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Tracking Stolen Gadgets — Manufacturers' New Dilemma
heptapod sends in a story from the NY Times about a growing problem for the makers of high-tech gadgets: deciding when and how it's appropriate to track a stolen device. With the advent of ubiquitous GPS and connections to services like the Kindle book store, the companies frequently have a way to either narrow down a user's location or impede use of the device. But some, like Amazon, are drawing a hard line when it comes to establishing that the device was actually stolen.
"Samuel Borgese, for instance, is still irate about the response from Amazon when he recently lost his Kindle. After leaving it on a plane, he canceled his account so that nobody could charge books to his credit card. Then he asked Amazon to put the serial number of his wayward device on a kind of do-not-register list that would render it inoperable — to 'brick it' in tech speak. Amazon's policy is that it will help locate a missing Kindle only if the company is contacted by a police officer bearing a subpoena. Mr. Borgese, who lives in Manhattan, questions whether hunting down a $300 e-book reader would rank as a priority for the New York Police Department."
Buy a $3 paperback book. Be kind and leave it for the next person.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
the police barely respond to car theft
the device was really stolen an no sold used
All theory is gray
He bought it from them and they have the serial number of the device they sent him. Why should it be a big deal for them to brick it on HIS request? If there's an issue with whoever wants to use it, it's between the other user and him, not him and Amazon.
Then again, I can understand how they wouldn't want to get into something where they don't know the gory details (i.e. he sold it and wants to ransom it for more money).
Seems like there might be a niche market here for a service to track (possibly using add-in 'root' software) high-end devices that are stolen.
Me, I don't have enough money that I can afford to forget and leave a $300 device laying around on an airplane... :-P
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
I mean, seriously. Why should companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Dell, HP, or any manufacturer spend any amount of time helping to track down your stolen property to begin with. It is your responsibility to keep track of your property, not theres. Now, nice automated solutions like Apple's Mobile Me allows you to basically brick a stolen iPhone and track its position, but that was nice to have feature that they added but was in no way required too. If someone steals your car, do you call the car manufacturer and ask them to disable the car remotely so no one can drive it? No... you report it to police and call your insurance company. IMHO this applies to electronics as well.
If Amazon sells you an e-Book on your precious Kindle, they will steal it back from you if the publisher changes their mind about selling an electronic version.
I also can't imagine the police ignoring a request like that. Even if it's a $300.00 device, I've never met a cop who won't pursue a theft if they think it's likely they'll catch the perpetrator and recover the item. For all the police's faults, ignoring a solvable, easily-prosecuted crime ain't one of 'em. Mind you, if a company won't cooperate with a police request relating to an investigation - subpoena or no - the company should be prosecuted itself.
Tracking is going way overboard... but bricking on demand is a good idea. Why wouldn't a manufacturer want their electronic devices to have a "useless to steal it" reputation?
If this happened to me and Apple/Amazon helped me recover my device I would be quite grateful. In the end I would be more loyal to them, purchase more of their products and be less critical of their failings in the future. It is quite expensive to get a new customer, and if you can retain a customer at low cost you have save that money replacing or regaining them.
Mr. Borgese, who lives in Manhattan, questions whether hunting down a $300 e-book reader would rank as a priority for the New York Police Department.
If that's the case, then what does he hope to achieve by finding out the location of the Kindle? Rhetorical question -- we all know what he hopes to achieve, and Amazon wants no part of it.
If you had bothered to read the entire quote, he did *not* ask for Amazon's help in finding the Kindle - what he asked them to do was *disable* it. Which has some merit - if Amazon did disable those devices when stolen, it would kill the black market for stolen Kindles. But as noted in TFA, this poses a problem, as it's too easy for someone to contact them, pretending to be you, and reporting *your* Kindle as stolen...
What *should* happen is that Mr. Borgese files a police report on the stolen Kindle, and can then contact Amazon, with the police report number as evidence that he's not some practical joker. Amazon then disables that device, so that whoever stole it (or whoever bought it from the thief) can no longer gain the benefit of having it. This reduces the potential for mischief (and, in the case that the person simply misplaced the device, puts the onus on *him* to reverse the process), while still destroying the resale value of the stolen item.
This is more or less what Mr. Borgese attempted to do. But Amazon has no mechanism for this - they want to be contacted by a law enforcement officer with a supoena. Which the police probably won't bother doing, unless the theft is tied to drug dealing, terrorism, pedophilia, or whatever BS is high on their public relations agenda this week.
Lloyd B.
Don't tell me to get a life. I had one once. It sucked.
how would you prove the device was really stolen an no sold used
You do what they do for passports: you require a police record indicating that you have reported it stolen. That way if the person you track down did not steal it the person who lied to you can end up in hot water for lying to the police, wasting police time etc. plus you have a reasonable defence.
Of course the better way to do it is the way that Apple does with the iPhone: you let the user trace their own device without company intervention. That way the end-user is directly responsible provided that the mechanism is appropriately secure.
Seriously, why don't expensive GPS/internet enabled devices come tied to an online user account from which the user could track, brick a-splode their own device?
Last year I absentmindedly left my GPS and Cellphone in the car (was running late to work). About an hour later I realized I didn't have my Cell on me and went out to the car to retrieve it. Lo and behold my TomTom 920T GPS, and my Motorola Q9c were both gone and the window in my car was smashed out. Rough retail value of the phone and gps together were around the $1000.00 range. The police came and took a report, I even actually still had the boxes for both units with the serial numbers. I've not heard anything since.
What really irks me is that I know for certain that the Cell Phone should be traceable. At least the police could have called Verizon and checked to see if it showed up in any of the 50-100 pawn shops in town. We're not talking major investigate work here, we're talking about what should be a 10-20min call. I called TomTom and also asked them if they could at least make it where that unit will never get an update.. they said it was a feature that many have requested, but at this point in time they didn't offer that.
I know that there are more important things like murders, etc.. but hey they had to take the time to take the report, could at least do a little diligence.
Why not just provide a way to disable the kindle that is associated with an amazon account until that same account enables it again? Then I can disable it if I left it somewhere.. if I recover it, I can enable it. No one else can. The kindle should not say what the name of the account is or anything that the thieves can use to identify what account to try to hack in to either. There shouldn't need to be any human involvement in here, I've already authenticated who I am by being able to login (with a password, auto-login should not be sufficient).
The person currently able to login to the Amazon account claims to have purchased lost the device.
Amazon doesn't know if he's sold it, given it away
Amazon doesn't know if someone else logged into his account (ex-partner/significant other?)
Amazon doesn't know if the device was repossessed by a credit card company.
Amazon doesn't have anywhere near enough information to start bricking, or reporting on the location of devices.
paul reinheimer
Obviously this assumes that 1) Currently unbricked kindles can be re-associated with a different account, and 2) The person it was stolen from can still brick a kindle even after re-association for a period of time, in case the first thing the thief does is re-associate it. Say, 48 hours to report your kindle stolen to Amazon, and they'll still disable it [and remove any charges made to your account, if that's possible from the Kindle, etc.].
And yet, when a copyright holder comes and asks for withdrawal of a book on all Kindles in the world, Amazon has a mechanism for that. I know they've already apologized, but it just felt ironic.
In 9 years of /.-ing, I have rarely seen a post that really cuts to the issue the way this does. I modded it up with my 'real' account, and made a shadow for this.
Nemyst is dead on; and other services, especially iTunes, should read carefully. Amazon demonstrated they are lightweights, and the original article shows they don't really give a shit about their customers. Their customers have an obligation to return in kind.
You know how much work this took on my part? Very little - this fell under "other duties" while I worked there, and I was the only person at the time who worked these. The vendors like Amazon are refusing to help seeing only an expense and a loss of sales. This sheer and utter greed on their part with justifiable reason. If they can't do this because it's the right thing, than somebody needs to legislate good companies morals on their part.
You actually think that they have no record of a serial number of the device that your account is linked to?
How would they send you the books you purchased? Your account is tied to the device so you can use it.
That's not any more "tracking" than your cell phone company does to give you the calls to your cell phone.
They have "activated" it to be tied to your account.
Just as Amazon should be able to have the accout owner log in online and enter in their username/password and validate a captcha to disable ther device.
They purchased it didn't they? It's tied to their credit card to be able to buy books with it right? So If you can make a binding purchase with the devices authentication and that is enough for them to charge your credit card, isn't it enough verification for them to disable the device?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Ideally they should just force you to authenticate with your existing account before you can disassociate/re-associate the device.
E.g. the moment you click 'disassociate', the device actually becomes bricked until the device password is entered.
When you associate with a new account, the password you type becomes the 'device' password.
There ought to also be a way to password-lock the kindle as you can with cell phones. And they should take care to make sure a thief can't easily defeat the device password.
But as noted in TFA, this poses a problem, as it's too easy for someone to contact them, pretending to be you, and reporting *your* Kindle as stolen...
This is such bunk... I worked for a couple years in customer service for the cell phone industry. If you call and report your phone lost or stolen, it is automatically added to a black list and can then only be reactivated by you. It can not be activated on another account while it is on the black list and can only be added to the black list if it is part of an active account. The only time you need a police report is if you have the insurance program and you want to get a replacement under the insurance. This requirement is usually waived if it's the first time you have had your cell phone lost/stolen. I think I only took about two or three calls where someone tried to call in and activate a lost/stolen phone. Policy was that the original owner had to call in and report it as found. Plain and simple and logical. Any argument about someone calling in and pretending to be someone else being a problem is an indication of ulterior motives, as the user claims in TFA, or bad security policies to begin with. If it's easy for them to find, they should be asking people to file a police report, then have a couple of reps that work with the police dept to track them down after the police report is filed. Wouldn't cost them much and the rest could be sorted out where it belongs, small claims court.
I recently lost my Glofish phone - at a railway station, and never saw it again. ... let the next bugger who finds it enjoy it!
I immediately disabled the phone account, but resisted when my wife insisted that I had to brick it.
Why should I? I was so stupid to lose it
Here in the UK carriers block stolen phones from their IMEI all the time, and have a cross-carrier list of such phones.
GPS Theft - Very Common Occurance
This story of GPS disappearing within 1-hour of leaving it in a car is something that I hear very often from many people who I have personally known to have their cars broken into because of this. Just two weeks ago a friend of mine took his GPS with him but left the sticky window mount in the car and his car was broken into and searched for the GPS but he had it with him.
Stolen Item = Revenue Restart
I'm surprised that Amazon doesn't just disassociate the user's account from the device until he buys a new one, and leave the lost or stolen device as available for new activation by the new person who finds it or steals it. Knowing Amazon's business ethics it would be profitable for them to active these missing devices to new users to restart the revenue stream from these users purchasing new books with their new accounts. As long as they don't tell anyone and nobody gets access to their information they should be good to go with this plan. Until someone rats them out for activating stolen devices, but who's going to prosecute them or fine them?
Misunderstanding Police - They're NOT Here To Help You
It seems that you are one of the many people here who misunderstand the purpose of Police and believe that they are an agency to aid individuals-in-need like yourself. The Police are not here to help individuals they are here to uphold the law for the common good of society as a whole. They deal with crime and apply the law en-mass to prevent the communities that they are based in from falling into chaos. It only appears that they deal with individual cases to the people involved and those who fail to see the big picture of how the Police apply their efforts to trim certain crime outbreaks down to manageable levels before focusing on other areas.
Even the US Supreme Court ruled that they police do not have to protect you as an individual from certain and imminent deadly harm because that is up to their discretion. So if the Police don't have to save your life why would they care about saving your property?
NY Times - [US] Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: June 28, 2005
Take a good look at a Police officer tomorrow when you see one and try to realize that his job is to protect the community and society and that he has full discretion backed by the highest court in the land to watch you get killed or your property taken without having the obligation to help you in any way shape or form. When you come to this realization that not even the Police are here to help you, you will start learning and appreciating personal independence and you will start taking better care for your personal safety, freedom, and your property. The idea of taking responsibility for your own actions and more importantly, the ability to imagine future outcomes of your actions will start coming to you when you break out of the fog thinking that there will be help available anytime you need it. Learn to help yourself first.
My Lost Full GPS Enabled Cell Phone Experience
My wife left her Sprint HTC Mogul (PPC-6800) that has a full GPS enabled receiver in a bathroom at Universal Studios Florida. Within 30-minutes we contacted park authorities who came to the bathroom to investigate only to find that the purse and phone were missing. The office on duty said that the most common outcome is that the cash money is taken out of the purses or wallets and they are discarded into the trash cans to hide the evidence. They contacted the cleaning crew right away by radio but were told that the garbage was already taken out and cleared out to the back. My wife's phone was turned on in the purse so it was active. Calling it gave the standard 4-rings then voice mail response confirming that it was still operational and powered on, otherwise it would be 1
Before you go into "senior" years, and you start forgetting things left and right and your eyesight goes.
Otherwise, you will be very busy explaining all those attacks on innocent people to the cops.
That is, until you come across another 19-year-old buck who, just like you, won't take no shit from anyone - and he beats you to death.
And then ends up in prison for murder.
Wasn't Darwin a great guy?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It just proves yet again that anything like DRM or 'trusted computing' has nothing to do with providing benefit to the consumer, even in the few cases where it might in theory be useful.