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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."
I would have been somewhat amused if their laptop got stolen as well. Yes, I know I'm a terrible person.
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.
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.
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.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
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!!
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.
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.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
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.
Something witty.
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.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Anyone with a clue knows you can trace a stolen SIM.
Generally people with clues don't steal phones.
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.
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.
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.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
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?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
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.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
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?
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... :(
Jan
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.
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.
My webcomic
What's a hokey?
A hotkey that opens one's favorite porn site...?
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!
Being dead, he clearly could not.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
'Cause this blog post wasn't written by JRR Tolkien?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
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?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
If you had an Android phone, you could have used V-8 juice to power its browser, at least.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Confronting known thieves should always include the implicit assumption that there is danger of violence.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
This is the type of pedantry that keeps me coming back to Slashdot.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
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.
"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.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So you're basically saying that you'd rather put yourself on the line for a completely replaceable material item.
Just sayin'.
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.
Why bother
Unless you're Google, in which case OMG evuhl korporationz 1984!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Unless that phone contains their next clue!
"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.
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.
Ah, when will man learn that all races are equally inferior to robots.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Obviously you should be using Apple juice...
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.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
More like, mankind didn't evolve beyond it, and racism only quit being an issue because they had other species to fear/hate instead.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
" 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.
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.)