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Tracking a Move Via "Find My iPhone"
dmolnar writes "I recently helped my girlfriend move her stuff from Chicago, IL to Oakland, CA. The movers were scheduled to arrive at 8AM on the 5th of July, and we were stressing the day before about all the things that could go wrong with a move. We realized that if we knew where her stuff was, it'd make us feel better. This is a story about using the $99 iPhone to track the move ... and about a somewhat surprising potential use of Find My iPhone to track your friends' iPhones without them noticing."
Personally I would have gone with something from deal extreme, a GPSSMS bridge. It costs the same as the iPhone, but without the contract. You could have bought simple card from Walmart.
Not to mention it would have been designed for this and probably last a bit longer. Put in eBay after you're done and recoup some of the costs.
What does a iPhone cost without the data plan? (Say the phone broke and you need a new one, not to mention you just signed up for 2 years)
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25332
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.21686
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.11314
Do people really buy in to the BS about an Iphone being $99? IT's only $99 if you sign your soul away for 2 years. The mobile carriers here are so fortunate to have an ignorant populace that is eager to go through the mental gymnastics required to truly believe that their iphone only costed $99.
-- Knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
What peace of mind do you get from knowing where your stuff is? Is there anything you can do with that information?
I wonder if it isn't more a matter of control that you feel like you're giving up by letting professionals do their job. Do you also insist on driving everywhere instead of taking a plane or bus?
Why, off the back of a truck, of course!
Won't google lattitude achieve exactly the same thing? I have it installed on my BB and I can get the location of half a dozen of my friends that have added me to their "friends" list on their devices (both BB and iPhones). There is also a google maps gadget you can use to check the location from your PC. What advantages do you get from using MobileMe and Find My iPhone ?
The "find my iphone" feature requires a MobileMe account. MobileMe is an expensive set of web based services that can easily be substituted with Flickr and Google's stuff. So, 79â a year for tracking my phone i n case I lose it? No thanks.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
I thought you needed a warrant or at least a private investigator's license to track people by GPS without their knowledge.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Its much easier to track someone with Lattitute. Send them a request from your phone and when you get a minute with their phone acceept the request and you're away. When you can exit google maps it still continutes tracking the phone so unless they manually turn off the lattitude feature (and it does ask you every time you exit the app) they will be none the wiser. I'm not a lawyer but I would bet this is probablt illegal.
675 EUR for an iPhone 3GS (32 GB) that is unbound to a provider or contract. That's the price here in Belgium.
Only in the USA do people shout "think of the lawyers!" before considering innovations in technology.... ;-)
The guy is only tracking his own stuff. He doesn't know who's driving the truck, if they changed every 100 miles and different people are in the cab from when they picked up his stuff, if they are in the cab when the vehicle is stationary or if they've gone off to a cafe or home to sleep for the night. He only knows where his iphone is. For all he knows his stuff might have been shifted to another vehicle, he doesn't even know if it's in the same truck.
"As for returning the iPhone, I keep meaning to, but somehow it has become...precious...to me. Maybe Apple will claim a new iPhone user out of all this after all."
Where does it say he threw it away? That would be an idiotic thing to do in any case.
"Good news, everyone!"
Guy wants to do something bizarre and paranoid. Looks for an honest way of doing it. Concludes that would be too expensive, and notices that if he pretends to want a new cellphone, and pretends to want a set of web-based services for it, he can get them for $99, claim he doesn't like the phone or service, and cancel them up to 30 days later.
Plan works as intended and results in the exact same situation as if he didn't do the bizarre and paranoid thing (movers tell you they'll be at the destination at one time, but come at another).
Guy expresses shock that setting a phone up to report its location to a web service results in --gasp!-- the phone reporting its location to a web service!!! Notes that if you don't keep your web password or your phone secured, your security could be compromised!
Finishes by admitting he likes the phone, which is a relief because this isn't a story so much about hardware, but someone's lack of honesty and willingness to rip companies off in order to do a bizarre and paranoid thing.
That's very nice Mr. Cowardon, but you're not the demographic I'm talking about. I'm referring to the people who sign up to £30 or £40 contracts without even thinking about it, so they can have the very shiniest new handsets. Perhaps the minority require a thousand SMS and several GB of data a month, but I expect they're in the minority.
I bought a Garmin Venture CX for a similar purpose; to record where I have been so that I can interpolate the location of pictures I took with where I was, based on the timestamp of the picture.
It has a feature where every day can be logged to the MicroSD card, so while the built-in memory is a bit limited, you can have basically unlimited storage in the MicroSD card.
Get some good batteries and it lasts a while. (Hybrid batteries like the Sanyo Eneloops are very much recommended.)
No Bluetooth, but it does have a USB interface that works well in Ubuntu, and as a bonus you can power it off a laptop/cell phone charger. My GPS has spent a while on the dash of a firetruck plugged in recording where I have been.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I was making a bit of a joke but if you want to be serious, I can do that, too.
I know of two cases where this scam was successfully overcome by the victim. In both of them, the victim told the guy who knocked on the door to come on in and get his money. When the fraudster stepped inside, the victim's mate (in both these cases, the scammers thought they were dealing solely with a defenseless woman) proceeded to beat the scammer varying degrees of senseless and then walk him back out to the truck to order the cargo unloaded. The cargo was duly unloaded (in one case, they just put everything on the front lawn, but at least they unloaded) and the scammers then beat a hasty retreat, never to be heard from again.
People who pull scams like this generally have been on the wrong side of encounters with the cops before. They don't want to involve them again and are loathe to dial 911 unless the shit has really hit the fan and someone's bleeding. Thus, the judicious application of force or the threat of it, if done properly and in a low-key way, is a valid negotiating tool with cretins like this.
Now, arming yourself and starting a confrontation is probably a bad plan. But arming yourself, finding your stuff, and stealing it back when the bad guys aren't around may be a workable one. YMMV.
Personally, I've only used movers three times in my life and I've been very careful to select established, reputable firms. I don't hook up with dodgy characters to save a few buck. I think that's a better strategy, overall. But I am willing to grant that some physical force or the threat of it, employed properly so that the authorities are never involved, can be a reasonable approach.
Sound better?
PS - I had a scumbag brother-in-law who used this kink in the law to great advantage. He ripped off dozens of old ladies by finding out when coin collectors died. He would then approach the widows, offer to market the collections of their deceased spouses, pay them a small "advance" on what he assured them would be a big return, then leave with the coins. He never paid them another dime. There were a number of criminal complaints filed and his defense was always the same. "I paid her for the coins. There was no deal for anything else. This was not a theft. It's just a contract dispute." He beat the rap several times before, finally, the state got so many complaints that they opened a combined fraud case on him He settled for some pitiful amount of restitution and five years probation. From personal experience, I believe that people who pull these kinds of scams are cowards who won't call the police unless they're forced to and deserve a beating for their actions. So I don't apologize for taking a hard line on these situations.
It's primarily angst ridden geeks who worry about all the crap they've accreted.
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