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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."
Perhaps move to fiber should be considered
Why get in so much trouble?
Can't they just enhance a Google Maps photo?
It may be 7 digits, but at least it's a semiprime
Scrap metal recyclers don't pay much for fiber optics, just saying.
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?"
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.
This sounds like something out of a mother's-basement-dweller's worst nightmare!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
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.
I'll be sure never to take YOUR sandwich from the office refrigerator...
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.
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.
Living With a Nerd
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.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
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.
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.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
". . .Nativity . . ."
I don't think that word means what you think it means. I believe the word you are looking for is "naivety".
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.
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?
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.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
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.
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.
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.
:-P
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
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
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.
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.
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.
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?