Putting the Squeeze On Broadband Copper Robbers

nk497 writes "As the price of copper rises, thieves have taken to stealing broadband cables, taking out internet connections and slowing down the rollout of super-fast broadband by giving engineers more work to do. To battle the criminals, UK provider BT has 21 investigators on staff to track down thieves and has started using SmartWater bombs that spray stolen property and the criminals. The SmartWater liquid carries a DNA fingerprint that links a criminal to the scene of the crime and police units carrying ultra-violet light detectors can use the incriminating stains to make an arrest after the trap has been sprung. 'We had one case recently where someone in Dagenham was stopped and searched after acting suspiciously and the police used a UV light on them and could show that they had been tampering with the equipment,' said Auguste. The SmartWater liquid can also be pasted inside cables, making them easier to trace — and less appealing to scrap metal buyers, helping to cut demand for stolen copper."

Comments

Perhaps

[shitzu]

Perhaps move to fiber should be considered

Re:Perhaps

[Pojut]

We had one case recently where someone in Dagenham was stopped and searched after acting suspiciously.

When will people learn to stop acting suspiciously after they do something they aren't supposed to do?

If someone were to try to rip out newly-installed fiber, would they walk around pointing to their glasses?

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

fibers are stolen too, on the chance they contain copper after all.

A dumped stretch of fiber in a ditch after a pointless theft no longer carries any bits of light.

Re:Perhaps

[AaxelB]

When will people learn to stop acting suspiciously after they do something they aren't supposed to do?

A large subset of thieves (and many other types of criminals) are also stupid, or have low self-control. If you can control yourself and are reasonably smart, you can probably profit more through various less risky legal means.

Re:Perhaps

[confused one]

People have pulled fiber thinking it's copper...

Re:Perhaps

[AlecC]

Very relevant point indeed. An argument I often have with the hard-on-crime lot. They propose punishments would deter them - but they are not criminals in the first place. The real criminals are, all too often, stupid and/or ill educated and/or have mental health problems and/or addiction problems. A system tuned to deterring comfortable middle glass good (in law at least) citizens simply doesn't work against the kind of people who commit 95% of crime. But it is those middle-class voters who set the legal agenda.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps move to fiber should be considered

Perhaps people shouldn't be stealing what they don't own...

Re:Perhaps

[myov]

Won't stop them from trying.

About 10 years ago,cable modems across Ontario (Canada) were knocked off the AtHome network. Thieves dug up and cut the fibre thinking it was copper, then tried again with the backup.

Re:Perhaps

[bluefoxlucid]

Perhaps move to fiber should be considered

Having that much trouble shitting?

Re:Perhaps

[TheDarkMaster]

I don't understand you. For me is a good thing the thief acts suspiciously, makes easy to detect and put then on jail.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps move to fiber should be considered

Or perhaps a move to carbon buckytubes in place of copper cords. We would get to keep conductive cable equipment in place. OTOH, today it is deemed better to throw away everything and install new, it is called broken win... er, I mean it is called "keeping demand high in todays slowly recovering economy". Fiber is king on long distances. For short distances and dense distribution of subscribers, it costs less total energy to go "electric" instead of going "opto".

Re:Perhaps

[delinear]

It also means "acting suspiciously" becomes common grounds for a stop and search by the police. And since "acting suspiciously" is such an incredibly vague concept, it means pretty much anyone can be stopped and searched by the police whenever they feel like it, "Hmm, most people act guilty when the police are around - the fact that you're not acting guilty is highly suspicious..."

Re:Perhaps

[delinear]

That's because copper was then, and still is, pretty ubiquitous. A global move to fibre would result in thieves realising pretty quickly that there's no real money to be made there. It sounds like a better deterrent than DNA water - that's fine if you can catch the criminals, but it's not going to put the average criminal off trying, because he likely doesn't have the foggiest idea what it is. I'd also like to know what stops a thief bottling some of this DNA water and walking into the nearest nightclub and spraying everyone else, suddenly the police are looking for a needle in a haystack.

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see a source for that stat there. It is generally accepted (in the UK, at least) that white collar crime costs the state a lot more than blue collar crime. Example: "..cost of fraud and forgery in Britain was £13.8bn, compared to £2.7bn for burglary" http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3102800.stm

Re:Perhaps

[AlecC]

I was referring to 95% of offences, not 95% of losses. Most white collar crime is, relatively speaking, lucrative. Credit card forgers routinely get away with hundreds of thousands before they are caught; burglars typically get only hundreds, if that, per robbery. On the other hand, the mental distress caused by a burglary is very high (I speak from experience). When you add the people in for drug offences who have not stolen anything (and therefore not added to actuarial losses), violence, drink driving etc, I don't see the figures as inconsistent. One Bernard Madoff (I know, he wasn't here, but the same applies) matches thousands of car thieves, burglars, junkies, muggers etc.

As to absolute statistics: an article about IT in prisons mentioned, in passing, that about 60% of prisoners are functionally illiterate and 40% have mental health problems (obviously, some overlap). And that does not include the merely stupid.

Re:Perhaps

[willda]

Now there's a novel concept! I (& I assume most everyone in this forum) have to work for a living and the things I have. Guess I'll never understand why some people believe it is their "right" to take those thing from us.

Re:Perhaps

[tehcyder]

An argument I often have with the hard-on-crime lot.

You mean flashers and rapists?

Yes, I deliberately ignored the second hyphen for attempted comic effect.

Re:Perhaps

[PRMan]

The guy with the water bottle and copper cable who doesn't look like he belongs in a night club... He looks pretty suspicious.

Re:Perhaps

[AnonGCB]

It also means "acting suspiciously" becomes common grounds for a stop and search by the police. And since "acting suspiciously" is such an incredibly vague concept, it means pretty much anyone can be stopped and searched by the police whenever they feel like it, "Hmm, most people act guilty when the police are around - the fact that you're not acting guilty is highly suspicious..."

Dear sir: I would mod you up as much as I could if I had points. Unfortunately I don't D:

Re:Perhaps

[mpe]

Perhaps move to fiber should be considered

By the time the thieves realise that they have the wrong type of cable they are likely to have damaged if not completly severed it.

Re:Perhaps

[david_thornley]

Silly person! I can't steal what I do own, can I?

Re:Perhaps

[LordSnooty]

The trouble is, there's a shit-load of copper out there, much of it in incredibly inaccessible places. Complete replacement of copper network versus use of DNA water? Which is cheaper? Especially when we consider that BT are embarking on a copper replacement plan, but only between their cabinets.

Re:Perhaps

[tibman]

Whatever your job may be, you know what looks normal and you know when something strange is going on.

If something looks suspicious you should check it out. Not checking something out would preserve privacy, you are correct. It would also be removing an easy way to discover a problem.

I was pulled over once for my license plate light being out. But the policeman just asked a few questions and everything was good. Of course i'd rather not be "bugged" by a police officer about a light being out on my jeep. But it is amazing how sometimes a small thing can quickly lead to larger things.

On the other hand i was once riding with my girlfriend and she was pulled over by an undercover truck. Both officers were wearing plain clothes. One asked her for all her paperwork and the other one was on the passenger side pointing a light in my face and asking pointless questions. He even said to my GF "Your boyfriend looks scared." You have to understand that i am a combat vet and certainly not afraid of two men charged with keeping the peace. They were trolling us pretty much. I asked to his badge and he did show it to me. They said we didn't do anything wrong and that we were free to go. Routine traffic stop is what one of them called it. Total waste of time for everyone involved, unless they got enjoyment from the process.. which is more than likely.

What i'm trying to say is that pulling someone over for acting suspicious is something that can be articulated. Pulling someone over for a reason they cannot explain (hunch or feeling on their part is not suspicious acts on our part) is an abuse.

Re:Perhaps

[Mashiki]

Huh better let the world know then. Pull out your nearest criminology book and you'll get stuff like this: ~70% of the population are thieves. 40% will steal no matter what, 30% will steal if no one is looking, and they think they can get away with it. The other 30% won't steal at all.

If what you say is true then the majority of the population are insane, crazy kleptomaniacs with no self control. Rather than people who see an opportunity to take/do/harm someone because they feel like it, and know no one will catch them doing it.

Re:Perhaps

[couchslug]

"The real criminals are, all too often, stupid and/or ill educated and/or have mental health problems and/or addiction problems."

Those, being not reliably curable, should simply be incarcerated permanently as Habitual Offenders, and the system should be designed to turn a profit for the good citizen taxpayers.

The rehabilitation model has failed utterly, "periodic storage" doesn't work, so lock them up and throw away the key. Mental defectives were once treated this way, but the model used was too expensive (though it left lots of cool Kirkbride architecture around the country).

There is only one problem. Keep them away from those of us who are good. What is done to them, so long as it serves those of us who are good, doesn't matter because violent criminals and mental defectives are worthless. If enough of society endorses this, we can live in a peaceful, orderly society.

Re:Perhaps

[Anubis IV]

And it seems like it's doing a pretty good job of keeping them from engaging in criminal activities, wouldn't you say? I'm not sure if I'm serious or kidding right now.

Re:Perhaps

[h4rr4r]

You sound like you would be one of the inmates not a free person under such a system.

Anyone who says "What is done to them, so long as it serves those of us who are good, doesn't matter because violent criminals and mental defectives are worthless. If enough of society endorses this, we can live in a peaceful, orderly society." clear has some real problems.

Re:Perhaps

[Dekker3D]

"Swiper no swiping!"

They often have some form of financial issue and don't know where else to get the money. Telling them not to won't work. Telling us that they shouldn't do it will reach them even less. And yes, drug addiction soaking up all your money IS a "financial issue" in a way.

Re:Perhaps

[phaggood]

How many of that '70% are thieves' are people who 'steal' extra bbq packets from Wendy's when they only bought a 99 cent french fries, and how many of that 70% rob banks and break into homes to cart off their neighbor's plasma TV? My guess is your criminology books lump them into the same group; thank FSM the criminal justice system doesn't work that way.

Enhance!

[Stratoukos]

Why get in so much trouble?

Can't they just enhance a Google Maps photo?

Copper broadband?

[Drakkenmensch]

Scrap metal recyclers don't pay much for fiber optics, just saying.

Re:Copper broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

i wonder, which is easier for trigger-happy hunters to shoot down, fiber or copper?
Maybe BT should go Google on their copper and burry it?

Re:Copper broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Cutting fibber to just find out it's not worth stealing would really help. Broken fiber sill works, right?

Oh how I miss good ol' times after collapse of USSR when electric trains where not running due to stolen wires...

Re:Copper broadband?

[Sycraft-fu]

Ya well is isn't feasible to just retool everything for fiber. There are plenty of costs in that, more than just the cable itself. I'm not saying fiber shouldn't be done (and indeed a lot of it is) but copper is here to stay for some time.

However it also isn't a real solution to say "Just use fiber," as though that'll stop copper theft. You might notice we use it for lots of things things, like say power, and you can't really use fiber optics there. While this story may be about broadband being affected, which I'm sure was chosen for the geek angle on things, it has plenty of effect elsewhere. A big problem is plumbing. Not all houses are done with plastic pipes. While they work well, copper has a hell of a track record. Copper pipes are likley to last you a century or more. Well guess what? They also get stolen when houses are getting built.

Re:Copper broadband?

[flnca]

There's a simple explanation to that: In the 90ies it was discovered that the maximum carrier frequency of fiber optics is around 1-2 GHz, while there's new milestones been reached over copper wire every couple of years. Nowadays we have 50 Gbit over copper wire (VDSL-50), that's impossible over fiber. Of course, if you combine many fibers, you can achieve the same rate, but it's probably much more expensive. However, it is being researched whether partial waves and multiple colors (wavelengths) can be used to increase fiber bandwith. Shortly after the reunification of Germany, East Germany has been equipped with vast amounts of fiber optics, which was being thought of the technology of the future, and now they won't get the higher transmission rates until additional copper cables have been laid. In West Germany, copper was always dominating, so we don't have any bandwidth limits here (depending on the quality of cables installed on the way to the home). The maximum I can get currently is 16 Gbit over copper wire.

Re:Copper broadband?

[Quothz]

There's a simple explanation to that: In the 90ies it was discovered that the maximum carrier frequency of fiber optics is around 1-2 GHz, while there's new milestones been reached over copper wire every couple of years.

This may surprise you, but some time has passed since the 90s. DWDM has been demoed to carry 400Gb/s on one fiber and Lucent's making noises about raising the bar to 600 Gb/s. 20 Gb/s multiplexers for fiber are relatively cheap and are becoming ubiquitous.

Re:Copper broadband?

[Jesus_666]

In West Germany, copper was always dominating, so we don't have any bandwidth limits here (depending on the quality of cables installed on the way to the home).

...depending on where the nearest DSLAM is. I live in a more rural area where one or maybe two DSLAMs per city are deemed adequate. The result? The people in my neighborhood get a whopping 3 Gbit, even though the lowest possible plan T-Online offers is for 6 Gbit. Will this change? Perhaps somewhere in the next ten years.

That's the downside of a country where a single internet technology (DSL in this case) reigns supreme: Without competing technologies there might be no alternative infrastructure that might perform better. Of course it's still better than the USA where rural areas can get both lacking infrastructure and high prices due to lack of competition.

Re:Copper broadband?

[Nadaka]

Jesus!? Did I just hear you complain about ONLY having 3 Gbit internet? 90% of the US maxes out at 1/1000 of that speed. Nowhere can you get consumer internet at even 1/100th that speed.

Re:Copper broadband?

[petermgreen]

There's a simple explanation to that: In the 90ies it was discovered that the maximum carrier frequency of fiber optics is around 1-2 GHz
We have gone a bit higher than that, 10 gigabit over a single optical transciever is perfectly doable these days.

However, it is being researched whether partial waves and multiple colors (wavelengths) can be used to increase fiber bandwith
WDM is here and now, we even have optical amplifiers that can amplify the signals without splitting them out. Downside is that WDM gear is expensive so it's only worth it for long links.

East Germany has been equipped with vast amounts of fiber optics, which was being thought of the technology of the future, and now they won't get the higher transmission rates until additional copper cables have been laid.
As I understand it the issue there was one of network structure. Copper phone networks had dedicated lines for each subscriber and we have been able to push more and more out of those lines than anyone would previously thought possible. I've never heard of any tech that comes close to modern fiber speeds over anything vaugely resembling a phone pair though.

The problem with these old fiber installs was that they had fiber to a cabinet where there was some hardware that split it out. Upgrading all those cabinets iss extremely expensive and you still have to share the fiber running to the cabinet (which may or may not have been a good quality fiber).

Nowadays we have 50 Gbit over copper wire (VDSL-50)
Really?! care to provide a citation for that? All the searches i've done for VDSL-50 seem to reffer to 50 megabit products.

The maximum I can get currently is 16 Gbit over copper wire.
Again if true please provide a citation for this, it sounds like you have mixed up megabits and gigabits and written a BS post based on the mixup.

Re:Copper broadband?

[flnca]

We have gone a bit higher than that, 10 gigabit over a single optical transciever is perfectly doable these days.

Ah ok, I haven't followed the developments in the past couple of years.

Really?! care to provide a citation for that? All the searches i've done for VDSL-50 seem to reffer to 50 megabit products. (...) Again if true please provide a citation for this, it sounds like you have mixed up megabits and gigabits

Ah ... I'm terribly sorry, I guess I'm a bit tired ... of course I was referring to Mbit not Gbit!

Re:Copper broadband?

[Jesus_666]

Oh, sorry. I forgot to add the disclaimer that my post is only valid in places where G equals M.

Re:Copper broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for taking that humble pie like a man

Smart water?

[Thanshin]

The SmartWater liquid carries DNA

So now we're calling it smart water?

Also, eeeeew! eeew! God why! eeeew!

And also, the marketing concept of "smart drink" has just gone to hell.

And finally. "Smart water? Who came with that idea?"

Re:Smart water?

[Pojut]

And finally. "Smart water? Who came with that idea?"quote>

Ever heard of Masaru Emoto?

Re:Smart water?

[Anonymous Coward]

Brand name, it is.

Re:Smart water?

[rubycodez]

no, had never heard of him. So basically Emoto has wasted his life on stupidity, and convinced others to do the same. sad.

Re:Smart water?

[Errol backfiring]

Off course. And like any "smart" option in MS-Office, you don't want to be use it.

Re:Smart water?

[ginbot462]

On the plus side, Smart Water bottles themselves are a great size/form factor with heavier plastic than most brands - I bought a case for that reason. Sort of like "disposable" Tupperware.

Re:Smart water?

[Paradise Pete]

I'd recommend seeing a doctor, as I don't think that brown urine is normal.

It comes from drinking the Zune kool-aid.

It's a rare disorder.

Re:Smart water?

[cynyr]

i bought a Nalgene bottle, umm 15 years ago or so now, Still using it, but i did have to buy it one new cap in that time. In the same time i've gone though 2 cars, 6 cell phones, 3 ipods, and 3 laptops. I think the ~$15 has been well worth it.

Re:Smart water?

[IICV]

Yeah, but only when followed by "is full of shit".

Re:Smart water?

[Saint Gerbil]

I think I shall go and patent "Smart Tea" sounds like it might be the next big-ish thing.

Re:Smart water?

[ginbot462]

googled that, those look pretty nice. I am somewhat of a plastic enthusiast.

(googles "plastic enthusiast")

Um.. maybe I should rephrase that.

Re:Smart water?

[couchslug]

"Also, eeeeew! eeew! God why! eeeew!"

Great for identifying stolen laptops!

They may grind off my etching, but they'll never clean out my keyboard.

Scum Bags

[symes]

These crooks are just the lowest of the low - there've been churches round my way that have had lead taken from the roof, schools dismantled and road signs removed. So I would like to see this fingerprinting rolled out and used more generally. In fact - can you get it in permanent ink?

Re:Scum Bags

[Anonymous Coward]

Stories like this warm my heart and give me confidence that there is still justice in the universe:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/Man_electrocuted_in_copper_wire_theft.html

http://www.kens5.com/news/Man-loses-arms-and-legs-in-copper-theft-83398667.html

Even if a copper wire thief isn't killed, if they are caught this should be their punishment anyway. Strip the insulation off of a 100ft extension cord, wrap them in it from head to toe, remove the magnetic breaker and shove some bus wire in its place, plug the cord in, and watch that fucker light up like some Christmas lights from hell.

Re:Scum Bags

[dintech]

I'll be sure never to take YOUR sandwich from the office refrigerator...

Re:Scum Bags

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be wise, since at random intervals I place a decoy sandwich in that fridge, with a few fish hooks hidden between the lettuce and the cheese.

Re:Scum Bags

[mangu]

In Saudi Arabia a man would have his right hand amputated if caught stealing.

Do you think having both arms and legs amputated is a more just punishment?

Re:Scum Bags

[xaxa]

It's extremely disruptive when they steal the signalling cables from a big railway junction (potentially tens to hundreds of thousands of people's journey to work delayed or cancelled).

Re:Scum Bags

[uglyduckling]

A hospital local to me had an outage a couple of years ago - someone had stolen the copper linking the back-up generators to the distribution board, there was a local planned power outage and the whole hospital went dark. Seriously low.

Re:Scum Bags

[Anonymous Coward]

that would cost a lot in after-punishment care...

Re:Scum Bags

[haruchai]

Brilliant. And now you've created a life-long welfare recipient. Doesn't the UK have enough people on the dole already?

Re:Scum Bags

[Anonymous Coward]

We also put randomly razor blade pieces in your normal sandwiches.

The former sandwich robbers.

Re:Scum Bags

[SnarfQuest]

Don't bother with mechinacal devices. Just follow the "Princess Bride" and poisen them all, using one that you have built up an immunity for. Just watch out for vengeful swordsmen.

Re:Scum Bags

[Obfuscant]

Brilliant. And now you've created a life-long welfare recipient.

Nah. Nail him to the wall and call him Art and people will pay to see him.

Re:Scum Bags

[Anonymous Coward]

Has a girl ever stolen your hat?

Re:Scum Bags

[couchslug]

"Do you think having both arms and legs amputated is a more just punishment?"

Doing them one at a time leaves room for the criminal to change his ways.

If he persists, his ability is reduced each time he is punished. :)

Re:Scum Bags

[bill_mcgonigle]

Congrats on the downmods - you must've royally pissed off some sky-wizard-worshiping financiers.

Re:Scum Bags

[tompaulco]

A copper thief was killed in my town while trying to steal copper from a live circuit breaker box at a condemned apartment complex. His survivors sued the electric company, the apartment complex and the city because as the lawyers determined afterward, the box was not SUPPOSED to be live. Nevermind that the thief had no way of knowing whether it was supposed to be live or not. He played the odds and he lost. His family lost the lawsuit, but the "winners", ie the defendants, also lost lots of money defending themselves in a case that should have never been brought before a judge. The city then instituted sweeping changes to tenancy laws in the city which are unprecedented in the U.S. Every house has to go through a rigorous inspection process before any new owner or tenant can move in. If the house is not up to code (even if it was built before that code went into affect), it must be brought up to code, even if the cost of doing so exceeds the worth of the house. If you do not do it, the house will be demolished by the city and you will be presented with a bill for the demolition. The city expected this to get rid of absentee landlords and deadbeats and raise property values, but all it has done is lower house values because nobody can afford to fix all the things in a house that are no longer up to code since they were built 60 years ago.

SmartWater?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it simply BabyBatter?

Does this crime really pay?

[ommerson]

Steeling copper telephone cables for their copper content is a pretty desperate crime - even at the spot price of copper quoted (the thief will be offered far less by the scrap-merchant) - they'd need to pinch an awful lot of it. There are surely much more lucrative metals to steel than this?

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[mikael_j]

Around here they've actually stolen trailers just to haul copper away, so it's not like they're just stealing a hundred meters or so, they're stealing a lot of it (although those stealing trailers have apparently stolen entire rolls of copper wire rather than copper wire already in the ground).

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the scale of what they steal that matters its a 10cm cable thats about 1km long.

Heres how they do it.
1. Dig test holes till you find a cable connection
2. attach cable to van
3. Slice cable and drive off.
4. keep going till the cable snaps
5. roll up cable cutting as needed
6. leave before people arrive

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[Rob the Bold]

Steeling copper telephone cables for their copper content is a pretty desperate crime - even at the spot price of copper quoted (the thief will be offered far less by the scrap-merchant) - they'd need to pinch an awful lot of it. There are surely much more lucrative metals to steel than this?

Oblig. Onion Link

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[confused one]

Locally, someone was stealing the guard rail and brackets from a bridge. It was aluminum (the brackets were cast and the rail was extruded). They were only able to take one piece at a time, walking it down the overpass late at night. Aluminum is worth considerably less than copper. People who steal don't always do what makes sense.

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[tophermeyer]

(although those stealing trailers have apparently stolen entire rolls of copper wire rather than copper wire already in the ground).

This.

I used to work summers as an electricians helper. The electricians would haul around big copper spools in trailers and the back of their trucks. Trailers loaded with copper would disappear every now and then if left unattended at a job site. I have no idea how much they would get for it, it seems like it would be pretty obvious what's going on when they try to sell that brand new 1/2 ton spool of copper to a scrapper, but it happened.

We used to make a good pile of cash on the side though. Whenever we were working a renovation on a government building we would usually wind up with a couple truckbeds worth of copper wiring and plumbing. The city had no mechanism for recycling it directly, so we would usually walk away with few extra dollars in our pockets every week.

Re:Does this crime really pay?

[green1]

Speaking as someone who works with buried copper lines on a daily basis, it doesn't work that way.

The ground is very good at holding on to the wire, you will not be getting 1 km of wire that way, you'll be getting less than 2 m (assuming you dug up at least 1 of those 2m before attaching it to your truck). The wire snaps a long time before you get any length out of it. I have frequently spliced lines pulled by track-hoes, bobcats, or other machinery, and they never manage to even get enough slack pulled out of the ground to splice it back together.

most of these copper thefts are overhead lines, because you can get longer chunks that way, usually 1 or 2 spans (the length between telephone poles) I don't know what that would fetch you at a scrap dealer (though I wouldn't expect it to be all that much, especially for the effort involved).

Simple solution

[germansausage]

Do the same for scrap metal dealers what they do here for pawnshops. Put a four week hold on all payments. Payment by cheque only, mailed to the name and address of the government ID of the person selling the scrap metal. Discourages 90% of the "disorganized" (i.e. drug addicts and homeless) opportunistic or desperation type theft. The delay also lets the power and telco companies come around and retrieve their stolen goods before they get shipped off or melted down.

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the cost of repairing the lines is much cheaper compared to the down time and they won't be waiting for their wires back.

I suggest something even simpler. Stick them in the roads or next to in large protected serviceable pipes. Of course some roads get a huge make over but nobody's stealing critical wires anymore, communications companies can help improve the roads and you can use it for other critical services like power!

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The delay also lets the power and telco companies come around and retrieve their stolen goods before they get shipped off or melted down.

By the time stolen wiring gets to a scrap dealer it is generally in no state to be used for its original purpose. The only way it'd be worth retrieving is if it was wire/cable still on the original spool with undamaged insulation. And any scrap dealer that would even think of buying that knows damn well that they are buying stolen materials. Ditto when some twitchy methhead shows up with hundreds of pounds of copper wiring that got "burned up in a fire" or a similar amount of nice shiny household copper pipe.

Re:Simple solution

[cowscows]

Then we can look forwards to the desperation type thieves moving on to mugging us instead of just taking metal off of our buildings.

Get used to more and more crime, as our economy continues to unravel, more of the middle class is pushed into poverty, and much more of the population becomes desperate. And of course the people in charge will attempt to solve this problem by spending more on law enforcement and building new prisons while proudly claiming how tough they are on crime, when we'd get a better return on our tax dollars if we focused on helping these people rather than arresting them.

Re:Simple solution

[Rob the Bold]

Do the same for scrap metal dealers what they do here for pawnshops. Put a four week hold on all payments. Payment by cheque only, mailed to the name and address of the government ID of the person selling the scrap metal. Discourages 90% of the "disorganized" (i.e. drug addicts and homeless) opportunistic or desperation type theft. The delay also lets the power and telco companies come around and retrieve their stolen goods before they get shipped off or melted down.

Whenever I've sold scrap metal in the US, they've taken down my vehicle and driver's license number and cut me a check. And they're unwilling to buy building materials without some documentation of their provenance. Naturally, some scrap dealers must be rather less ethical and law-abiding than those I've dealt with, because copper guttering still gets ripped off churches.

Re:Simple solution

[Abcd1234]

Do the same for scrap metal dealers what they do here for pawnshops. Put a four week hold on all payments.

Huh, sounds like it's time to get into the scrap metal fencing business...

Re:Simple solution

[geekoid]

Just record the transaction. No need to wait.

Re:Simple solution

[dasdrewid]

what they do here for pawnshops. Put a four week hold on all payments.

That sucks. Half the point of a pawn shop is "oh shit, I have to pay rent in 2 days but don't get paid for 4!" A short term loan where you get to choose your collateral (and which, if you default on, they're not going to come after your house or whatever).

Re:Simple solution

[nbacon]

Repeat offenders would be better served by something more permanent than incarceration.

Re:Simple solution

[Bassman59]

what they do here for pawnshops. Put a four week hold on all payments.

That sucks. Half the point of a pawn shop is "oh shit, I have to pay rent in 2 days but don't get paid for 4!" A short term loan where you get to choose your collateral (and which, if you default on, they're not going to come after your house or whatever).

Too fucking bad. Stop trying to sell stolen goods.

Re:Simple solution

[AtomicOrange]

I think typically in the situations of stolen merchandise, people aren't pawning the item - they're just selling it. There is a difference. People pawn their prized guitar, (insert misc crap of mild value), or even Super Bowl ring. That way they have the ability to come back and pay to get the item back, the item is being held as collateral. You can also go to a pawn shop and just sell goods. When people are attempting to fence goods at a pawn shop they just sell it outright, they're not looking to get it back at a later date when they come into the money they need. Big difference.

Re:Simple solution

[BitZtream]

Pawning is different than selling to a pawnshop.

A pawn is a short term, high interest, high risk loan, the item won't be sold for X amount of time anyway, because the borrower has X amount of time to pay it back, so ... there is X amount of time for the police to find it ... after its been submitted to them to verify its not stolen anyway.

A sell at a pawn shop is different. Its highly unlikely you'll ever see the person selling the item to the pawnshop again, so you hold on to the money for a while to verify the items aren't stolen, then send out the check to an address so that if it IS stolen, you at least know where to go look for the thief.

The price you get for pawning something is considerably lower than selling it.

Re:Simple solution

[h4rr4r]

That is called pawning, what he is talking about is selling at the pawn shop.

If you pawn something you might get a loan for 10%-30% of what they can sell it for right now assuming it is something easy to move. They take the risk that this is stolen by giving you less and getting all your information.

If you sell something to a pawn shop you might get 50% of what they hope to sell it for and they will mail you a check after 4 weeks.

Re:Simple solution

[h4rr4r]

Most use of pawnshops is not as fences but as reasonable term loans to the poor. In fact until the last 50 or so years pawn shops were the lending institution for all but the rich.

We would have a far better nation if more used pawnshops than payday lenders.

Re:Simple solution

[ommerson]

I'd say incineration is a likely is a highly likely (and permanent) outcome for for copper thieves who dabble with power lines.

Re:Simple solution

[ommerson]

Not sure how it is in the US, but in the UK the pawnshop is the probably the cheapest and most reputable source of credit open to many poor people. They are certainly the most regulated, and tend to have an excellent relationship with their local police force. Not a good place to attempt to dispose of stolen goods. None the less, the interest rate is quite eye-watering.

Re:Simple solution

[jayme0227]

I don't know about where you live, but around here the pawn shops are the payday lenders. I once accepted an interview for a pawn shop, found out they were payday lenders and left immediately. That shit is garbage.

Re:Simple solution

[tompaulco]

That's supposed to be the point of a pawn shop, but I don't know if anybody uses them for that anymore. They mostly tend to be used to fence stolen property. As a victim of crime (as are probably most people on here), I REFUSE to buy an item from a pawn shop, I know I as an individual don't matter, but I want to do my part in making the illegitimate business not be worthwhile.

Re:Simple solution

[adolf]

It's actually pretty common to burn insulation from wire before selling it: It fetches a higher rate.

My dad does some decent business collecting scrap. It's not infrequent that he legitimately ends up with a whole house worth of used romex or copper piping.

("Dealings" like "Sure, I'll haul this old couch and all this shit away for you, if you let me strip the copper out of the vacant house you own across town that you're getting ready to demolish." Or in the case of gut-and-restore remodels, it's cheaper to let him take the copper for free than to pay someone else to remove it. Et cetera.)

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad does some decent business collecting scrap. It's not infrequent that he legitimately ends up with a whole house worth of used romex or copper piping.

Key word there is "used". When you see a pickup bed full of nice uniform coils of burnt copper wiring you know it isn't used. Same thing with copper pipes. Used pipes and plumber's scrap looks quite different from a buttload of fresh copper that has been ripped out before it can even begin to develop a patina.

Hmm...

[multipartmixed]

police units carrying ultra-violet light detectors can use the incriminating stains

This sounds like something out of a mother's-basement-dweller's worst nightmare!

Economic opportunity

[digitaldc]

Maybe if we had a lower income-gap, better paying jobs, and opportunity for people this wouldn't be such a problem?

Alternatively, you can just switch everything to buried cable, fiber-optic preferrably.

Re:Economic opportunity

[jwilso91]

So they can steal from their employers instead?

Re:Economic opportunity

[AnonymousClown]

So they can steal from their employers instead?

I think what the parent's point is that many of these folks are doing this to make a living. When one has their backs against the wall, they do desperate things.

It would be a great sociological study - finding out the motives for these crimes: poverty, drug habits, wanting some extra cash for luxury gods. etc....

Re:Economic opportunity

[Pojut]

Back when I was working as a mechanic, we had a guy that came around and bought up all our scrap. He was doing pretty well for himself...likely earning as much if not more than we were working in the shop. He ended up disappearing for a couple of months...when he returned, he said that he had been almost caught ripping copper out of a construction site (something he did regularly, apparently...which explains his lavish lifestyle given his collecting scrap life.)

He said he could make more money in a single copper run than he could in nearly three weeks worth of scrap collecting. I don't think opportunities or a lower income gap are the problems...I think it's an activity that pays really well compared to the effort required, at least if our old scrap guy is any indication.

Re:Economic opportunity

[igny]

Maybe if we had a lower income-gap, better paying jobs, and opportunity for people this wouldn't be such a problem?

Alternatively we could legalize recycling of the broadband cables. A slogan: "Let's put it to a better use!"

Remember prohibition never worked in any war on anything. I am not an expert, but does anyone know any medicinal use of the broadband copper?

Of course that all depends on how broad is contraband of the broadband copper.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Chrisq]

Maybe if we had a lower income-gap, better paying jobs, and opportunity for people this wouldn't be such a problem?

Ah the Nativity of youth. I have two words for you. Jeffrey Archer.

Re:Economic opportunity

[hedwards]

Why the hell not, employers steal from the employees all the time. If the labor market hadn't become so distorted by corporate trickery it would be a completely different matter. Good luck getting anybody to care if your employer is stealing out of your paycheck or making you work off the clock.

I have genuine sympathy for employers that make a good faith attempt at following the laws and engaging in fair play, but there's a huge amount of pressure created by Wall Street to cut corners and do things which are harmful to the employees, whether or not there's a business justifications for doing it.

You don't inspire employee loyalty or productivity by making it tough for employees to survive on their salary alone.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Dunbal]

I think what the parent's point is that many of these folks are doing this to make a living. When one has their backs against the wall, they do desperate things.

      This is the typical bleeding heart argument. And poor drug dealers, they're just trying to make a living too.

      You realize that a morally sound person will refuse to engage in this type of activity on principle, no matter how hard up they are? These people are the scum of the earth, their parents should never have had children because certainly they had no idea how to raise them. These opportunists are out to make a quick buck because they think the world owes them something, and they have no interest (or are probably amused by) the damage they cause to society. I'm just sad that because of bleeding heart like you we're not allowed to shoot them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[JSBiff]

". . .Nativity . . ."

I don't think that word means what you think it means. I believe the word you are looking for is "naivety".

Re:Economic opportunity

[Pojut]

What, you were never in the school Christmas play?

Re:Economic opportunity

[Rob the Bold]

So they can steal from their employers instead?

We call that economic transaction "wages", not stealing. The criminalization of poverty and the assumption that the poor are all thieves is just astounding.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if we had a lower income-gap, better paying jobs, and opportunity for people this wouldn't be such a problem?

Ah the Nativity of youth. I have two words for you. Jeffrey Archer.

Oh, for the love of Jesus, learn the difference between "naiveté" and "Nativity"!

Re:Economic opportunity

[david@ecsd.com]

The war on theft is one of those basic prohibitions that's been around since the dawn of civilization. When I leave for work in the AM, this prohibition helps to make sure my shit is still in my house when I get home. It's one of the lubricants for a smooth running society, and legalizing theft (as you seem to be advocating) is a monumentally Bad Idea.

Re:Economic opportunity

[caerwyn]

I don't believe that the parent said anything about not *blaming* the perpetrators for the crime. But punishment, in and of itself, is rarely a solution to anything- witness the perpetual failure that is the war on drugs.

It's perfectly reasonable to suggest that we investigate and attempt to fix the causes of crimes, *in addition* the punishing those caught perpetrating them.

The world is not black and white. Your "you must be a bleeding heart who's causing all our problems by not letting us shoot petty criminals" attitude is not a solution, it's part of the problem.

Re:Economic opportunity

[operagost]

Maybe if we had a lower income-gap, better paying jobs, and opportunity for people this wouldn't be such a problem?

Yes, and if women gave it up more easily, maybe we wouldn't have rape.

Re:Economic opportunity

[elrous0]

You obviously haven't met my cousin Jack. You could give him a multi-million dollar job as a CEO and he would get fired the first day for stealing office supplies and selling them in the alley beside the building.

Most of the thieves I've known in my life weren't stealing because they lacked opportunity. They steal because they're life-long fuck-ups who have blown every opportunity that has ever been given to them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Klinky]

There are actually quite a few morally questionable actions that are ignored everyday, performed by employees of corporations. Just because you have a legal job, doesn't mean you aren't screwing somebody over directly or part of a corporation that does it.

Not that this excuses thieves in general. Bad behavior is bad behavior.

Re:Economic opportunity

[rickb928]

He was the manger.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Abcd1234]

Most of the thieves I've known in my life weren't stealing because they lacked opportunity.

Two words for you: selection bias.

Re:Economic opportunity

[rickb928]

How about we take this debate a little further?

If we jacked up wages significantly (say 80%), what whould happen?

- Would mothers quit work and stay home to actually *raise* their children?

- Would we keep on with two-income families and splurge on more crap, bigger houses, and better daycare so our brats would learn more sophisticated anti-social behavior?

- Would we just accept insane cell phone bills for uncapped data and unlimited texting, so our kids would be able to text and tweet instead of holding actual conversations?

- Would we descend into the enonomic abyss even faster, as the rest of the world careens past us?

The reality is that even the most desperately poor American is better off than 90% of the rest of the world, maybe 95%.

Stealing coppper isn't even the most desperate act. In Egypt, they bury long fiber runs in the desert as much as 30 ft. to discourage the locals from digging up the conduit for scrap. Here in Phoenix the crooks steal air conditioning units right off the side of a house of day care building for scrap. I left 10 ft. of angle iron outside by my driveway for half a Saturday afternoon. Gone. Foreclosed and partly built neighborhoods in many states were and are victims of scavengers ripping wiring and plumbing out of the walls, cutting rebar out of foundations, you name it.

But poor in America is more a matter of pride. Welfare is still available. And it pays better than living in the streets of Mogadishu.

Re:Economic opportunity

[CODiNE]

Yeah! Scum like Han Solo and Malcolm Reynolds!

Hmmm... I don't know any real world examples but I think sometimes when living in oppressive conditions a morally sound person will feel that doing what they can to harm that entity is right on principle.

I'm not SAYING it's right, but morals are quite grey and subjective.

Re:Economic opportunity

[tehcyder]

Remember prohibition never worked in any war on anything

Um, so do you mean we shouldn't prohibit any theft at all, or is there something special about copper theft?

Re:Economic opportunity

[tehcyder]

the Nativity of youth

That is a truly hilarious fail at English.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be sarcasm... I hope. I don't think you've ever been darned near starving, without sleep, possibly sick and in pain yourself. You'd be surprised, it does the same thing to humans as it does to any other animal (watch a starving dog or coyote sometime).

You're 100% wrong about morally sound people, with the wrong confluence of events anyone, even you, can be driven to pretty low levels (I'd argue you already are, but for different reasons). Otherwise experiements like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment wouldn't show the same thing nearly 100% of the time.

I carry a piece and am happy to protect my own life with it, but seriously shooting someone because they stole some cash from you when you weren't even around to be endangered by the theft? I find you more inhuman than the thieves.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the typical bleeding heart argument. And poor drug dealers, they're just trying to make a living too.

The bleeding heart pussies are prohibitionists like yourself. You just have to stick your nose up everybody's business, don't you? This is what a non-bleeding heart says to the parents of some kid who just OD'd: not my problem, go away.

Re:Economic opportunity

[IICV]

You realize that a morally sound person will refuse to engage in this type of activity on principle, no matter how hard up they are? These people are the scum of the earth, their parents should never have had children because certainly they had no idea how to raise them. These opportunists are out to make a quick buck because they think the world owes them something, and they have no interest (or are probably amused by) the damage they cause to society. I'm just sad that because of bleeding heart like you we're not allowed to shoot them.

Excellent idea! Let's shoot everyone who is not morally sound. Personally, I think wanting to shoot anyone who isn't "morally sound" is absolutely repugnant, so let's start with you.

Re:Economic opportunity

[AtomicOrange]

I for one steal copper wire so that I can fund my expeditions to cold climates which I then club baby seals. These baby seals are harvested for their essential oils so that I can fuel my bio-mass luxury yacht.

One man's necessities are another man's luxury goods.

Re:Economic opportunity

[aicrules]

Yep, which is why the whole assertion by the parent that income gaps are the cause is complete and utter bullshit.

Re:Economic opportunity

[aicrules]

Actually depending on the circumstances when they're stealing from you, you can shoot them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[MaWeiTao]

If these people weren't so stupid they wouldn't be stealing copper. They'd earn more if they just took a job at McDonalds. Unfortunately, more often than not these people don't want someone telling them what to do, so they're incapable of holding down a proper job.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus didn't mind.

Re:Economic opportunity

[rickb928]

Jesus had a job. His dad hired him.

Re:Economic opportunity

[BitZtream]

witness the perpetual failure that is the war on drugs.

The war on drugs is a failure because the majority of the country does drugs, its trivial to not get caught, and best of all, a good portion of the people doing the 'enforcement' are drug users themselves.

Proper punishment does stop crime. You're idea of slapping them on the wrist and sending them to counsuling doesn't, as is well documented and easy to see if you look at pretty much any school in America due to the current state of 'omg, don't punish them, feed them adderal instead!'

The world isn't black and white, this is true, but your still a pussy and I'd be willing to bet you exert 0 control over the people around you. I'd put $100 on saying that you get used as a door mat on a daily basis, even if you don't' realize it.

I came from the shitty 'back to the wall about to starve death' situation, I got out without breaking the law. The friends I had which instead turned into thieves and murders (yes, murderers) are in fact still in the same situation they were in to start with.

The situation doesn't make the person, the person makes the situation. Stop being such a pansy and giving people bullshit excuses for not acting the same way civilized people do.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Thud457]

Bloody nepotism!
And several much more qualified candidates were probably ignored.

Re:Economic opportunity

[LateArthurDent]

The war on drugs is a failure because the majority of the country does drugs, its trivial to not get caught, and best of all, a good portion of the people doing the 'enforcement' are drug users themselves.

Well, five minutes of googling got me to Center for Substance Abuse Research from the University of Maryland. They compiled these stats for the state of Maryland (unfortunately I couldn't find nationwide stats, but feel free to reply with numbers and citations if you find that they look significantly different). In 2005, 17.1% of all adult arrests were drug related. Out of those, 76.9% were possession-related, and only the remaining 23.1% were sales-related.

From the above stats, it doesn't look like the cops, in Maryland at least, are taking it easy on the drug-using population. I'm also willing to bet that once these people leave jail, they're not going to start living clean lives, again, feel free to look up info on how many of these people are repeat offenders. If you try to argue that their time in jail just wasn't punishment enough, I invite you to google up living conditions in one of those places. If you argue that they're not spending enough time in jail, I suggest you look up the relative sentence time and compare them to theft, or violent crimes.

The world isn't black and white, this is true, but your still a pussy and I'd be willing to bet you exert 0 control over the people around you. I'd put $100 on saying that you get used as a door mat on a daily basis, even if you don't' realize it.

I strive to exert zero control over the people around me. I don't believe I have any right to exert any more than that. In a consistent manner, I'm very resistant to attempts by others to control my life, so I'm fairly certain that, at the very least, I wouldn't get used as a door mat by you.

I came from the shitty 'back to the wall about to starve death' situation, I got out without breaking the law. The friends I had which instead turned into thieves and murders (yes, murderers) are in fact still in the same situation they were in to start with.

Fantastic. I think we can all agree you are a better man than your friends are. Nevertheless, those people with weaker moral character exist, and you haven't shown me any evidence that they would have turned out any different if they had been punished more severely. So you have enough character to not turn to crime when your back is to the wall. The problem is that there are many people who are not as strong-willed. If we can prevent the crime by making sure their back isn't to the wall, and removing the temptation, it's a win for everyone.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's naïveté.

Re:Economic opportunity

[h4rr4r]

Drug dealers are hard working low pay folks, and they provide a valuable service. Considering what they provide is wanted by many and a victimless crime I fail to see what you have against them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[h4rr4r]

So close yet so far off the mark. Nations with legalized prostitution have lower rape rates, among the first world.

Re:Economic opportunity

[ommerson]

Most thieves steal precisely *because* an opportunity present itself to them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[caerwyn]

Did you actually read my post, or did you just skim it and then decide to make ad-hominem attacks because you can't come up with anything else?

Nowhere did I comment on the level of punishment. Nowhere did I say anything about "just sending them to counseling" regarding anything; my comments about the war on drugs is merely that it, as a strategy primarily relying on punishment, has failed. This is pretty much indisputable.

In fact, I agree wholeheartedly with your statement regarding the state of discipline for children and its replacement by medication.

Learn to read. Also, grow up; throwing insults around as in your post is a really just a way to be viewed as a child and ignored.

Re:Economic opportunity

[rickb928]

Actually, many have applied. All so far found wanting.

And this is not a job you want. Trust me, you need certain special abilities. And certain character traits.

Fortunately, there is only one opening, and it's been filled. We can go back to our own jobs, those who have them.

Re:Economic opportunity

[tompaulco]

Restaurants are always hiring, they pay better, and are less likely to get you killed then stealing copper.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

You're idea of slapping them on the wrist and sending them to counsuling doesn't...

...exist, as nothing in his post even remotely implies such a thing. You made that up and assigned it to him because you knew you were not competent to refute anything he actually said. No other reason is possible.

Re:Economic opportunity

[CodeBuster]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Inconceivable!

Re:Economic opportunity

[JSBiff]

They're both considered valid, alternate spellings. I checked. I decided to go with the more Anglicized spelling instead of the French form.

Re:Economic opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

The comparison to drug dealers is very poor, in my ethical understanding drug dealing is a perfectly natural and good thing.
What people put into their body is their business alone, nobody else gets hurt.
Now when and where they can be under that influence is not as to not endanger other people.

Obviously there is a lot wrong in our societies and theft is arguably just one of the symptoms. I would argue that the injustice being done by people in "high-up" places amounts to a lot more value than the damage caused by petty thieves.

Yes, but most crime does not pay well

[SmallFurryCreature]

Crime does NOT pay all that well. Your car is NOT worth the money you paid for it. The moment you drive it out of the shop, it looses a lot of its value. Same with that gold ring. To a thief, it is even worth less because these things can only be sold to fences.

2nd hand copper is a legit trade. Tons of the stuff gets processed all the time, so if I show up with a ton claiming I was demoloshing a factory and dug it up, who is going to ask questions.

It may not be worth all that much, but I get market price for it, not what some fence is willing to pay.

And most criminals never become rich anyway. Yes, stealing a ton of copper is hard work, but so is regular work for that level of education/skill. These aren't smart criminals. Just greedy. That is why so many of them end up paying the ultimate price. Death as they cut a life wire.

What other metals you can easily sell large quantities of do you know are lying around unguarded? People might notice if you start dismanting power pylons and ripping out railroad tracks takes far more effort then the overhead power cables.

Re:Yes, but most crime does not pay well

[ommerson]

Here in the UK, lead is commonly used as a roofing material on historic buildings - particularly churches. Predictably enough, it's also frequently stolen. Zinc is also used this purpose. Copper theft is also common from the railways. On 3rd-rail electrified lines the power cables are rates at a couple of kA, so quite substantial, yet only 700V DC when live.

Re:Yes, but most crime does not pay well

[hedwards]

That's because successful psychopaths go into business and become CEOs, whereas unsuccessful psychopaths end up being busted for things like this.

But in general, crime really doesn't pay as well as people think. Some crimes do, but most crimes aren't particularly lucrative. Bank robbery for instance would require a heist every month just to make ends meet. And that's assuming that things went successfully. The average bank robber makes very little money on each robbery. Banks got wise to it a long time ago and rarely if ever is there enough money available to the tellers to even consider it worthwhile.

Re:Yes, but most crime does not pay well

[IndustrialComplex]

our car is NOT worth the money you paid for it. The moment you drive it out of the shop, it looses a lot of its value.

Actually, my car IS worth the money I paid for it, and the moment I drive it off the lot, it depreciates along a nice slow curve.

With respect to how I veiw the worth of my money and property. Why would I try to sell a car the moment I drove it off the lot? I determined that the car I was purchasing was worth the money I was giving for it, therefore, to me, it is worth exactly that.

Re:Yes, but most crime does not pay well

[bill_mcgonigle]

The moment you drive it out of the shop, it looses a lot of its value.

That's really just the delta between wholesale and retail; same with any used car.

Slashvertisment

[coofercat]

(one page print version: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/361783/putting-the-squeeze-on-the-broadband-copper-robbers/print)

Since we're slashvertising, I had a bit of a play with Smartwater several years ago - it's actually very good stuff. Essentially, they've figured out a way to put a long unique code into UV reflective paste (which is pretty hard to clean off stuff - although not impossible, so it's best to put it in hard-to-reach places). You slap it onto anything you want to protect; the police can find it with simple UV, and can get the unique code by asking the Smartwater boffins to analyse it. It's used on money trucks, and claims to have a 100% prosecution rate (although I wonder if there's only been one prosecution or something). The Smartwater people keep your particular code unique for as long as you pay them rental of it. I wonder what they'd do if you buy some, use it, but then stop paying for it, yet some of your stuff gets nicked. I suspect they'll still tell the police who you are, but probably only after the current owner is consulted.

Re:Slashvertisment

[JSBiff]

"The Smartwater people keep your particular code unique for as long as you pay them rental of it."

That statement has a logical inconsistency. Either it's unique or it's not. I'd be pretty peeved if I was their customer, and found out the prosecution of someone stealing from me got screwed up because 5 years ago, a different customer was using the same code, stopped paying for it, and they re-assigned the code to me. If the code is sufficiently long, there is no reason for them to ever ever re-use a code. We're talking DNA encoding, right? Since DNA gives you four possible symbols to encode with (A, T, C, and G), the number of possible permutations for a sequence of N symbols is 4^N (four raised to the Nth power), right? A 48-symbol long DNA code would have approx 7.9E+28 possible unique codes.

I suppose it's possible that you wouldn't actually be able to use all the codes because of, for example, maybe very similar codes might become too easily corrupted into the other very similar codes through chemical or radioactive processes that would be likely to occur as the product is in use. But, it still seems to me that they can make the code as long as they need to, in order to have a large enough number of usable permutations that they don't need to re-use individual codes.

Re:Slashvertisment

[AaxelB]

They claim to be able to encode over 10 billion unique values, so I doubt they plan ever to reuse codes -- they'll improve the product or go out of business long before they get 10 billion sales. The fee is probably to pay for using their lab to check for matches (also, it's far more lucrative than a one-time fee). So... I'm also curious what they do if they find a match that's not being paid for. Ethically, it would be nice if they told the police. From a business perspective, they don't want customers to know they'll still tell police even if you don't pay anymore, so they should keep it quiet. My guess is they remove the code from their database when you stop paying, so they honestly don't know one way or the other.

Re:Slashvertisment

[Shimbo]

We're talking DNA encoding, right?

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmartWater

Re:Slashvertisment

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks.

Smartwater is a con, sold to naive public services with more (taxpayer's) money than sense

Re:Slashvertisment

[Anonymous Coward]

Semen has the same properties. It will glow in UV too.

Re:Slashvertisment

[IndustrialComplex]

and can get the unique code by asking the Smartwater boffins to analyse it.

They trained birds to analyze DNA coded paste? Not the method I would employ but it's damned impressive.

Re:Slashvertisment

[Anonymous Coward]

and can get the unique code by asking the Smartwater boffins to analyse it.

They trained birds to analyze DNA coded paste? Not the method I would employ but it's damned impressive.

Got to love the English. They make fun of Americans for misspelling and misusing the English language and then they proceed to come up with the most abstruse, cryptic, nonsensical slang terms imaginable.

Re:Slashvertisment

[bill_mcgonigle]

Got to love the English. They make fun of Americans for misspelling and misusing the English language and then they proceed to come up with the most abstruse, cryptic, nonsensical slang terms imaginable.

C'mon, they at least usually use adjectives or verbs describing second or third order effects of the objects in question.

Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[MikeRT]

There are two types of theft: stealing for necessity (food, medicine and such) and stealing for pleasure.

The guy who steals because he's starving is not even remotely the same as the guy who steals something which he doesn't need to survive.

There was a time when the latter were regarded without any mercy and rightly as the scum that they are. You could use force, even deadly force when necessary, in defense of property that no one needs to meet basic human needs.

Guess what? People pulled this shit a lot less often back then.

The irony of the accusation that letting people use serious force to defend their property is a form of barbarism is that the unlawful taking of property, especially when it damages entire parts of the community, is a real form of barbarism. Basic crime is a rejection of civil society.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[JSBiff]

How long do you think it will be before people 'mask' murder as 'defending their property'. I believe in a justice system where criminals are tried based upon evidence presented to a jury of 12 members of the community, not people killing other people when their life (or *someones* life) is not in immediate jeopardy. Also, how do you, all-knowing one, know whether a man is stealing for survival or stealing 'for pleasure'?

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[psergiu]

You can move to South Africa :)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/232777.stm

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem: You can't know the motive for the theft without first knowing the thief. A person who steals your sports car might seem to be in it for the money - but he may really plan to sell the car, and use the money to feed his large family. The thief might argue that he would rather make one very large theft of a car than many hundreds of small thefts of foodstuffs.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[L4t3r4lu5]

If I steal an apple from your fruit bowl, I can feed myself for a couple of hours.

If I steal your 52" plasma screen TV and fence it, I can feed myself for a month at least.

What I steal isn't the issue. Why I steal it isn't either. A homeless person stealing your TV is no less serious than a couple of chavs out with his mates doing the same thing. Theft is theft. If we looked after the homeless and less well off, we wouldn't have them stealing our stuff. At that point, we'd only have the opportunist and the greedy, which could well be dealt with by the methods you outlined. However, we need to care for the needy first.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

Half true half wrong. True people would be able to mask murder as defending, that's already possible with self defense laws, half wrong because IMO that is harder to mislead on then self defense, which at least in america is legal. Why would it be harder is simple, in general if you are trying to prove them as taking your proporty, you generally have to somehow lure them into your house. Basic police investigation would be able to detect struggle if they were dragged to your house. As much as I love the leave it to the police system, if you don't recognize the robber and he wore gloves and a hood, stalling him for 10-15 minutes for the police to arive on the scene (if you are lucky and live near a station). Guy is probably long gone, and that's also assuming he dosn't have some ability to defend himself (he obviously dosn't follow the law, so he may very well have weapons above what is legal in the location)

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, how do you, all-knowing one, know whether a man is stealing for survival or stealing 'for pleasure'?

Perhaps based on evidence presented to a jury of 12 members of the community?

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[elrous0]

Are you suggesting we form a copper posse? Because if you can supply us with S'more Schnapps, firearms, and horses, I'll join right now.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[JSBiff]

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but the OP sounded like he was talking about 'on-the-spot justice' where you alone act as police, judge, jury, and executioner. If you just think we should allow courts to use capital punishment for theft, that's a bit different discussion.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

The irony of the accusation that letting people use serious force to defend their property is a form of barbarism is that the unlawful taking of property, especially when it damages entire parts of the community, is a real form of barbarism. Basic crime is a rejection of civil society.

The idea that use of force in defense of your property is somehow bad is barbarianism. Old Japanese culture rested a lot on honor and dignity and such shit; whereas Western culture was always economics. We see value in human life, and we translate that into value in protecting life, and then into person: not only is it seen as a "loss" if you kill someone, but it's also a serious loss for society if you give them a sound but relatively harmless thrashing (even a broken arm will heal; bruises and bleeding are just pain and a little uglying up).

The Japanese figured Westerners as barbarians, since these are men that somehow put preservation of life and limb of petty thieves above honor. Even pre-communist China found it abhorrent that someone would take property that wasn't theirs. Eastern philosophy to charity also centered around the "teach a man to fish" principle: they might not give you a hand-out, but they'll put you to work and teach you to raise grain and fish so you can eventually A) get a job; and/or B) produce your own food. That's far more valuable than a soup kitchen.

So what our barbaric society has here is that someone who steals, rapes, and murders still has "rights" because somehow this is valuable to us. Honestly, I favor a society where they don't even blink if you come running out of the house chasing some guy down with a fucking sword because he just tried to rape and murder your wife/daughter/whatever. Oh wow, you cut his head off because he... tried to kill someone. ... yeah this seems fine. I really don't want someone like that running around, so good job.

Westerners don't understand the above sentiment, of course. What Americans and the British and French get from that is the insane idea that we should let violent, angry people go ahead and murder someone because they committed/attempted to commit a horrible crime. That's a base reflex reaction. What ACTUALLY happens in these societies is they see someone who would commit rape and murder as a disgusting creature with no honor; and they feel that not their life, but their dignity is attacked by the attempt. They destroy the person because it is shameful for them to live. Yes, that's right: a murderer or rapist is an abhorrent, shameful creature with no honor, so they kill him when he dares to attack their dignity by attempting his crimes against them or someone they care for.

The difference between a soldier and a warrior is that a warrior will shoot his own comrades in the face for raping and burning innocent civilians, women, and children that just happen to be in the way. These people can't handle the indignity of fighting alongside such barbarians. Granted, that was the philosophy of the Japanese; yet they regressed when they went to war with Korea, or so I hear, killing everything in their path.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

However, we need to care for the needy first.

Communist! Class warfare! Hitler!

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

The idea that we as a society need to care for the needy isn't really a bad one. The idea that the government needs to care for the needy is ridiculous. The idea that "We" need to "Care for the Needy" referencing the government is socialism (the concept of the government being "We" as opposed to a public servant, etc... The "Peoples'" Republic of China, you know?).

What we need is an honor system like old Eastern philosophies had. One where we care more about honor and philosophy than money and economics. One where we put homeless people to work (and if you won't work you can god damn STARVE). Don't have work? Get a plod of land and tell them they can work growing food. They can have the food. They will learn a skill, they will feed themselves, it will improve their persons.

I want a society where poor people look for work; not where poor people hold a sign saying "Will Work for Food" and ask people if they have any work for them, and then as soon as someone says "You can have $20 if you help me paint the shed..." they shy away and find a mark that'll give them a dollar for nothing. Yes, homeless people do that.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[thesandtiger]

People are more important than property. Even people I don't like.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

>You could use force, even deadly force when necessary, in defense of property that no one needs to meet basic human needs.
>Guess what? People pulled this shit a lot less often back then.

[citation needed]

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[chrb]

Guess what? People pulled this shit a lot less often back then.

[citationneeded]

The research that I've read suggests that the severity of a deterrent is not an important factor in actually deterring people from committing a crime. The probability of being caught is an important risk factor. This is why death sentence, limb amputation, etc. for thieves doesn't work as an absolute deterrent, and yet nations with a high probability of getting caught (e.g. Japan where apparently p=0.96 for some serious crime) have low crime rates.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

We have enough people. I, for one, see no particular societal need or use filled by preserving nuisance individuals.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[CannonballHead]

This is exactly what I wanted to say.

Certainly, there ARE people who are homeless/poor/hungry because they actually can't find work... but I am not sure that's the common type.

A homeless shelter where they can work for their food, what a novel idea. Most people seem to think that's "slave labor" or "forced labor" something though, as if "forced" labor is necessarily bad (the average American is "forced" to labor, too... otherwise, they lose their job, money, house, food, etc).

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

What we need is an honor system like old Eastern philosophies had. One where we care more about honor and philosophy than money and economics.

Good call, then, when your daughter does something to dishonour the family, you can just kill her! Hell, let's go further. Those eastern philosophies have fun stuff like caste systems. I say we just relabel the homeless as untouchables... problem solved, right?

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason we don't use this Eastern system of though when it comes to the value of human life.

It's stupid and inefficient. Its one of the reasons western culture prevails economically (And thus overall)

In practice, placing honor above human life is subject places too much power in whoever can manipulate the honor system, and leads to massive systemic corruption. When we give all people equal inalienable human rights we're forced to evaluate their actions and not their "honor" when it comes to reward and punishment. Ask the decedents of butchers and grave diggers and other "unclean" professions in japan and see what they think about honor systems.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

Good call, then, when your daughter does something to dishonour the family, you can just kill her!

You mean like when your daughter becomes a hooker and you disown her and never talk to her again? Then she becomes addicted to drugs and nobody is ever there to help her, and then she dies at 25 in the street....

You're failing to consider that peoples' attitude changes with culture. Societies that put a lot of money on personal honor are filled with people that seek work or worth, people that feel they don't have the right to die because they owe someone a debt and if they don't pay it then it's just as good as stealing food from their table. Societies that have no care for such thing, on the other hand, are filled with people that lie, cheat, and steal whenever they're in a pinch; and people that don't give a shit to help them. Also we have this debt economy where we keep taking loans until we die, and then nobody pays back the loans.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

Ahh, I see you completely missed my point. So I'll be explicit:

You have an idiotic, simplistic, idealized view of eastern societies in general, and "honour-based societies" in particular. Your views on these cultures betray your life as a basement dweller idealizing Klingons and ninjas in bad action films. Your views are no more grounded or realistic than The Karate Kid, and are about as useful in dealing with the real life problems of American society as the Crane Kick is in a street fight.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

I don't watch TV.

The world around me is very, very sick. That much is clear; but it's sick on the level of individuals, not just on "TEH GUBERMANS ARE CURRUPT!" It's sick on the level of 1984, and of reading 1984: people cite 1984 as an example of government corruption, but they mainly miss the behavior of people in the party; and more importantly, they miss the importance of the social consciousness of the proles. The proles reflect our current society, on the individual level: complaining about the world, but completely hollowly and with no reflection on their own lives.

There are many, many people talking about the sad state of this world. They talk about politics-- either favoring one side or calling both sides corrupt. They talk about religion-- either the sad failing of important religious values or the sad persistence of outdated religious superstitions.

Yet they completely miss the underlying problem of failing ethic, the lack of any cohesive philosophy in the general population. All morals and ethics are mutable as convenient; crimes are only crimes because they're inconvenient, and laws that inconvenience the individual are obviously wrong because we can't see how they could possibly be bad. For example, people speaking out about the banning of marijuana (or even opium), while at the same time criticizing the legality of cigarettes; all the while swearing that society would be better off if everyone had legal access to cocaine and heroin, choosing their rationalization based on desired logical conclusion.

Following the pre-WW2 Japanese philosophy, warriors cutting their way through Korea should have fought other warriors and made the attempt to protect peaceful Koreans that either couldn't fight or didn't WANT to fight (most people just want food and safety). That would, after all, be the honorable thing to do: what honor is there in murdering women and children, and men who just want the safety of their family and are willing to stand aside quietly for that safety. But of course, the Japanese did run through those cities burning buildings and killing civilians with no compassion. Their philosophy was dead on; but implementation was lacking.

I can't idealize any society, even those functioning better than our world in general does today. They've all had flaws. That said, I think the attempt was better than what we have now. Honestly, look around you: we live in a world where a car manufacturer weighs the monetary cost of class action suits and wrongful death suits against the monetary costs of fixing KNOWN flaws in the design of the Ford Pinto that will cause occasional deaths. There is a price on a man's life-- not a strategic assassination, but on the idea that what we're doing will kill random people by negligence, and how much will that cost us to clean up after versus taking steps to prevent such death?

This negligence is dishonest. This negligence will cost peoples' lives for profit. Why do we live in a society where people are raised to think this is acceptable?

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[BitZtream]

You could also go to the shelter and eat for free.

You could also get a job, assuming you're American. No American has an excuse for not having a job. 'I can't find one' translates into 'I can't find one that I like'. I've seen McDonalds hiring minimum wage workers from Mexico because the douche bags outside in their little tent city waiting for a hand out wouldn't stoop so low as to working at McDonalds.

What you steal isn't the issue, you are correct, however WHY you steal most certainly is. WHY is important because in this particular context there is no reason to steal. No one is under such tyranny that they can't take care of themselves. We're not talking about the middle of the desert or starving children in Ethiopia. We're talking about theft in countries where there is simply no excuse for being a thief.

I care for the needy, I will offer my help. I extend my help to not a single person in America over the age of 15 however. They don't need help, they need to get off their lazy ass and work for a living instead of living off idiots such as yourself.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

Saddle up. Lock and load.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[JSBiff]

"As much as I love the leave it to the police system, if you don't recognize the robber and he wore gloves and a hood, stalling him for 10-15 minutes for the police to arive on the scene (if you are lucky and live near a station)."

This is what pepper spray, tazers, blunt objects, and chloroform were invented for. *grin*.

Again, if the thief has a weapon, then it's a whole different situation. I have no problem with someone defending themselves, their family, and their guests/friends. I'm just saying, for the unarmed/nonviolent thief, I don't think lethal force is appropriate or *should* be made legal.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[deafNewt]

Let's assume your statement that "people pulled this shit a lot less often back then" is more than just something pulled out of your ass. Basically, you're saying is that (a) you get to decide whether the theft is justified by looking at the thief for a split second down the barrel of your gun and (b) your big screen TV is worth a more than a human life. Your definition of civil society seems more in line with the code of Hammurabi than with modern, civilized systems of justice.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[StopKoolaidPoliticsT]

A homeless shelter where they can work for their food, what a novel idea. Most people seem to think that's "slave labor" or "forced labor" something though, as if "forced" labor is necessarily bad (the average American is "forced" to labor, too... otherwise, they lose their job, money, house, food, etc).

The average American is forced to labor to provide for those unwilling or unable to provide for themselves as well. Obviously, those unable to provide for themselves need help, but a non-trivial amount of money goes to support those who have routinely made poor choices and either refuse to help themselves (like my drunk uncle that can't hold a job since it interferes with his whiskey) or find themselves in a situation where they simply can't work (like my aunt with 7 kids that has been on welfare her entire life "can't" work because she has to raise (read neglect) her children).

At the federal level, we're spending roughly $275 billion on Medicaid, $68 billion on housing, $72 bilion on SNAP, and $188 billion on various public assistance programs. That's $603 billion on various social welfare programs (not counting SCHIP, WIC, etc since children fall into the "unable to take care of themselves" category nor unemployment, education, etc since those are supposed to be going to otherwise productive people). That's about $2000 in extra tax for every adult and child in the country and that's just the federal spending, states spend a ton more and some states spend obscenely more. Your average family of 4 could have a significantly better life with an extra $4-8k (hard to pinpoint a number off the top of my head given the progressive income tax system) to invest in their homes, education, medical care, etc.

A lot of people used to like to quote Ben Franklin around here when the last President was in office (they seem to mysteriously have forgotten the quote today)... but Franklin had opinions on a lot of things. He was certainly a charitable man, founding the first public library and hospital in the US, not to mention helping to found a college... but he also wrote:
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

Indeed, many of the poor in America have become complacent and they have no qualms about existing solely at the expense of the rest of society... stated another way, enslaving society to provide for them, extorting them with threats of theft and violence if society refuses their economic conscription.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

The world around me is very, very sick.

No. It's not. It's no different today than it's ever been. You're suffering from the traditional "in the good ol' days" delusion that typically strikes people in their 40s.

There are many, many people talking about the sad state of this world.

And it's all bullshit. They're either demagogues, or enraptured by demagogues.

Yet they completely miss the underlying problem of failing ethic, the lack of any cohesive philosophy in the general population.

Funny, you're starting to sound like every dictator in history. You sound like the Nazi regmine, or the PRC government, or the Japanese pre-WWII. It's stirring and resounds with people too dumb to see through the bullshit, but it's bullshit nevertheless.

Are you, next, gonna pick a nice minority group you can blame for all of society's ills?

Why do we live in a society where people are raised to think this is acceptable?

People don't think those things are acceptable. What the hell universe do you live in where they do?

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

People don't think those things are acceptable. What the hell universe do you live in where they do?

Uh, I live in a universe where a bunch of people get together in a room to decide if it's more profitable to deal with a few random people dying or to fix an engineering mistake before releasing the first run of a product. Marketing says this won't have much of an impact on PR anyway, it'll shake things up for 6 months and then nobody will care... middle management says engineering costs would be pretty high... production says refitting would be a lot of labor costs, and then there's shipping to dealers who already have models...

So all these people that happen to randomly have landed in one place get together and decide, eh, 20 or 30 or 50 people dying is going to cost us $30 million plus $20 million of damaged publicity; while a delay and engineering effort and implementation to fix is going to cost $100 million. Lives are cheap, let some random schmucks die.

I believe we can blame these ills on "Americans," or maybe "Japanese" or "The French," depending on who is staffing these companies. We'll call them "Japanese" when Toyota does it and "Americans" when Ford or GM does it.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

Uh, I live in a universe where a bunch of people get together in a room...

Those people aren't "society", they're just a group of asshats. And asshats like that exist in all societies, eastern or western, past or present. And they're certainly not evidence for how "sick" "society" is.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[h4rr4r]

Not true. Crime rates are pretty much at an all time low.

If anything harsher punishment turns the thief into a murderer as he may as well kill his victims anyway. Clear evidence can be seen of this when the English made highway robbery a capital crime. These robbers then just killed all their victims to ensure they got anything they could and to remove witnesses.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[bluefoxlucid]

Right, so magically by fate all the asshats of society tend to wind up in these positions of power, while good natured people never ever have any management influence.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Abcd1234]

Right, so magically by fate all the asshats of society tend to wind up in these positions of power, while good natured people never ever have any management influence.

Magically? No. It's inevitable.

Dickholes ignore the very societal conventions you think are so very important in order to reach the top of their respective professions. That's just life. Suck it up.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

The one sure way to never run out of the poor and the needy is to pay people to be poor and needy.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

EXCELLENT post.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[Anonymous Coward]

that's capitalism at its best. qed. everything vs profit.

Re:Stealing for pleasure versus necessity

[donscarletti]

Barbarism is barbarism, society shouldn't encourage either form, there is no irony there. Using deadly force to hunt down thieves isn't justice, it isn't necessary and it has no net effect but maybe encouraging robbers to target your neighbour who isn't willing to kill a man over a data cable.

Mod Parent Up

[hedwards]

If I had mod points, I'd mod you up. One of the things I've noticed is that you can often walk out of a store through a beeping loss control device, by behaving as if it isn't going off. Also certain shops with those detectors have ones that malfunction and the staff tends to ignore it. It's probably because store staff don't have arresting power in misdemeanor theft around here.

It applies to most things, if you don't want somebody executing a felony arrest warrant on you, the easiest way to avoid that is by not driving like an idiot. It's not fool proof, but it's the most common way for those arrest warrants to lead to an arrest.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

I walked out of Sainsbury's with a bottle of whisky that the cashier hadn't taken the tag off of. I just pretended that nothing had happened and continued on my merry way without being challenged. It probably helped that I was drunk at the time.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[hiryuu]

It applies to most things, if you don't want somebody executing a felony arrest warrant on you, the easiest way to avoid that is by not driving like an idiot. It's not fool proof, but it's the most common way for those arrest warrants to lead to an arrest.

A corollary to that is that driving exactly the speed limit (particularly when no one else is/does) gets the attention of cops around here particularly quickly, because the person in question sticks out for going too slow to avoid getting pulled over for speeding.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[AtomicOrange]

How dare someone follow the posted statutory speed limit. Obviously they're a felon! ...a witch! Burn her!

I'd have to agree, though it's typically the drunk who's driving the straightest line possible... at 7 miles an hour, on the interstate.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[shitzu]

When i drove a car without a license as a youngster i used the following trick - when i saw a policeman at the side of the road making random stops, i stopped beside him to "ask directions" from him. Foolproof. They invariably thought that this guys papers are surely in order if he asks directions from a police officer. Despite the slightly crashed front of his 200$ car.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[nospam007]

"Obviously they're a felon! ...a witch! Burn her!"

Burn? Vote for her!

Re:Mod Parent Up

[blackest_k]

It depends on what country you are in but for some false arrest can cost 1000's. Couple this with the fact that many different stores even libraries use the same kinds of tag and the detectors cannot tell the difference.

The detectors going off are not detecting a theft but usually just the presence of a tag quite possibly a tag from a completely different store.

So for store security the detectors are mostly a waste of time, its security theatre and it is up to the individual to cooperate with it or not. It is a big mistake for a security guard or staff member to stop someone on the basis of the detector because of the false positives.

However often store security is independent of the store a description of the individual may be passed on the radio to other guards and store detectives in other stores in the vicinity. Most shop lifters do not restrict themselves to one store and will visit several in a day and fore warned the security will be paying extra attention in the next store and maybe this time catch them in the act and be 100% sure when they go after the thief they are guilty they saw goods being taken and they were not ditched before the thief left the store.

Actually when it comes down to it a lot of the security work is keeping an eye on known thieves and making it difficult for them to steal something by being around while the thief is in the store. Too be quite frank catching people stealing is a joke. I remember one case of a thief who was using a bag specially lined with foil to hide the tag signal who took 600 worth of designer jeans was stopped arrested and in the end ordered to pay 20 in compensation to the store.

Making an arrest can be dangerous in itself as thieves can be armed or lash out, I remember one arrest where one of the guards came back into the store after being kicked in the family jewels. I imagine in other countries it can be worse.

It does vary a lot by country in Poland I have seen stores where you routinely check in your bags go through the tills and then the security guard goes through your bag checking off your purchases against your receipt.

Really what it comes down to is deterring the thieves and making them go elsewhere.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[HungryHobo]

Don't run, walk.
Don't look down and try not to make eye contact, catch their eye and nod.
Don't try to hide a bad under your coat, carry it over one shoulder.
Don't sneak around in the shadows, wear a highvis vest and carry a clipboard.
Don't try to sneak the loot out stealthily, ask the security guard to help you carry the clunky filing cabinate out the door.

And always, always believe and act like you have every right to be whereever you are.

People are like terriers, they chase anything that runs and the eye is drawn to people who look like they're trying to hide.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Stregano]

When I worked at Toys R Us, part of my training was to be told that if a shoplifter starts running out the door, to let them go. Apparently it is cheaper to take that loss than to chase a guy down, get off of Toys R Us property, and have them punch you in the mouth or something. I do not know if it is nation-wide, but Shopko, on the other hand, I am 100% serious when I say I say a dude get slammed against the glass door and slammed to the ground by like 4 dudes. Don't steal from that place

Re:Mod Parent Up

[badboy_tw2002]

I think I read about that Shopko incident in the news!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/five-or-six-dudes-jump-out-of-nowhere-and-just-sta,338/

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Reaperducer]

The basics of social engineering. Pulled off many a caper with those tactics back in the days of Phrack.

And if you don't know what Phrack is, then turn in your geek card and get off my lawn.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[kmoser]

Perhaps the cashier, seeing you walk out, realized that you had already paid for your merchandise and therefore didn't challenge you or call the cops.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Mr. Freeman]

It's nothing to do with your safety. If it were up to the store, you'd be required to chase the fucker down and you'd be liable for everything stolen if the guy got in his car before you caught him.

The reason they don't want you chasing anyone is because these people have, in the past, run from guards out into traffic, been hit by a car, and successfully sued the store. The idea is some nonsense like "because the store guard was chasing me, I thought I was in danger and so the store put me in the dangerous situation of making me run into traffic". The store doesn't want a $200,000 lawsuit for an item that only costs $10.

Mmm, Smartwater.

[snarfies]

Meanwhile, in the USA, Smartwater is something very different indeed!

Re:Mmm, Smartwater.

[AtomicOrange]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking, "What the hell does expensive electrolyte bottled water have to do with this?"

My Dad told me this

[PolygamousRanchKid]

As he was building up a wireless network in Indonesia. He told be, if they put copper up, someone would steal it.

On the other hand, he worked for RCA in New Jersey. The location put up a chained linked fence. And that got stolen.

Who the hell steals a fence? Ok, his name is Tony . . . .

Re:My Dad told me this

[Dravik]

Have you priced fencing recently? That stuff is expensive. It would be over $1.5k in material costs alone to put the cheapest 4ft chain link around my yard.

Soooooo......

[wowbagger]

So, I mess with your package, and I get sprayed with a florescent liquid containing DNA.

I hope they don't try to patent this, as I think there may be prior art.

Re:Soooooo......

[mike2R]

So, I mess with your package, and I get sprayed with a florescent liquid containing DNA.

I hope they don't try to patent this, as I think there may be prior art.

I think you should maybe see a doctor... :P

Re:Soooooo......

[Rob the Bold]

So, I mess with your package, and I get sprayed with a florescent liquid containing DNA. I hope they don't try to patent this, as I think there may be prior art.

I think you should maybe see a doctor... :P

Actually, that's normal and healthy. You see, when a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much . . .

Re:Soooooo......

[Anonymous Coward]

florescent a. (rare) bursting into flower, flowering (lit. & fig.) E19.

Re:Soooooo......

[SnarfQuest]

Actually, that's normal and healthy. You see, when a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much . . .

You stopped before my favorite part. You know, the bit about putting the money on the dresser, and getting out with all of your clothes.

Whoa!

[notknown86]

If UV lights prove of crime, my right hand is set for a life sentence

Given slashdot as the audience to this comment, so is yours..

Big problem in Africa

[Anonymous Coward]

This was a big problem in East Africa when I lived in the region. This is also the reason why wireless really took off, with things like WiMax and 3G becoming ubiquitous in all the major cities. The advent of the fiber optic cables connecting to the rest of the world further supported the existing wireless network. It's a perfect example of leapfrogging technologies. Besides, only about 15% of people ever had access to old copper phone lines anyway. ;)

Line test...

[Anonymous Coward]

For a while now, thieves in the UK have been testing whether an access pit contains copper or fibre by chucking a bit of petrol and a match in. If it burns green, they've hit the jackpot, they put it out and pinch the copper cabling. Otherwise they just sod off and leave it burning. Nice.

Oh good God...

[RulerOf]

a few fish hooks hidden between the lettuce and the cheese.

There's no "+1 Twisted and sick, don't fuck with this guy" mod, so I figured I'd reply instead.

Well done sir.

Collect the water!

[bluefoxlucid]

Collect the cool, refreshing smart water and splash it on your mark's car. Pop the lock and splash it on his seat and steering wheels around 4am; roll the window down a bit before you do so. Make sure your chosen mark has the same kind of car as you. Also, wear a rain coat and rain hat and vinyl pants and gloves and boots, and dispose of all this after (before getting in YOUR car...). Put the cables in an isolation chamber (a cooler).

But Copper theft is down?

[kriston]

Wait, industry reports from radio to railroad have been been saying that copper theft is down because copper is also down.

Whom am I supposed to believe?

So...

[SharpFang]

how do the coppers cope with copper capers?

Re:So...

[geekoid]

With caution.

Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[IndustrialComplex]

Ok, this worrys me a bit if used in another application.

What if this were used to mark protesters at a rally?

Re:Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they bother? If they have you at a rally they already have you on film. I really don't understand the concern.

Re:Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[Tim C]

And that's quicker, easier, cheaper, more permanent and less likely to be protested against (in the media I mean) than just photographing/filming the protesters how?

Re:Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[rickb928]

Spraying the protesters at a rally is a lot more effective than filming them if:

- You want to arrest them quickly. Just scan for the fluid at perimeter checkpoints and detain anyone glowing. Sort them later.

- You want to deny access to these protesters to another event. Scan for fluid at the other event and detain anyone glowing. Sort them later.

- You want to force them out of public for a while, maybe just a few hours. Make a show of spraying them, explain it, and the protesters will either hide or take time to scrub down. Time passes. Your targets are busy not leading the Rebellion.

- You want to know who they contact after. Spray, follow, scan as you wish, and see who touched them.

- You want to identify their associates mid-term. Spray, scan at events etc, detain, question. Build your database of associates.

- You want to avoid the unwelcome questions of video surveillance.

- You lack the technology or can't implement it. Sparying a crowd is not terribly sophisticated, and UV lamps or flashlights are cheap.

- The military uses are similarly interesting. If you're taking fire from a neighborhood, spray the whole damned place, and with the military-grade stuff. Weeks later, you're going to get hits from clothing, tire tracks, doorknobs, leaning against the police station, all over. Develop a field kit to ID the few simple codes, and you can find the shooters and their accomplices over time.

Cool stuff. Can I get some to coat my pencils at work? And my stapler?

This has

Re:Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[AtomicOrange]

I'm guessing more at a rally, like say Anonymous or the type. People who are trying to hide their identity.

Re:Tinfoil applied: Theory follows

[IndustrialComplex]

And that's quicker, easier, cheaper, more permanent and less likely to be protested against (in the media I mean) than just photographing/filming the protesters how?

What good is a photograph of a person wearing a bandana? What good is a photograph if you have no one who recognizes the person. Certainly not all the police recognize everyone with a warrant.

Instead you have this:

Spray with solution. Cops arrest everyone who glows under UV later.

Time investment = near zero
Cost = Cost of solution + cost of UV lamps. (Very low)

Even if you release the people later, guess what?

Now they have GOOD pictures (mugshots) fingerprints, and a lot of other information in a much more easily accessible format. And the processing time per person is less.

That happened to my friend's relative...

[RulerOf]

That is why so many of them end up paying the ultimate price. Death as they cut a life wire.

I remember one day I was driving in to work listening to the radio and when they did the news stories I realized that I heard a familiar (and fairly unique) last name mentioned by the news lady. The next time the stories rolled around, it turned out that the story was that a would-be copper thief was electrocuted and died in the act, and he shared a last name with a very good friend of mine. Ironic, I thought.

A few days later, I'm visiting with my friend when he tells me that someone in his family died the week before trying to steal copper. One of the details that was left out of the news report though was that he wasn't working alone and was in fact left behind as dead by his surviving accomplices. Not that anyone in his family didn't think that he wasn't incredibly dumb for getting himself killed, but it was a shame nonetheless.

I never met the guy myself, and considering how tight-knit that family (or at least my friend's branch of it) is, I found myself surprised. However, given some of his obvious life choices (and friends... the men on that page look creepy as all hell) I'm not really surprised either :-P

"SmartWater"

[miknix]

The SmartWater liquid carries a DNA fingerprint that links a criminal to the scene of the crime and police units carrying ultra-violet light detectors can use the incriminating stains to make an arrest after the trap has been sprung.

That's why my kids drink SmartWater at breakfast. Just in case..

Job stealers!

[Anonymous Coward]

thieves have taken to . . . taking out internet connections and slowing down the rollout of super-fast broadband

Blasted thieves. That's what the telcos are supposed to do!

Copper

[geekoid]

Wants to be free~

Re:Copper

[bill_mcgonigle]

Wants to be free

William Jennings Bryant - have you been re-incarnated?

Well that's easy to fix

[davidbrit2]

Just put a nice 30kV bias on the wire and let the problem take care of itself. Any time I hear about attempted power line theft, the people who were involved are charcoal.

You'll never catch me, copper?

[lorddarthpaul]

A couple of year back, this guy drove into the fire department parking lot, brazenly loaded up a reel of copper (wire, I think -- possibly for maintaining the town's antique "Red Fire Box" alarm system?) and drove off with it (not before being noticed either): Lexington man is 'person of interest' in area copper thefts.

Somebody tried to steal copper wire from my house

[TrogL]

They were after the grounding strap, which hopefully wasn't carrying much in the way of current. He'd already knocked the protective shield loose with a crowbar. The racket drew my attention. When I confronted him he told me exactly what he was doing and carried right on until I dragged out my cell phone and called it in.

Did Glen Beck brainwash you?

[geekoid]

It's not bleeding heart. It's recognizing a fact.

It is well recognized that when against a wall, people do what they feel they need to survive. Dismissing that for no reason other then it isn't part of your ideology shows you aren't really a moral person,. Just a parrot that can only think long enough to repeat what it's master ahs said.

You, my friend, are the problem.

Why are people like you so bent on making this country a 3rd world hell hole?

Re:Did Glen Beck brainwash you?

[Dunbal]

people do what they feel they need to survive.

      And that homeless guy really does want a dollar for bus fare. Come on, there's money to be made. It's not about survival it's about being a lazy bastard wanting to earn enough money for the week by an hour's "work". Not everyone climbing a pole to cut the wire is a Jean Valjean.

Re:Did Glen Beck brainwash you?

[h4rr4r]

No he wants a beer. Which is what I was going do with the money anyway so I don't see the problem. I work at my job and he works at his. His just happens to be talking folks out of money, just like any other salesman. My policy is if they tell me the truth or are very entertaining I give them a buck or two. I won't notice not having it and would have wasted it just as they would

Just increase the supply of copper,

[shock1970]

In the US at least, we can do away with the penny.

Re:Just increase the supply of copper,

[BitZtream]

You do realize the penny is about 97.5% zinc, not copper, right?

What you see as a copper penny is a zinc slug covered in a thin layer of copper so it looks like a penny. Theres more copper in about an inch of CAT5 than in a penny.

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/?flash=yes&action=fun_facts2

http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/fun_facts/?flash=yes&action=fun_facts2

Before that it was 95% zinc for 20 years or so before that. Pennies have been worthless for years, regardless of the virtual value of pennies, the actual value is less than a cent, intentionally ... so people don't melt them down.

Pennies are a really shitty source of copper and destroying pennies carries a far worse punishment than simple theft in most cases.

In 85 or so when the Mexican economy tanked, you could cross the Texas border and come back with more silver than you could carry in exchange for a 5 USD bill at one point. There again, the solution was simply to make their silver coins worthless as far as the metals they contained. Of course, the first thing they did was stop doing exchange for coins anywhere near the border, and only do exchange for paper money, making it much harder to turn $5 USD into Mexican coins unless you traveled far enough down into Mexico, making the whole venture a loser.

DNA = Deoxyribonucleic acid

[JerRocks]

This is a means of detecting criminals, but is it really using DNA to do that? Seems really unlikely...

Re:DNA = Deoxyribonucleic acid

[flnca]

Why not? You simple mix the liquid with any type of cells, like bacteria, viruses, or any plant or animal cells. Of course it must be something that is unlikely to be found naturally in the affected area. When the thief is sprayed with the liquid, the unusual DNA sticks to him and his clothing and can be found by analysis.

Re:DNA = Deoxyribonucleic acid

[SnarfQuest]

How else do you think these super-criminals get their start? They obviously got hit with some radioactive DNA at some point. Not all of them start out as aliens.

Re:DNA = Deoxyribonucleic acid

[goodmanj]

Look at the engineering requirements. We need a chemical that:
1) is detectable at incredibly low concentrations
2) is water-soluble
2) is non-toxic and relatively long-lived in typical environmental conditions
3) can easily be configured in millions of different ways, so we can use a different "key" for each user or each batch of stuff to be tagged.

Given PCR and DNA synthesis technology, short strands of DNA seem perfect for the job.

Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is useles

[Sycraft-fu]

So you can look at your justice system as having three goals, in order:

1) Deterrence. The first and foremost goal is to have consequences so that people simply don't do shit they aren't supposed to. You try to deter as many people as possible by saying "If you do this, we punish you," and hopefully people say "Well I don't wanna be punished, I'm not going to do that." When that doesn't work you move on to:

2) Rehabilitation. You make good on the threat, you punish them. You try and make it so that, having experienced the punishment, they aren't interested in it happening again. Also, and this is something our prisons are NOT good at, you try to help give them options when they get out. Basically it is a case of "Ok you fucked up and now you pay the consequences. We don't ever want to see you back, and we hope that you don't want to come back." However if that doesn't work you go of:

3) Removal. If someone just keeps causing problems, you don't have a lot of other choices. I mean I suppose you could let them just keep committing crimes but that really isn't an option, and kinda makes a mockery of the idea of a justice system. So you just lock them up. When they are in prison, they can't be out committing crimes. May well mean they spend most of their life there, that just may be what is needed.

Well #3 is the point you get to with some people. It isn't a matter of hard sentences for the sake of being a hardass, it is because you've had enough of the shit. They won't learn their lesson, it is time to just keep them out of trouble. You can't do anything else because they are too stupid, or they have an addiction and aren't willing to fight it (you can't force cure an addict, they have to choose to fight it and only then can you help them).

Now I'm not saying our system as-is is perfect, but that is where part of it comes from. Perhaps what we need is something not as harsh as prison, a work camp like system where you go if you are a massive repeat offender, but not for serious things. You continually steal, nothing helps, fine now your sentences start to be long stretches in a structured environment where you are kept out of trouble. Not because we hate you, just because we need you to stop causing problems for other people.

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[AlecC]

I entirely agree with your analysis. And I would like to see much, much more done on rehabilitation. And for petty crime, I think that removal doesn't work in that the level of cruelty (long sentences) needed to make it work is, to my mind, disproportionate for the offences. But that is a matter of opinion, not fact.

Clipping coins

[Daetrin]

Given the Isaac Newton article posted a couple days ago and my current reading material of the Baroque Cycle, i'm suddenly thinking that these guys are the modern day equivalents of people who clipped and scraped coins in order to melt the residue into bullion. Everyone else is busy trying to make an honest living while they are ripping out the foundation of the economic infrastructure. It's an activity that seems aggravating but somewhat trivial in small doses but can (and has in the past) destroy entire economies when allowed to get out of hand.

No, stealing is not stealing

[MikeRT]

The logical separator between defensible theft and indefensible theft is the immediacy of the need and the minimal effort and theft needed to satisfy that need. Both of those are met when a homeless man steals a little food here and there. The amount of time and energy it would take said homeless man to steal the TV, transport it to a seller and convert it into currency ipso facto proves that it was not necessary.

You are conflating security (eating for a month) with immediate need (starving now). No one is morally entitled to security, only their basic immediate needs.

Shopkeeper's Privilege

[Anonymous Coward]

>>It's probably because store staff don't have arresting power in misdemeanor theft around here.

There's a common law concept called the Shopkeeper's Privilege that allows a merchant to reasonably detain, question, or expel -- but usually not search -- someone.
It is recognized in every state but Louisiana, which has a civil law basis, except where state statute has explicitly superseded it. The superseding statutes are usually just putting the concept of the Privilege, or similar power, in writing.
I don't think there is a single jurisdiction in which the staff have at least some power of detainment, although it may be just to hold you until police can properly investigate their reasonable suspicions.

 

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[Bert64]

You are spot on about prisons being poor at rehabilitation...
The current system actually works very poorly in this:

You go to prison for a relatively minor crime, and are thrown in with a bunch of people who are usually far more experienced criminals than you... You get mistreated (beaten up, raped etc) by the other prisoners and some of them teach you additional criminal skills.
Once you come out, you've typically lost whatever you had before you went in, you are now more bitter, you are stigmatised by having a criminal record which makes it difficult for you to get legitimate work and to top it off you've learnt how to commit new or more effective crimes and have new criminal contacts.
So for many, the only course of action open to them is to commit more crime, and this time they may get away with it for longer due to increased experience.

Horse Shit

[sexconker]

The SmartWater liquid can also be pasted inside cables, making them easier to trace — and less appealing to scrap metal buyers, helping to cut demand for stolen copper.

I doubt it'll survive the fucking forge.
We've all seen Terminator 2, right?

Hey Bob, I've got some cable I need to sell. Quickly.

I'll give you $150 for it. Go toss it into the big pit of molten goop.

Joe Friday has experience

[time961]

With copper capers. A classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkZZsS-66c

Getting a lead on copper robbers

[roguegramma]

Much better title ;-)

Re:Somebody tried to steal copper wire from my hou

[AtomicOrange]

My interpretation:

::noise outside:: (burglar attacking grounding strap with crowbar)

(homeowner exits house and arrives on scene)
Homeowner: Well, Sir - what are you doing?

Copper Thief: I'm making off with your copper grounding strap, old chap. (continues attempt)

Homeowner: Well sir, you shall have to cease and desist henceforth or I shall have to alert the authorities...


Apparently, I've made you and the burglar out to be British (stereotypically colloquial, naturally). But I have to say, I'm impressed the guy kept at the attempt with you just standing there.

Copper pipes

[MaWeiTao]

Actually, the big problem I've been seeing is the theft of copper pipes from foreclosed and abandoned homes. I know someone who's a real estate agent and the impression I've gotten, in the city where I live, is that any home on the market, not being lived in, gets it's copper stolen within a few months. In some cases they'll even rip up walls to get at the pipe.

Recently, he went to look over a home a client was about to put an offer on. He discovers a few inches of water in the basement and with more gushing into the basement from a broken pipe. It turns out someone had broken in and taken all the piping they could. Needless to say the client no longer wanted the house.

This has been having quite an impact on real estate prices and there's not a whole lot that can be done to fight it. The pathetic part here is that the thieves aren't earning a whole lot of money for all the trouble they go through to get at the copper. But then, they have to be rather stupid to resort to this sort of thing. They could earn more working a minimum wage job. They're incapable of holding down a job because they can't stand being told what to do. And in the scheme of things stealing copper seems like a relatively benign crime.

Re:Copper pipes

[h4rr4r]

They're incapable of holding down a job because they can't stand being told what to do

Unlikely, far more likely is methheads, kids or felons unable to find work.

Fighting copper theft is mostly pointless

[cdrguru]

It is too easy. In Arizona most people have their electric panel outside the house. That means by opening the panel you gain access to pounds of copper - you just have to pull real hard.

Similarly, neighborhoods have park land with lights. The wiring connecting these to power to extremely vulnerable and has been stolen in a number of locations. Of course, nobody is talking about this because they don't want to encourage people.

The problem is going to get worse. When you have bands of people that have little to lose, why not try to steal some wires. The scrap metal dealers are sufficiently isolated from the criminal acts that they really don't care where the wire came from, especially if it isn't obviously a spool of cable that might have been stolen. So you can fill up a pickup truck with wire scraps and make $100 or more.

Any construction site is fair game. Any park with lights is a target. Homes that aren't in some gated subdivision are pretty easy as well. Parks near my house have been victimized, one has been hit twice. And this is going to generally be considered to be a victimless crime - nobody got hurt and whatever was destroyed was probably insured.

Even if they put up enough dummy cameras and a few live ones to make people think twice about this, there are plenty of sources. How much copper do you think is in the average car?

Re:Fighting copper theft is mostly pointless

[h4rr4r]

How much copper do you think is in the average car

25lbs, most of it in small wires that are not worth digging out. If you are going to mess with a car but not take the whole thing; steal the wheels, lights, hood and battery. All stuff you can take off the car in a few minutes without any special tools other than a rock to break the window.

Re:Fighting copper theft is mostly pointless

[neminem]

> "25lbs, most of it in small wires that are not worth digging out."
Unless you're a rabbit.

No problems here

[rumblin'rabbit]

That god my connection is still in inta

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[mike2R]

You missed retribution...

wifi not good enough?

[srk2040]

I get my internet from tapping wifi signal in the neighborhood. Why even bother with copper or fiber...

A funny thing happened to me on the way home...

[mindwhip]

I bought a pack of batteries from, Asda with total value of 1.99 that was tagged (I guess becuase they are easily stolen), but since I used the 'express' checkout the overkill security tag sticker wasn't deactivated.

Since I was going to be going into other shops with alarms I really needed to get it disabled so I looked around for the member of staff that was supposed to be stopping me... and after 5 minutes and setting the thing off for the 6th time I went all the way back to the checkout (which was quite far as it was a big store!) and got a checkout operator to de-tag it... and she didn't even look at my receipt.

I wish I had thought about it a bit more... I could have easily taken a big TV and no one would have noticed...

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[JonySuede]

no retribution is not part of the criminal legal system, you use the civil justice for that

Australia

[bill_mcgonigle]

See Subject.

why don't they just buy fiber

[jsepeta]

instead of pursuing the stolen copper cables, companies would be better off taking the insurance money and replacing the copper runs with fiber.

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[drsmithy]

You have your goals pretty much completely backwards. The first and foremost objective of the justice system should be to separate those breaking laws from everyone else, to minimise the harm they can do. The second objective should be to provide a way for injured parties to seek redress and reparations for any losses suffered. The third objective should be to rehabilitate offenders, so you no longer have to expend resources keeping them isolated.

Only as a last resort should the threat of harsh punishment be used to coerce lawful behaviour ("deterrence"). IMHO if you need to do this at all, your society is already failing in that area. Deterrence should *never* be a major objective of a legal system.

Re:Well, that doesn't mean being hard on it is use

[mike2R]

If a criminal justice system truly did not acknowledge the right of the victim to retribution, what purpose would it serve? How can the law exist - a system where a third party is responsible for redressing private wrongs - if it ignores this most fundamental human instinct?

The Rule of Law is not a given; other systems are possible, those of clan and blood feud. If the law abdicates its ability to give justice to those who are wronged, how can it expect to survive?

We, in our enlightened times, rightly consider many other aspects when sentencing a criminal. But ultimately for every crime there is a victim, and they have given up their right of private revenge to this thing called Law. It is both right and sensible that judges consider this when passing sentence.

There is a much easier solution eliminating theft.

[thegarbz]

Just put up a sign: "Look up, the cables overhead are bigger and contain more copper."

The rest of the problem solves itself when thieves drop from the power poles.

They should reform the recycling business

[Polo]

I think the recycling business is where the problem should be addressed.

For instance, the police in Santa Clara set up a recycling business, and they found that out of 278 people who came
in, only TWO people actually brought in legitimate recycled stuff.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-01-24/bay-area/17148400_1_copper-thieves-santa-clara-county-burglary-tools