority over a "rescue my cat" call? Perhaps you simply have never called the emergency lines, for fear of looking like "an ass who deserves to be on hold".

Continuing that line, consider this: Emergency services are a priority item for government, not the least because of how cost effective they are. Need for those systems is determined by use of those systems. If you are having to wait to get to an emergency operator now, "only calling in with it is a matter of life or death" reduces perceived demand for the system. Which results in budget cuts, and reduced capacity.

It's asses like me that make sure that twats like you can call in when you actually need an ambulance. My world doesn't require infinite resources but it does demand adequate ones.

Re:petty theft- not a mugging

[drsmithy]

If it is a situation where, if I handled it myself, I would be in harm's way, it is an emergency situation. If it is a street hazard, it is an emergency situation.

That's great, but discreetly identifying a thief, from a distance, is not such a situation unless you yourself deliberately make it one.

You amuse me, sir. If the emergency services are so hard hit, then it is I who will be on hold. As will ANYONE calling in, for any reason.

So, naturally, the best thing to do is to tie them up with MORE trivial bullshit, right ?

Do you then imagine that a "someone is killing my husband" call would not get priority over a "rescue my cat" call?

It inherently *can't* be prioritised until some human has taken the time to do so.

On the other hand, should an individual take a few scant seconds to consider someone other than themselves, they might reach the conclusion that maybe because their cat is stuck up a tree, it's not necessary to tie up an emergency call centre operator for 20-30 seconds while someone else is being assaulted.

Perhaps you simply have never called the emergency lines, for fear of looking like "an ass who deserves to be on hold".

It has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with common sense and courtesy.

It's asses like me that make sure that twats like you can call in when you actually need an ambulance. My world doesn't require infinite resources but it does demand adequate ones.

No, it does not. Adequate resources would be those sufficient to meet the need for emergency calls on emergency lines. You want resources to meet the needs of ALL calls on emergency lines.

Re:Hokey?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a hokey?

It's something you do with pokey and then you turn yourself around.
That's what it's all about!

note to self.

[recharged95]

a. steal iPhone.

b. turn off ringer.

c. better yet. TURN IT OFF.

d. even better. SWAP sim card.

e. Get home, swap sim, enjoy my new [free] iPhone.

.

That's some search though the city streets considering the GPS is going to be off by 30+ feet or so, especially in the urban jungle.

.

Honestly, I can't wait until some hacker figures out the remote-erase code and starts sending out F-bombs (Find bombs) erasing folks phones....Otherwise, SMS and Google Latitude works just find for me.

What a jerk...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I'm happy the guy got it back, but at the same time he comes off as a smug asshole when he confronts the person with the phone.

The person with the phone probably had a lot more important things to do then return the phone the very instant the writer wanted it back with those messages. Also sending those type of messages like, "We know where you are!", would probably cause someone like me to just dispose of the device immediately because returning the property became way more trouble than it's worth(then again I would've turned it in where I found it).

Also get out more if you think going through an ethnic neighborhood is going to be the end of you.

Re:Because he's white? And it's not offensive?

[linux_stu]

I never said the word is offensive. I am also white, and I'd also feel zero offense being called a honkey. I think it is just poor taste for the article.

Indeed, in most circles, it is a racially charged word. Just check http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=honkey for confirmation.

Finders keepers...

[Burning1]

Christ, I wish I knew about that law when I was 6.

Re:Finders keepers...

[AshtangiMan]

When I was 6 we had a handy saying that summarized this law: "Finders keepers".

Re:Finders keepers...

[clone53421]

Actually, I remember it going "Finders keepers, losers weepers".

It's slightly different from "Finders keepers, unless the owner shows up and wants it back", if you ask me.

Re:Does this work outside the U.S.? Overseas?

[Anonymous Coward]

it does work outside the US... I am in saudi and it works fine tried a few times and freaked a friend out and made him hate his new blackberry.

How old are these guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Myself and two compadres, Ryan and Mark, are in Chicago (each of us for the first time) to attend Brickworld, the world's largest Lego convention."

I bet none of the three can pick out a vagina in a Police line up.

If I were the thief there'd be legos on my stool

[gatkinso]

No way in hell am I not smacking down the Lego platoon.

Didn't Take Long

[Nom du Keyboard]

Sure didn't take this guy long to lose his new phone.

In fact, it's a very suspiciously short amount of time to have lost it in *snif* *snif*.

Option to Self-Destruct the Unit

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you can force the data on the phone to self-destruct, but why give them perp a free phone? I would rather have the option to turn the iPhone into a melted puddle of slag if the guy/gal wouldn't return it.

Re:Option to Self-Destruct the Unit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah, I'd even lose my phone on purpose, then giggle like a maniac and look for the mushroom cloud.

Re:Does this work outside the U.S.? Overseas?

[wisebabo]

thanks for the info! I hope it works here (with a jailbroken phone).

Is there an equivalent utility for Symbian 60?

[badzilla]

I have a Nokia with GPS and I sure would like to be able to track it down if I lose it.

Re:Is there an equivalent utility for Symbian 60?

[eiapoce]

I have a Nokia with GPS and I sure would like to be able to track it down if I lose it.

Here you go http://www.guardian-mobile.com/?lang=en-US

Hey, that's my neighborhood!

[radmonkey]

1) It's not that ghetto. It's actually in the midst of gentrification. 2)busboys aren't the most dangerous people on the planet.

darwinawards

[ivanperez]

I think they are expending a lot of time on tv or Internet. They didn't realize that the real world thiefs can be dangerous. if got wrong something in their jack bauer mission, maybe they would be in darwinawards.

Political correcness.

[eiapoce]

They stole his phone and in the end he is apologising for writing that the thieve is a Portorican. Maybe he would have made the same if it was a black or arab but maybe not for not a white... Politically correctness is madness, and america is very VERY ill.

Extremely stupid

[hamburgler007]

I know what it feels like to have something stolen from you, and I'm sure it feels pretty good that you got the phone back. With that said, imo what you did was pretty dumb and could easily ended badly in any number of ways. What if the person simply refused to hand it over? Would you be willing to just walk away, or do you do something like engage in a fight with the person or try holding him down? That will probably land your ass in jail, and on top of that, if this just happened to be someone dumb enough to buy it from the person who stole it thinking it was legit, then you' re really in trouble. Putting concerns about getting in trouble with the law, what if the person decides to assault you, by himself or with a group of people? Is an iphone worth your safety? Is an iphone worth your friends safety? How would you feel if this turned out badly, one of your friends gets killed, all so you could have your iphone back when there were other alternatives?

Race Relations

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how he was offering a reward first, but when he found out the thief might be puerto rican he said he was calling the cops.

Re:Race Relations

[Ender_Wiggin]

or maybe the fact that the reward offers went ignored, the decided to call the cops regardless of ethnicity

Re:Hokey?

[AshtangiMan]

a Hokey is someone who goes to Virginia Tech. Its a badass m****r f****n turkey.

Next time snap a picture

[insomniac8400]

As soon as you got the iphone you should secret snap a photo of the guy. Then go back to where he works and get him fired.

The thief can turn off "Find My iPhone"

[TPJ-Basin]

As thieves become aware of this application on the iPhone, I'm guessing they'll just go into the settings and turn off the "Find My iPhone" switch.

I find it really odd that the application *doesn't* require any sort of keycode to turn a security feature off....

Re:The thief can turn off "Find My iPhone"

[Ender_Wiggin]

Interesting point. Maybe the 3.1 update will put it under the passcode lock settings

You're an idiot

[Colin Smith]

I recommend you don a mask and cape, toddle off down to the nearest ghetto and challenge the thugs there in the name of everything good and righteous.

It would make the world... or at least Slashdot, a better place.

 

Re:You're an idiot

[Killjoy_NL]

If I did that, I would make a green costume with a huge /. on the front.
SLASHMAN!

And then getting arrested for urinating in a public place :)

that's my house!

[the_wesman]

not really, but I do live just a few blocks from the address shown on this dude's blog - there are WAAAAAY worse neighborhoods in chicago - this is hardly sketchy at all

Never had a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never lost a phone or had it stolen. What do I do? I keep the phone on a belt holster--and if I'm in an area pickpocketing is a problem, in my front pants pocket. I don't immediately set it down on the table when I'm in a restaurant/bar/club.

That being said, I've actually heard that police, if given a phone with a tracker, a car with a LoJack, or a laptop with "LoJack for Laptops", love to track it down. Why? Because they'll find a bunch of other stuff.

Around here, the state capitol complex police caught two college students breaking into a state warehouse. While two immature turds breaking into a warehouse isn't exactly a huge deal, a search of their house found $250,000 of equipment stolen from local government and university facilities.

If the police are given the opportunity to track a stolen iPhone, it'll probably lead them to, in this case, a nightclub bouncer with multiple outstanding warrants and a mountain of stolen property. Then you'll have a nightclub that nobody wants to go to for fear of their own bouncers. And the nightclub can then wish that they had kept a better eye on their staff.

It's A Good Story, but...

[SirWraith]

A few things about the story... It starts off linking to the webpages of his "two compadres". The only thing at one website is a link to the TFA, and the other is the homepage of ryandesign. Ryan, of ryandesign.com, works on MacPorts, and coincidentally has the same name as the "MacBook Software Manager at Apple Computer". The phone number he gave (512-796-XXXX) is a Sprint exchange from Austin. When he sent the number for the thief to call, it was the same "512-796-XXXX". Did he send his own number for the thief (the one with the phone, to call), or does his friends phone happen to have the same exchange with the same provider in the sane city? I'm not calling shenanigans on this, I'm just saying... take the story with a grain of salt.

Re:It's A Good Story, but...

[Mirell]

I'm not exactly sure what your point is other than his friend Mark (me) has a number in Austin, which is not exactly fishy considering a) I live in Austin b) Kevin lives in Austin.

So, what?

Re:It's A Good Story, but...

[Mirell]

Also, congratulations, I explained the NPA-NXX number porting capabilities on my blog for you! Have fun.

"Find my iPhone"

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Find my iPhone" feature can also apparently make the phone sound, even if it's set to vibrate or silent--useful if you lost it under a cushion in your house. This idea was mentioned on a recent episode of "American Dad!", and it's something I've bounced around in my head before. Now it's reality, and I see one big problem with it:

Your boss: "I see that you have a personal iPhone now. You're going to give me access to track you online, and to override your phone's vibrate setting and make your phone ring, in case I have to get a hold of you after hours."

I once had a user support job where a few users thought my cell phone was their at-home tech-support line. I had said to myself that if they started calling my personal cell phone while I was at work, I'd start leaving it at home. What? It's my personal cell phone!

wtf

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're standing on the public sidewalk , you can look anywhere you want.

Unless you're Google [...]

I'm curious how the Google van managed to do that...The driver must have been pretty drunk!

(Or in consideration of this thread's theme, 'The driver must have been pretty Irish!

--

In full disclosure, I'm part Irish. I think that means it's okay for me to talk about theoretical, partially-the-same-ethnicity people according to current PC laws.

(Note: written in a facetious tone)

Find my iPhone doesn't use the SIM

[Stu Charlton]

It uses the Phone's SN#, I believe.

How do I know this? Well, I don't, but I've verified that Find my iPhone "works" with just WiFi if your phone is otherwise SIMless.

Unfortunately, "Works" is a relative term -- it will guess the location of the IP address based on the WHOIS information, which won't help much other than identify the ISP's location.

On the other hand, it will still display remote messages. And will do a remote wipe.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't we all material items? It's nice to think that we're special and significant, but at some point we're going to die anyway. So will anyone who carried a torch for us after our death.

When every trace of a person is going to be erased anyway, it seems like it wouldn't matter quite as much once he's gone. I'm fairly confident (unless you can prove otherwise) that he won't care about his decision after he's dead anyway, whether it's tomorrow (or already happened earlier today) or 59 years, 7 months, and x days from now. It doesn't matter who you knew/left behind, what you left as a legacy, where you traveled, when you died, how you lived, or why you died.

I would imagine that standing up for his rights and not falling victim to the terrorism that is 'urban gang neighborhood' is a much more respectable and meaningful way to die than most of the undignified deaths that happen each day/month/year (the flu, in a nursing home defecating on yourself and needing someone to clean you, accidents involving items which were not meant to be inserted into the human body (or at least not so deeply), bestiality, spontaneous pornographic combustion, factory accident, etc.)

sprint can do it too

[Anonymous Coward]

we used sprint's family locator service to trackdown my daughter's stolen phone. (they were middle school girls.) it works with all our phones and is $5/month for the whole family. it has nice map/satelite overlays. i think verizon has the same thing.

Video podcast of this story

[apcyberax]

this is also on the podcast http://www.geekbrief.tv/gbtv-582-a-bedtime-story Good story and good service from what i saw.

I know the feeling.. but wasn't so lucky

[JonZaninja]

I recently had my phone stolen, but sadly didn't have Google Locator on it. My new phone (Blackberry storm) has it, but it sucks that unless the actual Google Maps app has main focus, it doesn't give detailed location, only a 100 yard + circle. I understand they do this to save power, but it would be absolutely awesome if you could send a signal through Google maps to tell it to turn on detailed location, using a secret pin or something so only you could do it. I never got my phone back and lost a 2 gig memory card with pictures of my wife and son on it, of everything that was stolen, that was the worst part. :(

If he did

[Falconhell]

He would have some very nicely shaped bruises.

cute

[grrrl]

"I wuv you, iPhone" ahaha so adorable.

Re:If I were the thief there'd be legos on my stoo

[Anonymous Coward]

If you were the thief, there'd be Legos IN your stool

Addition to the service

[L4t3r4lu5]

On 3G iPhones, when the keypad is unlocked take a picture with the videocall camera and email / MMS (with 3.0) it to the owner. Guaranteed to be looking straight at the damn thing.

Oh noes!

[mdwh2]

OMG, it's Politically Correctness Gone Mad!

Someone call the Daily Mail!