Ten Cops Can't Recover Police Chief's Son's iPhone

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Ten Cops Can't Recover Police Chief's Son's iPhone

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 23, 2012 @09:57AM from the try-twenty-next-time dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Oakland Tribune reports that when Berkeley police Chief Michael Meehan's son's cell phone was stolen from a school locker in January, ten police officers were sent to track down the stolen iPhone, with some working overtime at taxpayer expense. 'If your cell phone was stolen or my cell phone was stolen, I don't think any officer would be investigating it,' says Michael Sherman, vice chairman of the Berkeley Police Review Commission, a city watchdog group. 'They have more important things to do. We have crime in the streets.' But the kicker is that even with all those cops swarming around, looking for an iPhone equipped with the Find My iPhone tracking software, police were not able to locate the phone. 'If 10 cops who know a neighborhood can't find an iPhone that's broadcasting its location, that shouldn't give you a lot of confidence in your own vigilante recovery of a stolen iProduct,' writes Alexis Madrigal. 'Just saying. Consider this a PSA: just buy a new phone.'"

277 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

I would be more worried... by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-23 10:01 · Score: 3, Funny

I would be more worried if they found the phone quickly.

--
Palm trees and 8
1. Re:I would be more worried... by Sancho · 2012-05-23 10:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Typical anti-LE first-post karma-grabbing reply.
  Did you notice that they were using Find My iPhone? It's an Apple service which requires opting-in on the part of the phone's user (pre-losing the phone, of course.)
  The joke you should have made has to do with not being able to find ones ass with 10 cops and a map. These guys had GPS from the phone (via consent of the victim or certainly his father) and couldn't find it. That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
2. Re:I would be more worried... by amicusNYCL · 2012-05-23 10:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  These guys had GPS from the phone (via consent of the victim or certainly his father) and couldn't find it. That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
  I think it illustrates limitations in the technology more than human incompetence. The service can't find your phone. It can tell you that your phone is near 55th and San Pedro, but it's not going to tell you which house and room the thing is sitting in, or whose pocket it has been put in. I bet I can stash a phone "near" any intersection in the country and you wouldn't be able to find it with only that information.
  Notice that I'm not suggesting a solution... the service does what it does, but it's not a panacea for finding lost things.
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
3. Re:I would be more worried... by Known+Nutter · 2012-05-23 10:55 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
  Interesetingly, this is also another typical anti-LE karma-grabbing post.
  
  You weren't there. The only information you have is what was in the article, which states that contact was made at several homes in an attempt to locate the phone. You have no clue as to the contents of those contacts or any way of accurately quantifying the competence of the officers involved.
  
  Now, 10 cops for a missing cell phone... you could call that obnoxious -- at the very least! Competence is not an issue here, though.
  
  --
  Beware of the Leopard.
4. Re:I would be more worried... by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-05-23 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  The only information you have is what was in the article, which states that contact was made at several homes in an attempt to locate the phone.
  So, did they try something obvious like "go to the place that iRetrieve says the phone is, then dial the phone and listen for ringing"?
  Or did they just ask the people they met if they had a stolen iPhone?
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
5. Re:I would be more worried... by LifesABeach · 2012-05-23 11:08 · Score: 1, Redundant
  
  Did the "Oakland 10" go to the kid's girl-friend's home, and then try dialing it? I'd be curious where they found it, it they did.
6. Re:I would be more worried... by hcs_$reboot · 2012-05-23 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe the iphone was simply... OFF
  
  --
  Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
7. Re:I would be more worried... by __aaltlg1547 · 2012-05-23 11:26 · Score: 1
  
  Or s phone that was turned off or an application uninstalled before the investigation started or a service that plain does not work.
8. Re:I would be more worried... by 4phun · 2012-05-23 11:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I think it illustrates limitations in the technology more than human incompetence. The service can't find your phone. It can tell you that your phone is near 55th and San Pedro, but it's not going to tell you which house and room the thing is sitting in, or whose pocket it has been put in. I bet I can stash a phone "near" any intersection in the country and you wouldn't be able to find it with only that information.
  Notice that I'm not suggesting a solution... the service does what it does, but it's not a panacea for finding lost things.
  I bet I can find the stolen iPhone. I would do what every other LE officer would do. He would walk up to the location and then call the lost iPhone's cell number. Then with probable cause he could seize any phone that rang and was answered matching the audio he heard with his observation of the suspects lips.
  This happens nearly every day in the USA. I think it is hilarious when the cops seize guns and a large drug stash at the same time from the perp and his urban buddies. My favorite form of instant justice is hearing there were panicked perps who jumped out of a second floor or higher window injuring themselves only to be caught by more backup cops waiting below.
9. Re:I would be more worried... by Huge_UID · 2012-05-23 11:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Really? I use Find My iPad to find my iPad in my _house_. "Ah, the kids left it behind the couch."
10. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:34 · Score: 0
  
  who was phone?
11. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:37 · Score: 0
  
  Just seems like a typical government worker. No jelly donuts for them this week!
12. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:41 · Score: 0
  
  Go to the GPS coordinates, call the phone number, and listen?
13. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:59 · Score: 0
  
  Ditto. I couldn't find the iPad one night so I used "Find my iThing" and I could see the location of the iPhone, iPod and iPad. But then again, that may have been the wi-fi.
14. Re:I would be more worried... by Sancho · 2012-05-23 12:01 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Don't even has to call it. You can tell the phone to make a noise that can't be needed.
  It's distinctive to the find my iPhone feature, and it is pretty damning.
15. Re:I would be more worried... by MikeBabcock · 2012-05-23 12:49 · Score: 1
  
  A similar feature exists (and I've tested it) from retrieval software on Android -- I'm somewhat shocked they couldn't manage to find the phone this way unless its been turned off since.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
16. Re:I would be more worried... by ArcCoyote · 2012-05-23 13:16 · Score: 1
  
  WiFi isn't going to be any more accurate than the radius of your AP's coverage, which could be 100 meters or more.
  GPS can be accurate to 1 meter with a good view of the satellites.
17. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:17 · Score: 0
  
  I [stupidly] left my android on silent in a cab today. It would have been nice to have it make a noise.
  How do you do it?
  E
18. Re:I would be more worried... by Sancho · 2012-05-23 13:24 · Score: 1
  
  I realize that I was ambiguous. The sound is distinctive, not the feature.
  And needed was autocorrected from muted somehow....
19. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:37 · Score: 1
  
  My daughters phone was stolen from her at school. I used Find My iPhone to track it down, but the error radius was large enough to include several houses on the street and we were never able to recover it.
20. Re:I would be more worried... by CodeReign · 2012-05-23 14:17 · Score: 2
  
  To the best of my recolection; an app is required. Google does provide an app to paid Google Apps customers but they do not bundle one with the device. PlanB on the android market is a good choice as it will phone home as soon as you install it (from the web). Additionally some vendors have added the ability to create an account based on your device serial number that will persist even through a device wipe in finding said device. At the very least this is how ASUS does it.
21. Re:I would be more worried... by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:28 · Score: 2
  
  These guys had GPS from the phone (via consent of the victim or certainly his father) and couldn't find it. That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
  I think it illustrates limitations in the technology more than human incompetence. The service can't find your phone. It can tell you that your phone is near 55th and San Pedro, but it's not going to tell you which house and room the thing is sitting in, or whose pocket it has been put in. I bet I can stash a phone "near" any intersection in the country and you wouldn't be able to find it with only that information.
  Notice that I'm not suggesting a solution... the service does what it does, but it's not a panacea for finding lost things.
  I bet I could find your stashed phone. It need not even be connected to a network, just powered up and trying to connect.
  It's called radio direction finding, and it's actually a damn fun hobby.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
22. Re:I would be more worried... by baegucb · 2012-05-23 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  They must have forgotten the two hunting dogs and a mirror. ;)
23. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:08 · Score: 0
  
  Ever think the GP may have 3G or 4G on it? You're assuming WiFi use due to being in the house.
24. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:23 · Score: 0
  
  Just seems like a typical government worker. No jelly donuts for them this week!
  exact opposite: if they did their jobs, then they dont need more funding, but since they *can't* do their jobs they need more money. Typical govt waste.
25. Re:I would be more worried... by aitikin · 2012-05-23 15:56 · Score: 2
  
  3G isn't WiFi. By definition, WiFi is a wireless local area network based on 802.11, not just any wireless signal (such as 3G/4G, which, IIRC an iPhone or an iPad doesn't have 4G)...
  
  --
  "Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
26. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 17:16 · Score: 1
  
  That's not true. My wifi-only devices can usually be located to within 5-10 meters. No, it's not quite as accurate as a true GPS coordinate set, but the accuracy is not constrained to "your device is connected to this AP and that's the best I can do"--Skyhook and other databases include signal strength and AP names in their databases. If you have a few APs in range, it's enough to get a fairly accurate signal.
  Combined with forcing the device to make a sound, it's extremely effective.
27. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:48 · Score: 0
  
  I would be more worried if they found the phone quickly.
  the question has to be what was the dickhead doing with an iphone anyhow he should be banged up for 6 to 12 for having such an insult to mankind
28. Re:I would be more worried... by ozmanjusri · 2012-05-23 19:16 · Score: 1
  
  Prey is an open source app that works on iOS as well as Android.
  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prey&hl=en
  
  --
  "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
29. Re:I would be more worried... by adolf · 2012-05-23 19:23 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  AndroidLost is some clever software which does a few glorious things with lost devices, including bright lights, loud noises, taking (and delivering) pictures, making maps, and displaying messages. Also (remotely) supports wipe, basic file management, setting a passcode, and hiding itself from the app list. And it does this stuff in response to either SMS messages or from data originating in Teh Cloud.
  And, it's clever enough to be completely not-running-at-all unless activated, so the performance hit when the phone is not lost is exactly zero.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
30. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 19:37 · Score: 0
  
  'If 10 cops who know a neighborhood" that was the joke. Here in reality, the cops in the area and surrounding areas I live only know the main routes. Very few if any know any one area. Even the Police Pig Chief is an idiot, and he claims to have lived and or was raised in the neighborhood, I could dump him off 2 miles from the station and he would not know how to get back.
  Even funnier are the neighborhood groups that act surprised they wasted taxpayers money with 10 idiots, being aided with a phone tracking device and came up blank. Obviously this goes on all the time but they do not bother to watch for it they wait until the press reports about it then come out crying and moaning over one incident out of several they get away with.
  And yes I dislike cops, and I am aware not all of them are power hungry morons.
31. Re:I would be more worried... by rvw · 2012-05-23 20:30 · Score: 1
  
  Don't even has to call it. You can tell the phone to make a noise that can't be needed.
  It's distinctive to the find my iPhone feature, and it is pretty damning.
  Remove the sim card. Turn off the phone. How much noise will it make? Then attach it to a laptop with no network, no wifi. Reset the phone with itunes and wipe all data. Will this software still work? I'm curious.
32. Re:I would be more worried... by rvw · 2012-05-23 20:32 · Score: 2
  
  A similar feature exists (and I've tested it) from retrieval software on Android -- I'm somewhat shocked they couldn't manage to find the phone this way unless its been turned off since.
  Turn off the phone. My phone doesn't require a PIN or unlock code for this. Remove the sim card. How much noise will it make? None!
33. Re:I would be more worried... by 1s44c · 2012-05-23 20:36 · Score: 1
  
  That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
  Don't forget the corruption too! 10 police look for one stolen kids iphone while how many other more serious crimes got ignored?
  Whoever ordered these 10 cops to go waste time the state is paying for should be disciplined for corruption. Using company resources for personal reasons is at best corruption and at worst theft.
34. Re:I would be more worried... by 1s44c · 2012-05-23 20:40 · Score: 1
  
  Really? I use Find My iPad to find my iPad in my _house_. "Ah, the kids left it behind the couch."
  Have you considered that maybe you are smarter than 10 cops?
35. Re:I would be more worried... by 1s44c · 2012-05-23 20:43 · Score: 1
  
  Now, 10 cops for a missing cell phone... you could call that obnoxious -- at the very least!
  It's use of company ( i.e.police ) resources for personal reasons. It's simple theft and the police can get away with it because they are above the law.
36. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 20:45 · Score: 0
  
  Feh. You must be new here.
37. Re:I would be more worried... by reve_etrange · 2012-05-23 21:05 · Score: 1
  
  how many other more serious crimes got ignored?
  Good question, this is Berkeley...
  
  --
  .: Semper Absurda :.
38. Re:I would be more worried... by khallow · 2012-05-23 21:18 · Score: 1
  
  I bet I can find the stolen iPhone. I would do what every other LE officer would do. He would walk up to the location and then call the lost iPhone's cell number. Then with probable cause he could seize any phone that rang and was answered matching the audio he heard with his observation of the suspects lips.
  And what makes you think they didn't do that, especially when you say every other LE officer would?
39. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 22:02 · Score: 0
  
  Which was basically my thought, if somebody stole the phone then it wouldn't be surprising if they had reset the phone. Or otherwise removed the tracking information. A phone that always brings the cops is not something that's terribly useful for thieves.
40. Re:I would be more worried... by Rainbowdash · 2012-05-24 00:01 · Score: 0
  
  I agree, 10 cops, a fail-ratio of 100sqm and they couldn't find it? Aren't schools in the US also locked during "open" hours, so the suspects could be narrowed down quite a bit... sounds like some police officers helped themselves to some free taxpayer overtime money.
41. Re:I would be more worried... by Rainbowdash · 2012-05-24 00:06 · Score: 0
  
  the find my iphone software is connected to your appleID, which means if you swap sim it changes phone number but still broadcasts its location. However, if you go and remove the "iCloud" login the tracking wont be there anymore, obviously thieves don't know shit like that, and obviously 10 police officers can't find an iPhone. The big question isn't why they couldn't find the phone, but how the chief could convince 10 dudes to search for a phone belonging to a 17 y/o kid who prolly has nudies on his classmates.... oh I see how he did it now
42. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 02:08 · Score: 0
  
  He knows 3G isn't WiFi, he's asking whether or not it's possible that the poster above might have a 4G iPad and thus use that instead of the WiFi connection for network location/gps. In no way is he suggesting that WiFi == 3G.
43. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 02:29 · Score: 0
  
  These guys had GPS from the phone (via consent of the victim or certainly his father) and couldn't find it. That takes a spectacular level of incompetence.
  I think it illustrates limitations in the technology more than human incompetence. The service can't find your phone. It can tell you that your phone is near 55th and San Pedro, but it's not going to tell you which house and room the thing is sitting in, or whose pocket it has been put in. I bet I can stash a phone "near" any intersection in the country and you wouldn't be able to find it with only that information.
  Notice that I'm not suggesting a solution... the service does what it does, but it's not a panacea for finding lost things.
  I bet I could find your stashed phone. It need not even be connected to a network, just powered up and trying to connect.
  It's called radio direction finding, and it's actually a damn fun hobby.
  That's what I was thinking. Sure the GPS has limited resolution, and the lack of an accurate altitude measurement would be particularly troublesome in searching a high rise apartment building, but once you're in the approximate location, I would have thought you could locate the radio - if you had the proper equipment.
44. Re:I would be more worried... by Sancho · 2012-05-24 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  If the phone is wiped, it won't work. In this case, though, the phone was broadcasting its location.
45. Re:I would be more worried... by doston · 2012-05-24 02:48 · Score: 1
  
  I [stupidly] left my android on silent in a cab today. It would have been nice to have it make a noise.
  How do you do it?
  E
  You could have the sound on all day. You'll never get anything back from a cab. Ever.
46. Re:I would be more worried... by Lashat · 2012-05-24 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  This is not really the type of police conduct that bothers me. Police and any other group of people tend to have a "we take care of our own" attitude. Also, do not under estimate the cops who showed up to be the "hero" for the Chief. "Good Morning, Sir. Remember me? I'm the one who found your son's lost phone that day. Um...about those layoffs (my raise, promotion, etc..)"
  It does not even bother me that they couldn't locate the phone in a medium-large urban school with so many places to hide a turned off phone.
  Anyway I suspect the Chief's son just wanted the new model and made the whole thing up.
  
  --
  For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
47. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  Any self-respecting geocacher would take that challenge any day of the week.
48. Re:I would be more worried... by amicusNYCL · 2012-05-24 06:44 · Score: 1
  
  I bet I could find your stashed phone. It need not even be connected to a network, just powered up and trying to connect.
  It's called radio direction finding, and it's actually a damn fun hobby.
  Does that assume it's the only thing broadcasting, or can you isolate each source and somehow determine which one is the one you're looking for?
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
49. Re:I would be more worried... by amicusNYCL · 2012-05-24 06:48 · Score: 1
  
  I bet I can find the stolen iPhone. I would do what every other LE officer would do. He would walk up to the location and then call the lost iPhone's cell number. Then with probable cause he could seize any phone that rang and was answered matching the audio he heard with his observation of the suspects lips.
  But how does he know which floor in the multi-story apartment building he should target? Also, doesn't that assume that the thief is just sort of standing around on the street as if he were a mission target in GTA? What if he's inside one of several houses in the GPS radius? How many times is the thief going to answer calls from that number before he decides to mute the phone?
  
  --
  "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
50. Re:I would be more worried... by X0563511 · 2012-05-24 07:47 · Score: 1
  
  It will be a bit more complicated if there are other phones in the area, yes. You'd need more complicated gear that could interpret the signals and yet you hunt down a specific IMEI, but this gear does exist and should be available to law enforcement.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
51. Re:I would be more worried... by freudigst · 2012-05-24 18:06 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, it's such a great feeling when other people hurt themselves.
52. Re:I would be more worried... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-25 02:47 · Score: 0
  
  GPS is pretty unreliable if the device is indoors and didn't get a good fix of the front lawn on its way in.
53. Re:I would be more worried... by pnutjam · 2012-05-25 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  Avast has this feature in their free app.
  
  --
  Cheap storage VM.
54. Re:I would be more worried... by CodeReign · 2012-05-30 17:13 · Score: 1
  
  >And, it's clever enough to be completely not-running-at-all unless activated, so the performance hit when the phone is not lost is exactly zero.
  So if I have data sync turned off then how does it respond to my lost device notification if it's from the internet. An SMS receiver could handle a text messages that are notifying it that it's lost but if data-sync is off depending on the phone you don't get push notifications.
55. Re:I would be more worried... by adolf · 2012-06-01 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  I (just now) turned sync off on my D4, and it is still instantly responsive to commands over the Internet.
  But anyway, one of the commands available by SMS is to turn on a polling service, which gets rid of the necessity for push to work at all.
  So, scenario: You lose your phone, and push is broken/turned off/logged out/whatever.
  Just send a "startpoll" command to it via SMS (maybe also in conjunction with "data start" and "wifi start"), and it becomes interactive....though the method is pull instead of push.
  The polling service can also start automatically when a sim card change is detected at boot, which is another thing that's very clever about it.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
Why all the cops? by Virtucon · 2012-05-23 10:02 · Score: 5, Funny

That's because the kid had photo's of his dad that he used to blackmail him into getting the iPhone in the first place.

--
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
1. Re:Why all the cops? by LifesABeach · 2012-05-23 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  How much is an iPhone worth in the hands of a Oakland Cop?
The cops got a zero IQ by crazyjj · 2012-05-23 10:02 · Score: 4, Funny

But when you multiply that times 10, that's pretty smart.

--
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
1. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-23 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, IQ is multiplicative, not additive.
  
  --
  Palm trees and 8
2. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:40 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No need to be so divisive.
3. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Samantha+Wright · 2012-05-23 11:49 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  It really subtracts from the power of the humour value.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
4. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:14 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  While hyperbole allows the universal set of people to derive some functional curvature out of the equation, this tangent, while normal to the surface of the argument, really ignores the root of the problem and sets people off angle chasing.
5. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Samantha+Wright · 2012-05-23 12:55 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  ...I think you may have killed it.
  
  --
  Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
6. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:28 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe. But, this is a divisive argument, and you put 0 in the dividend.
7. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Hognoxious · 2012-05-23 21:45 · Score: 2
  
  Having failed to come up with a pun on exponential, I'm going drop a log.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
8. Re:The cops got a zero IQ by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 00:36 · Score: 0
  
  Are you kidding? His comment made it exponentially better!
That's the police for you by GodfatherofSoul · 2012-05-23 10:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

Unless you're related or f**king one of them, you can forget about timely justice. And, unless there's a chance they'll get to whip out a gun and play cops/robbers, you might as well fire up a pot of coffee because you're going to be waiting a while. My girlfriend is an asst. manager at a major chain store and they have a revolving door of the usual suspects and it's very low on law enforcement's priority.
But, some of the blame also falls on the court system which has found that chasing potheads is more lucrative than going after petty thieves.

--
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
1. Re:That's the police for you by icebraining · 2012-05-23 10:17 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Meanwhile, and where I live, the police did recover my brother's cheap-ass Nokia. The cop just sent a request for the phone's location to the mobile operator, along with my brother's signed statement on how he had lost his phone, identified a teenage kid who had stolen before, stopped by his house and got the phone back. Then they called my brother to go pick it up.
  
  --
  Dilbert RSS feed
2. Re:That's the police for you by Sancho · 2012-05-23 10:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The truth is, there's a lot of crime and not a lot of money for cops. And for most individuals who are burglarized, there's rarely enough evidence to even begin an investigation. The best you can usually hope for is to have serial numbers for some of your stuff and that when the thief screws up and gets caught, that you'll be able to get your stuff back then. More likely it's already been sold, though.
  The other truth is that all jobs have perks. Some people get to read Slashdot during the day. Some people don't have to pay for their own car or cell phone. And some people get more immediate attention from the police. Is it fair? No, but all of these things happen on a daily basis, and there's little sign that they will ever change.
3. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:26 · Score: 0
  
  You must live in a crime ridden area. I would suggest getting involved in reducing crime in your neighborhood, there are lots of ways you can work to improve your community. Bitching about how bad the cops are seldom does any good. I live in a relatively crime free area and I have a decent relationship with the local law enforcement. If someone stole my phone I'm fairly certain they would do what they could within a reasonable amount of time. Maybe it's because I don't go around telling people you have to be sleeping with one of them to get them to do their jobs. Respect goes a long way, as does having a decent attitude.
4. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 10:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Right, the trick is that the phone has to be taken to a location that you can uniquely identify, or be given to a person you can uniquely identify.
  The problem with any sort of GPS tracking is that it has an error range. If you can pin down that the phone is in my building, but the building has 120 units in it. Is it really worth search 120 units for a 500 dollar phone? Actually maybe it is, if in the long run you set the precedent that the police will hunt you down and arrest you if you steal a 500 dollar phone, but it might not be. Different people will have different tolerances for these things.
  One of my friends in san francisco had his iphone stolen with find my iphone on it. The guy who stole it took it to his own house. And as the article states if the police can real time track it guess what? Right. That guy got caught. Take it to an apartment, or an area with a lot of tightly grouped living spaces and you're SOL.
  All of which goes to show that all of the phone carriers need to have a stolen device list that will disable stolen phones.
5. Re:That's the police for you by Tanktalus · 2012-05-23 10:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The problem with any sort of GPS tracking is that it has an error range. If you can pin down that the phone is in my building, but the building has 120 units in it. Is it really worth search 120 units for a 500 dollar phone? Actually maybe it is, if in the long run you set the precedent that the police will hunt you down and arrest you if you steal a 500 dollar phone, but it might not be. Different people will have different tolerances for these things.
  Is it really worth running roughshod over the privacy of 119 innocent units to discover 1 alleged perpetrator?
  Damn, I think I just encouraged them.
6. Re:That's the police for you by causality · 2012-05-23 10:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The truth is, there's a lot of crime and not a lot of money for cops.
  Imagine the law enforcement resources that would be freed up and made available for real crimes (i.e. those with a victim) if we never prosecuted anything that happens among consenting adults. I bet a lot more thieves, rapists, and murderers would be behind bars.
  
  The other truth is that all jobs have perks. Some people get to read Slashdot during the day. Some people don't have to pay for their own car or cell phone. And some people get more immediate attention from the police.
  The difference being that everyone pays for police protection but some get better service than others. If you can read Slashdot during the day or have a company-supplied phone, that's between you and your employer. If that really bothered me for some reason, I could choose not to do business with you.
  
  Is it fair? No, but all of these things happen on a daily basis, and there's little sign that they will ever change.
  Maybe you didn't intend it this way but that sounds rather defeatist. None of that is a reason to give up and stop calling attention to abuses wherever they happen. None of that means we shouldn't expect better. If we never scrutinized these things, it would be far worse than it is right now.
  
  --
  It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
7. Re:That's the police for you by Shoe+Puppet · 2012-05-23 10:43 · Score: 1
  
  You don't have to do a full search. Unless the flat is really large, it would be enough to have a policeman stand in front of the open door and make the phone he's looking for make noise (either via the phone location app or just by calling it).
  
  --
  (+1, Disagree)
8. Re:That's the police for you by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-05-23 10:44 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The other truth is that all jobs have perks. Some people get to read Slashdot during the day. Some people don't have to pay for their own car or cell phone. And some people get more immediate attention from the police. Is it fair? No, but all of these things happen on a daily basis, and there's little sign that they will ever change.
  This isn't about fairness, it is about abuse of power. None of your other examples involve the public trust. The cops get all kinds of special privileges to enable them to do their jobs, so they have a higher standard to up hold than some guy driving to the grocery store in his company car.
  The reason there is little sign that this kind of abuse of power will stop is in part due to people making false equivalancies to excuse it.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
9. Re:That's the police for you by PIPBoy3000 · 2012-05-23 10:45 · Score: 2
  
  I had Prey installed on my son's laptop, which was stolen along with a bunch of other things. After I told Prey it was stolen, we got a geolocation hit in a nearby town with the name of the hotel in the WiFi. The local police went out at midnight and collected it all for us. We drove over in the morning and brought them brownies.
10. Re:That's the police for you by arth1 · 2012-05-23 10:46 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The problem with any sort of GPS tracking is that it has an error range. If you can pin down that the phone is in my building, but the building has 120 units in it. Is it really worth search 120 units for a 500 dollar phone? Actually maybe it is, if in the long run you set the precedent that the police will hunt you down and arrest you if you steal a 500 dollar phone, but it might not be.
  
  It would be illegal.
  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
  That you're one out of 120 who might have dunnit isn't "probable cause". This is exactly the kind of fishing expeditions that the amendment was designed to prevent. Even if you know a crime was committed, you can't use that as an excuse to search everyone.
  That doesn't stop cops and certain politicians from trying to do go fishing, of course. After all, if you look hard enough, few people are really 100% innocent, so you're bound to discover some crimes and make arrests, which will make you popular with the holier-than-thou part of the population.
11. Re:That's the police for you by digitig · 2012-05-23 10:49 · Score: 2
  
  You don't have to do a full search. Unless the flat is really large, it would be enough to have a policeman stand in front of the open door and make the phone he's looking for make noise (either via the phone location app or just by calling it).
  Sure, because no phone thieves would know how to switch a phone to silent.
  
  --
  Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
12. Re:That's the police for you by richlv · 2012-05-23 10:52 · Score: 2
  
  which country is that ?
  (north-eastern europe here)
  i have reported several car break-ins. "are you sure you want to report it ? maybe it wasn't very important ? well, we can't arrive very quickly, are you sure you want to wait ? we probably can't find them anyway"
  i have reported several garage/barn breakins. "are you sure you want to report it ? maybe it wasn't very important ? well, we can't arrive very quickly, are you sure you want to wait ? was anything actually taken ? we probably can't find them anyway. was it really something expensive ?"
  of course, nobody has ever been caught. i suspect that if i reported 10 dead bodies in my garage, they would go "well, can't you dispose of them in some fashion ? we probably can't do anything about it anyway. were they expensive ?"
  
  --
  Rich
13. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:54 · Score: 0
  
  But, some of the blame also falls on the court system which has found that chasing potheads is more lucrative than going after petty thieves.
  ahahahahahhahahahahahha oh man it's hilarious when someone starts what seems to be a valid argument then throws in some drug propaganda at the end
14. Re:That's the police for you by war4peace · 2012-05-23 11:00 · Score: 1
  
  If my employer doesn't like me hanging on Slashdot during my breaks, he can tell me or fire me eventually. If the cops don't pay attention to a genuine report, please tell me how could I fire them. 'Cause I'd do it in no time.
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
15. Re:That's the police for you by The+Good+Reverend · 2012-05-23 11:05 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Find My iPhone has a feature that allows you to play a tone, even if the phone is on silent.
  Of course, if the phone is off, you're screwed. At least you can remotely wipe it.
16. Re:That's the police for you by Ohrion · 2012-05-23 11:14 · Score: 1
  
  Find my iPhone will play a tone for 2 minutes at max volume, whether the device is in silent more or not. You can also wipe or put a pass-code on the device remotely. The thief, however, could either disable that feature before you get a chance to use it, or simply turn the device completely off.
17. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:19 · Score: 0
  
  Especially because this occurred in Berkeley CA, where they don't give a fuck about potheads.
18. Re:That's the police for you by izomiac · 2012-05-23 11:32 · Score: 1
  
  I can't speak for the rest of the world, but the vast majority of Americans don't live in cities. In a rural, or likely even suburban setting the phone's location is probably precise enough to identify a single-family dwelling. For apartments, the police could ask the tenants: "Have you seen anyone with a new [phone model] lately?" or "Who works at [other place the phone has been]?". They have alternatives to ransacking 120 apartments.
  
  Not that this is likely to matter much outside of NYC. I live in a downtown apartment in a major US city and my phone easily pinpoints my location to one half of my small apartment, as-are the wonders of WiFi triangulation.
19. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 11:38 · Score: 1
  
  So what's the correct error range? 2 units? 1? 1 with 3 inhabitants? We're arguing degree here.
  If you can pin down to a specific house with 1 resident, and that's legal, everything else is a matter of where you want to set the threshold for reasonable. I specifically left the statement open ended for that reason.
20. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 11:40 · Score: 1
  
  If the flat is really large you could probably pin it down more precisely too.
  Besides that find my iPhone is a specific implementation of a solution to a problem, that doesn't mean you couldn't construct a better, less privacy invasive and more viable solution as well.
21. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 11:44 · Score: 1
  
  http://proximityone.com/urbanpopulation.htm
  About 80% of the US population is Urban, but that would include suburban population as well and I can't find the data for which is which
  And ya, if the phone can provide data to within one apartment for example, why wouldn't you use that?
22. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:45 · Score: 0
  
  I can't speak for the rest of the world, but the vast majority of Americans don't live in cities.
  You must live in the distant past. Since 1920, a majority of Americans have lived in urban areas. By 2010,
  the U.S. was 82% urban.
  (By the way, the world as a whole became majority urban in 2007.)
23. Re:That's the police for you by RoccamOccam · 2012-05-23 11:51 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  The truth is, there's a lot of crime and not a lot of money for cops. And for most individuals who are burglarized, there's rarely enough evidence to even begin an investigation.
  That's why I'm part of our Neighborhood Watch. If I see a stranger in our neighborhood acting odd or dressed like a thug, then I'll confront them. That approach has worked pretty well for me, until recently.
24. Re:That's the police for you by Deliveranc3 · 2012-05-23 11:52 · Score: 1
  
  "have a stolen device list that will disable stolen phones."
  
  Mind describing how to do this in a way which can't be abused?
25. Re:That's the police for you by KlomDark · 2012-05-23 11:59 · Score: 0
  
  Very good, Mr Zimmermann!
26. Re:That's the police for you by Wandering+Voice · 2012-05-23 12:06 · Score: 2
  
  Interesting though how several years ago I had called the police several times about teenage kids hanging out in a group at the edge of the apt. building property. They would sit there smoking and swearing at each other, and would try to pick fights with other kids walking home from the school.
  As my kids were outside playing in the building's park space, I had asked the kids to leave. With no resolve, I called the police several times over the next few days. Nothing. Until one day I said that the kids were smoking something, and had tossed down a baggy or cigarette celophane. Within 2 minutes there were 3 cops on site questioning the kids.
27. Re:That's the police for you by izomiac · 2012-05-23 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  Hence why I said lives in cities. NYC has 8.2M people, then it's 3.8M, 2.7M, 2.1M, and 1.5M for the top five cities in the US. There's a long tail, but the population of the US is about 400M, which indicates the vast majority do not live in any of the major cities.
  
  Now, people often say they live in [closest city] for simplicity sake, so it's easy to assume everyone lives in a city. Overall population density has also increased , which makes the US census's "urban" classification kinda useless. So I said "city" to express a concept of places with a population density so high as include dozens or hundreds of people within GPS's margin of error.
  
  For some paper napkin math, the US has an average (and roughly median) population density of 88 people per square mile, with most states around 50 - 300. High-balling that with 500 people per square mile (top five states), that's one person per 55,757 square feet. Most people cluster into families, with an average household size of 2.5, so that's a 373 ft x 373 ft area. Worst case GPS accuracy is within 2000 square feet 95% of the time.
28. Re:That's the police for you by mirix · 2012-05-23 12:24 · Score: 1
  
  Why search the 120 units? Just wait until the phone moves somewhere that is less populated. Or perhaps moves to several populated places, and then cross-reference them.
  
  --
  Sent from my PDP-11
29. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:03 · Score: 0
  
  urban /= city; moron.
30. Re:That's the police for you by j-beda · 2012-05-23 13:34 · Score: 1
  
  I try to always report this type of stuff, just to increase the chances a report is filled out somewhere and statistics are generated. The local police always seem happy to take info over the phone. Granted, they could be just ignoring the information, but they always seem like they are interested in recording the data.
31. Re:That's the police for you by sjames · 2012-05-23 13:35 · Score: 1
  
  If you call them to report a dead body, be sure to say you think you see a joint in the decedent's pocket.
32. Re:That's the police for you by Dahamma · 2012-05-23 14:01 · Score: 2
  
  Do you live in a small town? I tried to report my phone stolen and they practically laughed at me (as, I have to admit, the AT&T service representative told me they would). And the thief even called a two people in the same town (I had the numbers on my statement!) within hours after it was taken (before I cancelled it). Unfortunately it was pre GPS days. But jeez, you watch a cop show on TV where they can solve a murder by looking at the contents of the victim's stomach and you think the real police are actually competent.
  Then again, these days in urban areas there are literally dozens or hundreds of phones lost and stolen every day, they basically just don't give a shit about your $400 loss when they have so many uninvestigated violent crimes and felony thefts to deal with...
33. Re:That's the police for you by Dahamma · 2012-05-23 14:10 · Score: 1
  
  The truth is, there's a lot of crime and not a lot of money for cops. And for most individuals who are burglarized, there's rarely enough evidence to even begin an investigation.
  Yes, and that's the entire POINT of the article. Call them out on it and it WILL change.
  And this guy had the arrogance/stupidity to abuse his power to get unfair attention in BERKELEY, a city where even the council members think of their police force as "dirty pigs". Basically, at this point he should probably be looking for a new job because they are never going to let it rest...
34. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 14:14 · Score: 0
  
  FREE drug propaganda? Oh, wait... I thought you said paraphernalia. Damn, I'm so high right now.
35. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:31 · Score: 1
  
  Collect enough samples and find the average center point. Should be right on the money if the device is stationary.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
36. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:33 · Score: 1
  
  I've personally heard such random complaints communicated to officers via radio to have checked out, including case number assignment. Even stupid shit like bags of dog poo left at doorsteps (pun intended). This is a fairly populous area, too.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
37. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:35 · Score: 1
  
  Those people who actually solve crimes are detectives and forensics. It's the beat cops and dispatch that laughed at you.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
38. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:37 · Score: 1
  
  Complain. Send a letter to city hall. If you can find someone in IA, tell them.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
39. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:38 · Score: 1
  
  Hence the "until recently" that you seemed to miss.
  Lets also not forget that was a single known occurrence. You don't throw out a whole truck of flour because of a single weevil.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
40. Re:That's the police for you by X0563511 · 2012-05-23 14:41 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Imagine that... treat them with respect and you are treated with respect in turn.
  Fucking shame people have forgotten this.
  
  --
  For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
41. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:13 · Score: 0
  
  You're at the mercy of the perpetrator's actions, then.
42. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:18 · Score: 0
  
  Remind me never to step foot into northeastern europe, if that's the case. It sounds like a ghetto in America.
43. Re:That's the police for you by arth1 · 2012-05-23 15:28 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  IANASCJ, but the key word is "probable".
  If there are two apartments, and a felony suspect went into one of them, and one of them houses a person with a long arrest record and the other doesn't, a judge may approve the search order as probable cause. And if it doesn't pan out, they now know have probable cause for the other house.
  But much more than that, and the fourth amendment protection trumps the police's desire to catch the criminal.
  Only when life and health is in imminent danger can they bypass this - if there is someone sniping from an apartment complex, they can search the entire premises because saving lives trumps the fourth amendment protection. Likewise for a bomb threat. But if it's a thief or pot smoker, they need to get an approved search warrant for every apartment they want to search.
44. Re:That's the police for you by CAIMLAS · 2012-05-23 15:35 · Score: 2
  
  This isn't about fairness, it is about abuse of power. None of your other examples involve the public trust.
  To be fair, this is the Berkeley PD we're talking about, here. It's not like there's a tax-paying public there. It's mostly students and professors, and everyone who actually makes money is (primarily) paid by the University. It's more like a corporate state of Greek times.
  
  --
  ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
45. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:48 · Score: 0
  
  I had Prey installed on my son's laptop, which was stolen along with a bunch of other things. After I told Prey it was stolen, we got a geolocation hit in a nearby town with the name of the hotel in the WiFi. The local police went out at midnight and collected it all for us. We drove over in the morning and brought them brownies.
  Ahem... I trust they weren't "magic" brownies, were they?
46. Re:That's the police for you by ThatsMyNick · 2012-05-23 16:29 · Score: 1
  
  Just the way other countries do it. When someone files a police complaint, a copy is forwarded to all cell phone providers (or one common association of cell phone providers, depending on the country). By law, the provider is supposed to block the cell phone from ever accessing their network. Voila, it can never be used in the country. This does not prevent cell phones from being shipped for use in another country. But works well enough, to reduce casual cell phone theft.
  
  In the US, the police report is good enough for insurance purpose. But for some reason it is not good enough to brick the phone.
47. Re:That's the police for you by KhabaLox · 2012-05-23 17:09 · Score: 1
  
  It would be illegal.
  "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
  No, no, no, no, no.
  That's unconstitutional. If the last 10 years have taught us anything, it is that unconstitutional things are legal.
  
  --
  Ceci n'est pas un sig.
48. Re:That's the police for you by KhabaLox · 2012-05-23 17:12 · Score: 1
  
  urban /= city; moron.
  Well, we are talking about Oakland, so that's urban by any definition.
  
  --
  Ceci n'est pas un sig.
49. Re:That's the police for you by KhabaLox · 2012-05-23 17:19 · Score: 1
  
  Imagine that... treat them with respect and you are treated with respect in turn.
  Fucking shame people have forgotten this.
  Exactly. If the police treated the general populace with respect more often, they'd get a lot more brownies.
  (In case you don't get it, you have your cause and effect backwards. The police got the brownies (i.e. treated with respect), after they did their job and retrieved the stolen property.)
  In my case, when my GPS unit got stolen out of my car in my driveway, the police simply filed a report so the theft would show up in the statistics. No investigation nor follow-up. Not that I blame them - how are they going to solve that crime? I didn't have the serial number or anything, so they couldn't even track it if it turned up in a pawn shop.
  
  --
  Ceci n'est pas un sig.
50. Re:That's the police for you by Dahamma · 2012-05-23 17:28 · Score: 2
  
  Those people who actually solve crimes on TV shows are detectives and forensics
  Sorry, couldn't resist - there I fixed it for you :)
51. Re:That's the police for you by Pieroxy · 2012-05-23 17:36 · Score: 1
  
  But then again, right from the app that gets you the location of said phone, there is a button to make the stolen property ring, and ring loud. Do you think it's so unlikely that they'll find the perpetrator with no mistake in that situation?
  Also, if the perpetrator is unaware of the police tracking him down, there is little chance he'll "hide" in a group of people. following the GPS signal for 5 minutes should be enough to identify the thief very precisely.
  
  --
  Write boring code, not shiny code!
52. Re:That's the police for you by icebraining · 2012-05-23 18:24 · Score: 1
  
  By your standards, it's probably a small town, yes. 85k inhabitants.
  
  --
  Dilbert RSS feed
53. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:33 · Score: 0
  
  You're at the mercy of the perpetrator's actions, then.
  So?
54. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:33 · Score: 0
  
  Purely speculative: perhaps in this case the 10 cops themselves thought their resource was used inappropriately, and performed accordingly.
55. Re:That's the police for you by Dahamma · 2012-05-23 18:37 · Score: 1
  
  Well... though I live in a larger city now, I grew up in a town of 20k, and my girlfriend grew up in a town of 4k - in fact, she grew up across the street from my grandparents. Which made it slightly less weird (given we live 2000 miles from said town) when the chief of police in her hometown messaged her on Facebook just to check if *my* grandmother was on vacation because he noticed her newspaper hadn't been picked up in 2 days.
  Anyway - I have seen *real* small town police who care about (and know) the residents (and, honestly, don't have all that much to do sometimes) which is why I was wondering :)
56. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:38 · Score: 0
  
  urban /= city; moron.
  What, exactly, is a "Urban slash equals city"?
  And more to the point, while Urban != City, It does mean "not rural", which is what was important to that discussion.
57. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 19:03 · Score: 1
  
  My point is even if that's how things are done in the US, there's no overarching reason why those thresholds need to be where they are. Past decisions without connection to modern technological capability don't help anyone, other than lawyers.
  I don't see why the fourth amendment particularly matters. You are (supposedly) protected from unreasonable searches, but the discussion has centred around what should count as reasonable, which is where the discussion should be. Besides that, I'm not making any particular claim as to what it should or should not be, because without a sense of how accurate a phone locator could be in 3D space (if they were required to be included to a particular tolerance for example) it's non starter of a discussion.
58. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 19:16 · Score: 1
  
  The US population is only about 310 million, and I live in a city of 400k people (not in the US thankfully), spread out over about 400 square kilometres. A significant portion of the population (most of the students and most of the seniors) live in high rise complexes in specific areas. Typically not more than a dozen floors or so, but once you get over about 4 floors it's a matter of how dense, not whether or not it counts as urban for our purposes.
  http://www.nmhc.org/Content.cfm?ItemNumber=55508 provides figures for housing. Of just the renters (not owners) about 50% of them living buildings with 2 or more units, and that numbers about 50 million people. Just renting. the last chart (State Distribution of Apartment Residents, 2010) averages out to about 10% of the population living in apartments, but split units would pose a similar problem.
  I'd go so far as to give the percent of the US population living in non uniquely identifiable buildings as somewhere around 50 million but definitely not more than 80 million and much more likely to be close to the 50 million number, or about 1/6th of the population.
59. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 19:18 · Score: 1
  
  This.
  All the carriers need to agree to share a database, and there's no reason the US couldn't share the database with anyone in a country that uses the same cellular technology.
  Falsely placing a phone on the system as stolen could be dealt with as fraud, which it would be.
60. Re:That's the police for you by Sir_Sri · 2012-05-23 19:20 · Score: 1
  
  So how much time do you really want to waste staking out a phone that they could simply dump in a bin for a week until it's out of charge.
  Also, I have no insight into how accurate the position could be determined in 3D space if one were so inclined as to make cell phones do that. In that case you may be able to narrow it down significantly.
61. Re:That's the police for you by adolf · 2012-05-23 19:28 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with any sort of GPS tracking is that it has an error range
  The best part about any sort of GPS tracking is that the error is a known, measured, and reported value.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
62. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 19:52 · Score: 0
  
  Sure you want to complain about cops?
  I mean they know where you live, where you work, where your cellphone is located, ... easy you get some preferential treatment from them too.
63. Re:That's the police for you by icebraining · 2012-05-23 20:11 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, it's not really the case here, we're too big for that. It's just routine.
  
  --
  Dilbert RSS feed
64. Re:That's the police for you by TuomasK · 2012-05-23 20:30 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think you can silence "Find my iPhone" app, unless you remove the battery.. which you can't do without tools and knowledge.
  
  --
  The truth or interpretation..
65. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 21:55 · Score: 0
  
  Only when life and health is in imminent danger can they bypass this - if there is someone sniping from an apartment complex, they can search the entire premises because saving lives trumps the fourth amendment protection.
  [citation needed]
66. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 23:25 · Score: 0
  
  In theory, yes. In current times, however, they can claim they "smell marijuana" which gives them "probable cause" to search your car, person, etc. And not even for crimes that threaten life, they can use this to arrest for simple possession. The protection of the 4th amendment has been eroded so far, that it really is just a formality now to get a warrant.
  This is one of the checks and balances that are supposed to be kept at bay by our judicial branch, however they have been surprisingly absent when it comes to protecting civil liberties. Time and time again, judges (from circuit court all the way up to the supreme court) are ruling in favor of law enforcement, regardless of their intrusion on the constitution.
67. Re:That's the police for you by worf_mo · 2012-05-24 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  Use the phone's IMEI to block access to the (phone) network. (Italian provider TIM outlines the procedure here.) No matter what operator the stolen phone is used with, even if the SIM card has been changed to one of a different operator in the meantime, the phone cannot be used anymore.
  Of course, an IMEI can be spoofed or changed by the technologically inclined, so a thief could still get away with it, but I would guess that for the majority of cases it simply works.
68. Re:That's the police for you by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:10 · Score: 0
  
  He probably meant /= as a bastardisation of the HTML convention where / indicates the end of a modifier - for example. "End of equal" and "not equal" are not the same thing, but it's good enough for army work.
69. Re:That's the police for you by arth1 · 2012-05-24 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  [citation needed]
  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
70. Re:That's the police for you by rthille · 2012-05-24 01:36 · Score: 1
  
  Powering the iPhone off (or simply running the battery down until it dies) will keep the "Find my iPhone" app from making any noise.
  
  --
  Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
71. Re:That's the police for you by AngryDeuce · 2012-05-24 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  Better yet, build yourself a little Faraday Cage and quarantine the stolen phone for a week or so, pretty much anyone sane will have given up the ghost long before then and just bought a new phone.
  Or, even easier, wrap it in aluminum foil. Thieves have been making booster bags with foil lining to block RFID tags from setting off alarms since almost as long as the RFID alarms have existed in the first place...
72. Re:That's the police for you by sbates · 2012-05-24 02:31 · Score: 1
  
  Imagine the law enforcement resources that would be freed up and made available for real crimes (i.e. those with a victim) if we never prosecuted anything that happens among consenting adults. I bet a lot more thieves, rapists, and murderers would be behind bars.
  I can't honestly believe this was considered insightful. Holy unsubstantiated argument, batman. You remind me of the Republicans when they argued government inflated the cost of healthcare. Obama's reply was that "we could reduce the price of meat substantially tomorrow. All we have to do is get rid of the food inspectors." I can only imagine all the ways in which your logical fallacy can be dissected.
73. Re:That's the police for you by operagost · 2012-05-24 03:11 · Score: 2
  
  Better yet, build yourself a little Faraday Cage [wikipedia.org] and quarantine the stolen phone for a week or so, pretty much anyone sane will have given up the ghost long before then and just bought a new phone.
  
  Dead men buy no phones.
  
  --
  
  Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
74. Re:That's the police for you by hoggoth · 2012-05-24 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  George, is that you?
  
  --
  - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
75. Re:That's the police for you by DaleSwanson · 2012-05-24 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  According to this first google result:
  http://www.nmhc.org/Content.cfm?ItemNumber=55508
  33% of Americains rent; of those, 42% live in building with 5 or more units. That gives about 14% of people living in large apartment buildings. I suppose this would have a problem with large multi-unit buildings that people can 'buy' single units of (eg condos).
76. Re:That's the police for you by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2012-05-24 12:41 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, this is the Berkeley PD we're talking about, here. It's not like there's a tax-paying public there. It's mostly students and professors, and everyone who actually makes money is (primarily) paid by the University. It's more like a corporate state of Greek times.
  What? Are you trying to say that because the tax burden for the police is not shared evenly then the police have less of a requirement to serve the public in general? Sounds like you are arguing for the cops being replaced with Pinkertons.
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
77. Re:That's the police for you by dewrox · 2012-05-24 13:12 · Score: 1
  
  That depends on the quality of the GPS device and how many satellites it tracks at a time. If you have enough you can get within less than 5 feet of the said device. Knowing Apple though they are probably using a hybrid GPS system that will either increase the error range dramatically or decrease it to the point that you would have elevation information as well that would allow you to tell what floor the said device is on.
78. Re:That's the police for you by Iamthecheese · 2012-05-25 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  Sadly in many states believing someone is destroying evidence or "smelling drugs" is sufficient.
  
  --
  If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

The only tech angle here is that the item in question is an iPhone.
Subsititute that for a car or a bike, would this story be here? Why or why not? I sense an an anti-LEO pattern on this site.
1. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:10 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Perhaps you should read a little harder.
  The fact that a service designed to help find stolen iPhones failed to work is why this is here.
2. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:16 · Score: 0
  
  It depends. Does the car or bike have a Lojack system installed?
  The point of this article is that the phone had a locator system installed and the cops were unable to find it. It implies that even with locator software, the police cannot find stolen property. This is very much a tech story.
  Stop being so paranoid.
3. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by cpu6502 · 2012-05-23 10:16 · Score: 1
  
  The tech angle is pretty obvious. It's in the 3rd-to- last sentence.
  Cops can't find our lost or stolen smartphones, even when said phone is broadcasting its location, so clearly that's a deficiency in the design.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
4. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by kencurry · 2012-05-23 10:24 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The tech angle is pretty obvious. It's in the 3rd-to- last sentence.
  Cops can't find our lost or stolen smartphones, even when said phone is broadcasting its location, so clearly that's a deficiency in the design.
  ... or is it just that the cops can't/won't take the final step? The location map was pretty accurate when I used it to see where I'd left my phone. There should be no mistake which house/building etc. That's all the system can really do for you.
  
  --
  sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
5. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by JustOK · 2012-05-23 10:33 · Score: 1
  
  and the phone was turned off before the cops got to the last known location.
  
  --
  rewriting history since 2109
6. Re:How Is This Story News For Nerds??! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:00 · Score: 0
  
  >> anti-LEO
  We're Slashdot.
  We don't like spam.
  Spam is made of pork.
  Pork is made of pigs.
  The police are pigs.
  Therefore:
  We don't like the police.
Shouldn't this have the monty python icon... by BMOC · 2012-05-23 10:07 · Score: 3

In honor of the professional and successful police investigation?
//sarcasm^2

--
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
if the greedy telecoms.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:08 · Score: 1

.....would just agree to brick phones when they are reported lost or stolen, there'd be no market for stolen phones. And people would stop stealing them.
But AT&VzwSprT-Mo won't do that, because they want everyone's cash, whether it's the person who bought the phone or the person who stole it. The cash is all the same color, so they don't give a sh!t.
1. Re:if the greedy telecoms.... by Whorhay · 2012-05-24 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Well that and it'd be a nice way to grief someone. Just have a nasty breakup with a significant other, you might want to get a new phone and number because she might report your current one as stolen.
Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:08 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'm under no illusion that "Find my iphone" will recover my stolen phone, but it's been great for those. "Ah shit where's my phone?" Moments.
Just knowing where it is, or weather or not it's stolen, or if you left it at your friends or your parents house is good enough. Its the unknown quantity that's scary.
The GPS is indeed accurate enough to determine things like. "Oh, it's in my car parked outside" - Done that from both home and work with my iphone and my ipad2 w/3g
1. Re:Still useful. by Belial6 · 2012-05-23 10:28 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  GPS tracking has recovered my son's stolen phone on one occasion. He was at a children play facility, and his phone was in his cubby with his shoes. When we came to pick him up, the phone was gone. The owners of the facility were quick to remind us that they are not responsible for lost or stolen items, and they had no idea what might have happened to the phone.
  
  I explained that while it would be unfortunate if someone walked off with it, they didn't need to worry about it as I had the phone updating it's GPS location. I proceeded to look up the phones location using my own phone. That's when it was 'remembered' that one of the employees "put the phone in the office to make sure no one stole it."
2. Re:Still useful. by PRMan · 2012-05-23 12:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Time to put your kid in another day care...
  
  --
  Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
3. Re:Still useful. by vlueboy · 2012-05-23 14:48 · Score: 1
  
  My old and "disconnected" dumb phone still has a more useful alarm feature than any Android phone due to design choices of the OS makers. It wakes up from full "Off" mode to beep at me (these are all non-MP3 presets, mind you) and then goes right back to Off when I am awake.
  The problem is that I keep misplacing it because it is so small, and the trick of dialing its number doesn't work since it's off the grid. Given that it can make emergency calls, it's still not entirely invisible should the police need to turn on the spying power. It would be awesome if I could track down my own phone via its always-on GPS beacon. I mean, the authorities that we pay for with tax mondy are able to in the US, so why can't we since we're already paying for the feature?
  I decided to just use airplane mode and make the phone last many times more off a single charge after realizing that GPS and emergency services are just a dead weight since my smartphone duplicates that functionality.
4. Re:Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:13 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  Did they point out how fucked up it is that your kid who goes to a 'childrens play facility' has a cell phone too? Seriously? You pretty much deserve to have it stolen for being such a douche.
5. Re:Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:52 · Score: 0
  
  Did they point out how fucked up it is that your kid who goes to a 'childrens play facility' has a cell phone too? Seriously? You pretty much deserve to have it stolen for being such a douche.
  Ok, so when my kid needs to call me for a ride, or there's an emergency and he needs to call 911, what would you suggest he do? Look around for the one remaining pay phone within a 500 mile radius? Ask the man who shoved him into the van if he can borrow his cell phone?
  The only douche here is you.
6. Re:Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 19:01 · Score: 0
  
  I'm coming across as petty and jealous, but why the fuck do you give an iPhone to a child young enough to need daycare?
  This is my WTF moment for the day...people like you just don't have a fucking clue.
7. Re:Still useful. by Belial6 · 2012-05-23 19:12 · Score: 1
  
  It wasn't day care. It was a business that runs an indoor inflatable playground. Bounce house type structures. But, no, we have not been back.
8. Re:Still useful. by Belial6 · 2012-05-23 19:12 · Score: 1
  
  Irony....
9. Re:Still useful. by seinman · 2012-05-24 00:42 · Score: 1
  
  Who said anything about an iPhone? The OP just said cell phone, and didn't mention the "Find my iPhone" app or anything, just "GPS tracking." My brother had a $10 flip phone that had that feature. We had a service called family locator, and even the cheapest phones they sold supported it. I don't see a problem with giving a child an inexpensive cell phone, especially since pay phones are few and far between these days.
10. Re:Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:02 · Score: 0
  
  Not only that - time to call the cops and get the sods arrested for attempted theft.
11. Re:Still useful. by RobertLTux · 2012-05-24 02:10 · Score: 1
  
  Oi you need to mellow your vibe a bit since ToysRUs has sold phones for a while that are more or less primarily designed to be a kid tracker (with the number 2 function being calling "home" "Mom" "Dad" ect). Now if you are spendy enough (and use an Older iThing) i could see teaching a 5 year old hit this picture and then this picture to call Me that picture to call Mom and this other picture to call Papa Johns (after doing some presetting with said pizza place).
  
  --
  Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
12. Re:Still useful. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 04:09 · Score: 0
  
  Why does your kids have a phone if he still requires daycare?
Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by cpu6502 · 2012-05-23 10:09 · Score: 1, Troll

Probably spent close to $1000 in overtime pay just to find a $200 phone. Ridiculous. We should turn police duties over to a private company that way, when they do dumb shit like this, we can fire them and hire a different company. But as things stand now, we taxpayers are forced to eat the thousand dollar loss.

--
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
1. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-05-23 10:13 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  To be fair, the $1000 also goes towards attempting to convict a thief which may in this case itself recover more stolen goods or prevent other goods from being stolen. In the wider world it may also produce a deterrent effect against future crime. I imagine that if cops never went after any stolen goods there would be even more theft.
2. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:18 · Score: 0
  
  We should turn police duties over to a private company [...]
  What could possibly go wrong?
3. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Sancho · 2012-05-23 10:25 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think I want to live in a world where the cops will only investigate crimes if the financial loss due to the crime is greater than the cost of the investigators time.
  Actually, as a supporter of the 2nd amendment, maybe I do want to live in that world.
4. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by cpu6502 · 2012-05-23 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  What the hell are you talking about? There's no thief. The kid lost his phone.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
5. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by cpu6502 · 2012-05-23 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  Never mind. I reread the summary... it was stolen. Nevertheless I STILL don't think it's worthwhile to spend $1000 to recover a $200 item. That's just very, very bad financial planning and would be cheaper if the taxpayers just directly-bought a new iPhone for the little kid.
  Now if there was a rash of stolen phones, such that the total lost value exceeded $1000, THEN it would be worth the expenditure to recover the 2000 or 3000 dollars worth of phones. BUT that does not appear to be the case here. The article says nothing about a serial thief.
  Disclosure: I hate government. I hate corporations. I hate monopolies. I don't trust ANY of these organizations, or the ways they abuse the people below them.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
6. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by rogueippacket · 2012-05-23 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  While I'm positive your intentions are good, here is what I read from your comment - that the ends justify the means, and you're perfectly happy with spending money to get convictions because surely more convictions means less crime. Neither ideal is uncommon in North America and Western Europe this decade, but I just simply have to ask - did you consider that time and money could have been better spent in the community? After all, law enforcement agencies are servants to society - it [used to be] their job to play an active role in the welfare of the community as a whole by taking on systemic issues proactively, not simply racking up convictions and recovering property of private citizens.
  Who knows, maybe this is just a reflection of the direction our society is going. At the end of the day, a conviction is a metric that can be tracked - but taking the time to educate a room full of children why they shouldn't steal has no immediate, tangible benefit.
7. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by crakbone · 2012-05-23 10:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I just slipped right out of the kid's school locker and manged to hop a bus to Oakland. That Siri is far more adept than I ever expected.
8. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:54 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, after you've found the guy who stole the phone you patiently tell him that you'd like him to give it back, he gives it back, and that's the end of it, right?
  No, sir. You make the idiot pay for the police investigation, and some more.
9. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by cpu6502 · 2012-05-23 11:03 · Score: 1
  
  >>>You make the idiot pay for the police investigation, and some more.
  No because most of these idiots don't have the money.... that's why they stole in the first place. Better for police to weigh the cost of an investigation. If it costs $1000 to recover a $200 phone, it's not worth it. The police chief can buy his kid a new phone.
  If it costs $1000 to recover 3000 dollars worth of phones..... then go for it. This is the same analysis a private insurance company does: Do they fix your car after it's recovered... or do they just hand you $500 and junk it. In my case the car was 20 years old so they junked it. Police need to do the same cost-benefit analysis.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
10. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by war4peace · 2012-05-23 11:07 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Um, how much would you value a rape, then? Or a beating? Or domestic violence? Or even murder?
  It would be interesting to see a world where such calculations are being performed.
  Oh, so the guy punched you repeatedly in the face and stole 100 USD from you? Right. How much was the hospital charging you? 2000 USD? I see. So that's a total of 2100 USD. Well, we can have one officer spend 5 days investigating this, then tough luck buddy. Maybe next time you'll get lucky and he'll stab you in the liver, I heard those wounds are expensive to heal and we'd be able to investigate the incident for one whole month.
  Yeah, would be interesting to live in such a world, indeed...
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
11. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Karl+Cocknozzle · 2012-05-23 11:09 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I just slipped right out of the kid's school locker and manged to hop a bus to Oakland. That Siri is far more adept than I ever expected.
  That Siri is a wild bitch... One weekend a few years back, she and I rented a convertible, drove out to Vegas, and took mushrooms with 8 strippers. Yadda yadda yadda, three days later Siri has maxed all her (and my) credit cards, done all 8 strippers (and me) and passed out naked on a craps table. I might hang with her again, but I'm not bringing my credit cards... I just now got out of debt.
  The worst part is I she talks like that during sex, too. The bonging gets a little old...
  
  --
  Who did what now?
12. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-05-23 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  but taking the time to educate a room full of children why they shouldn't steal has no immediate, tangible benefit.
  Hard to argue successfully that someone shouldn't steal when you're also saying "we really don't have time to catch thieves, which is why we wish you wouldn't"....
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
13. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:23 · Score: 0
  
  Because we already pay people to "educate a room full of children why they shouldn't steal" (hint: they're called teachers)...AND in the communities I grew up in at least, law enforcement was regularly visiting school campuses and giving assemblies on community issues (DARE, "Just Say No", McGruff...etc.).
  By the way...an iPhone is NOT a $200 device...it retails for $599. So if some of us are going to use pricing as justification for going after/not going after the perp then at least get the dollar values correct.
14. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Grave · 2012-05-23 11:50 · Score: 1
  
  Wow. Really? Theft is very easy to put a value on. It's a phone worth a few hundred dollars, or a car worth a few thousand/tens of thousands, etc. We're not talking about rape/murder/violence being quantified into a dollar amount here - those are crimes worth going after without regard to cost, and the bulk of society agrees on that.
  What we are talking about, however, is wasting huge amounts of money to recover something that isn't worth it, and that is not even standard operating procedure. Do we spend $1000 in overtime (plus the normal usage/regular time of ten cops) every time a phone gets stolen? Hell no! That's the issue here - one kid gets special treatment over a low-value theft. If the crime rate in that town was zero except for this one incident, then by all means spend the time and money to pursue it if the taxpayers will allow it.
15. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by j-beda · 2012-05-23 13:46 · Score: 1
  
  It might cost more for a single investigation than can get recovered, but it can also be a deterrent, or the opening in a case against a career thief and fencing operation.
  Also, who determines the "value" of the stolen item? They took the hand crafted "world's greatest dad" mug from the father of the child who just lost the battle against leukemia - how much is that worth? How about the stolen medical records that have no monetary value, but havev privacy implications?
  I don't know what the best solution is, but it is not clear to me that law enforcement is equipped to make the this type of determination of "value".
  Chasing down stolen phones might be a better use of police time than some of the other tasks that they routinely do.
16. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by sjames · 2012-05-23 14:19 · Score: 1
  
  It makes perfect economic sense. It's not likely that the thief will steal just the one item and never offend again, especially if he sees nobody is even looking. Of course you can't know for sure until you collar the guy but it's a good bet to make.
  The last thing we need would b for it to get out that thefts less than some cut-ioff value are free.
17. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by AHuxley · 2012-05-23 15:55 · Score: 1
  
  Its the data that could be vital. A simple bbq pic of a group of older men and woman that?
  With DHS, fusion centers, a lot of interesting federal people are now mixing with local police forces.
  People with histories in Africa, South America, Asia in the 1980's, 1990's.
  Playing coloured traces games with Russian 'advisors' by night, helping clear Communist villages by day.
  You could have 100 of years of combined US experience and long term mil training exposed on a simple picture.
  Or one undercover who just retired.
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
18. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by war4peace · 2012-05-23 21:28 · Score: 1
  
  OK, let me rephrase.
  I'm talking here about prioritization. When you have bigger, more severe issues to deal with (as police), of course you don't go and hunt for a stolen phone. But what if there's nothing that day? Then you allocate resources to whatever's left to do.
  I'm not saying that's the case in the article, but generally speaking, that's what you need to do as police. Besides, don't forget about the moral impact of the theft. When someone steals from police chief's son and gets away with it, people's perception is that the police is ballless, and even more so they proved this since they couldn't even recover it.
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
19. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by halcyon1234 · 2012-05-24 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, would be interesting to live in such a world, indeed...
  You'd have the petty criminals lobbying for increases in police salary, to the point where there exists a certain crime value that becomes literally impossible to investigate.
  Shoplifters (Under $125) Local 115 Supports Our Police!
  
  --
  UTF-8: There and Back Again
20. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by war4peace · 2012-05-24 03:11 · Score: 1
  
  Ha, something like "This investigation will last 10 seconds starting from when we filled the paperwork, meaning that it's over and you have to pay us 10K USD for overtime".
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
21. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by cpu6502 · 2012-05-24 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  >>>It's not likely that the thief will steal just the one item and never offend again
  A common misconception. Studies show that most people have committed at least one crime, usually petty theft, and never done it again. Just as many people have smoked weed, or hired a stripper, and never done it again. The "if you steal once, you'll steal again" belief is a myth.
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
22. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by sjames · 2012-05-24 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, but most of the thefts out there are done by repeat offenders, so for any particular theft, the odds favor a repeat offender.
23. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Phisbut · 2012-05-24 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  Wow. Really? Theft is very easy to put a value on. It's a phone worth a few hundred dollars, or a car worth a few thousand/tens of thousands, etc. We're not talking about rape/murder/violence being quantified into a dollar amount here - those are crimes worth going after without regard to cost, and the bulk of society agrees on that.
  You can't really know the real value of what you're going to find until you actually find it. Thieves rarely steal exactly one item then retire from the thieving business. Chances are this guy either already stole other stuff, or will steal again in the future. If the cops recover the $200 phone and at the same time find thousands of dollars worth of other stolen goods, then all of a sudden, your waste of money just became profitable from your own calculations. And if catching the guy merely prevents him from stealing again, then we all end up better off in the end. Removing a thief from circulation, how much is that worth to society?
  
  --
  After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
  - The Tao of Programming
24. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Rich0 · 2012-05-24 14:05 · Score: 1
  
  Never mind. I reread the summary... it was stolen. Nevertheless I STILL don't think it's worthwhile to spend $1000 to recover a $200 item.
  I think it is completely worthwhile if when somebody steals a $200 phone we spend $10k for the police to figure out who did it, $20k on the trial, and $100k jailing the guy for a year, even if in the process the $200 gets dropped and is broken.
  Law enforcement isn't about the value of a single crime - it is about the cost of the millions of crimes that would happen if people thought they could get away with them because nobody cared about small crimes.
  When I was a kid somebody sprayed graffiti on my school building. The next day it was gone, at a taxpayer-funded cost of $20k from what I heard, and it was made a very big deal of by the authorities. Most considered it money well-spent. If you left it there, the next week there would be more marks, until the whole place was covered in them. I don't follow the local news there anymore, but for quite a few years the event never happened again.
  That was basically Guiliani's claim to fame (before 9/11) - whether you're an R or a D most admit he did a decent job cutting crime in NYC, and it was mostly done by cracking down on silly little crimes that don't cost much but generally are the kinds of crimes people start out on before they move on to more serious crimes. By getting rid of the casual attitude towards minor crimes you can have a big impact on the major crimes down the road.
  I'm not for living in a police state, and laws against victimless crimes generally need to be eliminated. However, things like vandalism and theft are generally stuff we can all agree is wrong, and we should be getting rid of them.
25. Re:Penny wide; Dollar foolish. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-25 05:19 · Score: 0
  
  >>>It's not likely that the drunk driver will drive drunk just that one time and never offend again
  A common misconception. Studies show that most people have driven after drinking at least once, usually slightly over the legal limit, and never done it again. The "if you drive drunk once, you'll drive drunk again" belief is a myth.
  Hmm, interesting line of reasoning.
MPAA RIAA by Dj+Stingray · 2012-05-23 10:09 · Score: 5, Funny

If that iPhone was downloading illegal music/movies I bet they would find it in no time.
1. Re:MPAA RIAA by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:38 · Score: 0
  
  Not necessarily.
  What they would find, however, is someone "responsible" for the download.
2. Re:MPAA RIAA by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:28 · Score: 0
  
  They've never found me.
Also intimidates journalists by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:09 · Score: 2, Informative

He earlier sent an officer to a journalist's house in the middle of the night to intimidate him.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/11/BANH1NJ73K.DTL
Well, what about we think a bit.... by InspectorGadget1964 · 2012-05-23 10:10 · Score: 0

Let’s be analytical about this. Would a sane, intelligent and capable person voluntarily put themselves into harm’s way on a daily basis? Would a sane, intelligent and capable person put himself / herself in a position where is set against violent criminals? Obviously not. Cops are not sane, intelligent and capable persons. They have become cops because the other options were working refilling shelves in supermarkets. They do not have an IQ of 180. If they did, they would be doctors, engineers, architects or something else that is both useful and rewarding. Don’t go around bashing people just because they are not as smart as we are people!
1. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:22 · Score: 0
  
  Here is to sincerely hoping your sarcasm has wooshed over my head. The alternative is mind boggling.
2. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by ClioCJS · 2012-05-23 10:26 · Score: 1
  
  You do realize being a garbage man or taxi driver or farmer is more dangerous than being a cop, right?
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
  Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
3. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:31 · Score: 0
  
  A taxi driver? Maybe. But that's only because all of the cops are out looking for their boss's son's iPhone and not protecting the public.
  But a garbage man? Citation please.
  I don't need a citation for farmer though. Woody's farm-accident-horror stories on Cheers are good enough for me.
4. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:02 · Score: 0
  
  Would a sane, intelligent and capable person voluntarily put themselves into harm’s way on a daily basis? Would a sane, intelligent and capable person put himself / herself in a position where is set against violent criminals?
  Yes, because they are better people than you.
5. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:22 · Score: 0
  
  Would a sane, intelligent and capable person voluntarily put themselves into harm’s way on a daily basis?
  People work at dangerous jobs every day. In USA, taxi drivers are more likely to die on the job than a police officer is. In fact, law enforcement doesn’t even make the list of top ten deadliest jobs in the USA.
6. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by nedlohs · 2012-05-23 13:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Garbage men have a fatality rate of 30 per 100,000 according to http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/pf/jobs/1108/gallery.dangerous_jobs/8.html
  Law enforcement has a fatality rate of 14 per 100,000 according to http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/archive/summer1999art1.pdf
  Different years, but police fatality rates haven't more than doubled in ten years.
  http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0009.pdf has farmers/ranchers at 42 per 100,000
  And http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.Most_dangerous_jobs/10.html has taxi drivers at 19 per 100,000.
  So out of farmers, garbage men, taxi drivers, and police the police have the safest (in terms of not getting killed) job.
7. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by InspectorGadget1964 · 2012-05-23 13:41 · Score: 1
  
  Did I touch a raw nerve there? I whish you had at least the guts of using your name instead of posting like an anonymous coward to insult me. Anyway, some of those people that you claim to be “better” than me are so violent and corrupted that they make it to the news with rather amazing frequency. For being so much better than me I guess..
8. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  Does that take into account that the police retire way younger than farmers?
9. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by Rich0 · 2012-05-24 14:07 · Score: 1
  
  Does it need to? Perhaps part of the danger of being a farmer is that you'll make so little that you'll need to work until you die, increasing your risk of dying young.
10. Re:Well, what about we think a bit.... by SockPuppetOfTheWeek · 2012-05-25 05:39 · Score: 1
  
  No. But since fatality rate per 100,000 workers is an annual figure, not a career figure, it actually works in exactly the opposite direction as you probably would have assumed. The figure means that for every 100,000 ranchers, you can expect about 42 ranchers to die in work-related accidents every year, not just at some point in their entire careers. Working well beyond normal retirement would compound that risk further. Retiring earlier means less likelihood of dying in a work-related accident.
  Although I imagine there's a pretty big difference between fresh new cops who get put on the streets and the older cops who have been there for a few decades and have seniority to get the less-dangerous desk jobs.
not necessarily by Chirs · 2012-05-23 10:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm sure that there exist police officers who are doing the job because they think it needs doing and someone else would do it worse.
1. Re:not necessarily by Hatta · 2012-05-23 10:24 · Score: 2
  
  Those types don't last long. In fact, they specifically reject those who perform well on intelligence tests because they don't want to invest in training someone who is smart enough to realize just how fucked law enforcement actually is and flee.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
2. Re:not necessarily by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:34 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sure you're right, but, you only need more than one of those to exist and you are right. It could be less than 3 total on the whole planet and you'd still be right, so you aren't saying much there bucko!
3. Re:not necessarily by MRe_nl · 2012-05-23 23:20 · Score: 1
  
  There's three types of police-officers: Stupid, Frustrated and Criminal.
  All of them are doing the job because they think it needs doing and someone else would do it worse.
  How is this an accolade?
  
  --
  "Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
How about some crack? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:25 · Score: 0

Did they stumble upon any meth while they were searching for the iPhone?
Thieves with Half a Brain by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:29 · Score: 0

Know you need to turn off a stolen cellphone and sell it to the guy who ships them to Asia...for cash.
This could also mean .. by n5vb · 2012-05-23 10:31 · Score: 1

.. that none of the ten officers they sent out looking for the phone were good at correlating live location data on a map to real-world locations. You'd be surprised how many people, cops included, lack that very basic spatial-visualization skill.
Then again, if the phone was physically well hidden and the people around it had enough acting talent to not look too hinky, it would be pretty difficult for the cops to make much progress even if they *could* narrow down to a relatively small radius. And depending on the EPE of the phone's GPS and the resolution of its tower location, the radius might not have been that small. (And the hiding location could have been specifically selected to optimize that..)
1. Re:This could also mean .. by R3d+M3rcury · 2012-05-23 12:45 · Score: 1
  
  ...or they could have removed the SIM card and turned off the phone.
  Presto. Problem solved.
Wrong Division by MikeMacK · 2012-05-23 10:31 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, it was a mistake to use the Keystone division...
1. Re:Wrong Division by sco08y · 2012-05-23 11:11 · Score: 1
  
  Well, it was a mistake to use the Keystone division...
  Berkley has another?
Technology is becoming more advanced by Deliveranc3 · 2012-05-23 10:33 · Score: 1

And criminals are becoming better educated. Society needs to invest in more and better trained police and judges.

With more and better trained policemen, detectives, and judges spending on intelligence services and civil rights violations could be cut. The types of crime that make people feel disenfranchised could be cut down and society could be a better, safer and happier place.

Currently law enforcement budgets are being cut, putting "serve and protect" on the back burner. Funds are being dumped into homeland security which treats some crimes differently than others leading to people feeling that the system is biased. Further it is eroding our civil liberties, which again makes people dislike their government and society and increases anxiety and hostility towards authority.

It's really a no brainer.
1. Re:Technology is becoming more advanced by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-23 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  With more and better trained policemen, detectives, and judges spending on intelligence services and civil rights violations could be cut.
  This is a false dichotomy...
  
  --
  Palm trees and 8
2. Re:Technology is becoming more advanced by narcc · 2012-05-23 11:27 · Score: 1
  
  This is a false dichotomy...
  It's not a dichotomy, false or otherwise.
  
  --
  Required reading for internet skeptics
Can the phone call for help? by nbauman · 2012-05-23 10:43 · Score: 1

Cops are always saying that they don't have a right to search a location based on the "Find My iPhone" signal.
After you've tracked down the location, and you bring the cops along, can you make the iPhone call out at top volume, "HELP! POLICE! SAVE ME!"?
1. Re:Can the phone call for help? by FunPika · 2012-05-23 11:07 · Score: 1
  
  Apparently the "Find my iPhone" app they were using has the ability to start playing a loud alarm.
  
  --
  After years of not using a signature, I am going to make one to say the following: Fuck Beta
Here's something I would like to know by corisco · 2012-05-23 10:49 · Score: 0

How many cops does it take to find an iPhone ?
uneducated by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:49 · Score: 0

it just proves your cops are uneducated rejects that couldn't get a job anywhere else on planet earth...
stuck in the 80's america...
Took ten... by DarwinSurvivor · 2012-05-23 10:52 · Score: 0

So apparently it's easier to pull over Sam Roberts than it is to find an iPhone transmitting its location.
Their checks don't bounce, right? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 10:53 · Score: 0

That should be enough respect there. Don't like it? Then quit mouthafucker, McDonalds is always hiring.
Wrong Conclusion by whisper_jeff · 2012-05-23 11:16 · Score: 1

'If 10 cops who know a neighborhood can't find an iPhone that's broadcasting its location, that shouldn't give you a lot of confidence in your own vigilante recovery of a stolen iProduct
Uh, no. That gives me no confidence in those cops. Sorry, but that doesn't speak to the effectiveness of Find My iPhone - it speaks to the effectiveness of _10_ cops...
Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by MichaelJ · 2012-05-23 11:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

Just this past weekend my wife lost her iPhone after stopping at a highway rest area. I knew from Find My iPhone that it was at the rest area, but there was no phone on the grass at the GPS point. Then the point moved to the far side of the parking lot. It wasn't there, either. It moved several more times, all of which led to the conclusion that it had to be inside - that despite claiming a location and even drawing an accuracy circle on the map, it was not where it claimed to be. I searched inside several buildings, had the attendants check the ladies' room (all the while using Find My iPhone to make the phone beep).
Finally, after over an hour, an attendant and I went out to the dumpsters in back, stuck our heads in, and heard it ringing. That guided us to the right bag, and lo and behold, there it was.
So yes, Find My iPhone was terrific in that without it, I would never have been able to recover my wife's iPhone. However, given what I went through in an otherwise relatively empty area, I can't imagine what one would do if the signal was coming from near a large apartment complex, a school, a parking garage, even a dense neighborhood of single-family homes could show the GPS point in the wrong location if the phone's inside. Sometimes it's just better to take advantage of the remote wipe feature and start all over.
I cannot, of course, defend in any way the use of police resources in this particular case. I'm sure we'd all want to help our kid out similarly, but I imagine the smart among us would have done it informally and off the clock.

--

Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
1. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by Deliveranc3 · 2012-05-23 11:59 · Score: 1
  
  "I cannot, of course, defend in any way the use of police resources in this particular case. I'm sure we'd all want to help our kid out similarly, but I imagine the smart among us would have done it informally and off the clock."
  
  Really you see no benefit to teaching a child that the police really do work. That they take theft and other crime seriously and are effective in deterring it?
  That the phone was really misplaced and not stolen? With all the implications for that child's perspective on what society is and means?
2. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:07 · Score: 0
  
  Sure, the kid might learn a good lesson about respecting cops. Of course, if his dad's the chief, he probably doesn't need that lesson.
  I would image however, every other kid that's lost a phone and maybe got a constable to look into it 2 weeks after the fact, isn't learning a lesson about respect. They're learning about nepotism, and abuse of privilege.
  If the chief ordered his subordinates on the public dime, that's inappropriate & inconsistent with the notion that everyone has equal access to the law. Of course, I've never been to Berkeley. Maybe there's an epidemic of phone theft, and the chief's son just happens to be one of many case files being assigned 10 officers, some from the drug task force, working overtime?
3. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:51 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  Yeah, there's no such thing as a panacea. Get over it, fucktard.
  
  What do Slashfags always act like there needs to be some do-it-all technology that just can't be trump by human error or malice? It gets old listening to you fucks moan on about your 200 dollar cellphones not cleaning your ass after you shit.
4. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by MichaelJ · 2012-05-23 14:25 · Score: 1
  
  The kid's dad is chief of police. The kid already has a different perspective on what the police do than the rest of us. If anything I think the lesson here became "the police do work for Daddy's family" and maybe friends. Now, if you'd made it 2 cops instead of 10, and a class of students, you could have had a teaching lesson about theft and recovery. That'd actually be novel, and appropriate.
  
  --
  
  Michael J.
  Root, God, what is difference?
5. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by MichaelJ · 2012-05-23 14:27 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, the vibrating action is quite cleansing.
  
  --
  
  Michael J.
  Root, God, what is difference?
6. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 16:42 · Score: 0
  
  They find out about reality
7. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:56 · Score: 0
  
  Really you see no benefit to teaching a child that the police really do work.
  The benefit I see in what they DID do, is that the child will learn that people who have connections and privilege can get an entire police department to look for their lost trinkets while serious crimes are ignored.
8. Re:Find My iPhone is great, but not a panacea by MichaelJ · 2012-05-23 23:37 · Score: 0
  
  Bwahaha! Never had a 13-year-old call me that before. Life never ceases to amaze me.
  
  --
  
  Michael J.
  Root, God, what is difference?
just buy a 40$ tracfone by issicus · 2012-05-23 11:29 · Score: 0

those things are disposable
1. Re:just buy a 40$ tracfone by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:24 · Score: 0
  
  but most kids don't believe their 'rep' or 'street cred' is disposable... which is why they must have the latest and 'greatest' gadgets.
lost... or sold by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 11:42 · Score: 0

The kid may have sold the phone on ebay, pocketed the 400-500 bucks and reported it stolen to get a new one.
Don't cut cops? by superdave80 · 2012-05-23 11:44 · Score: 0

The next time I see a bunch of Oakland police union leaders screaming about not cutting anymore cops, I'm going to laugh in their face and show them this article.
The fact that ten cops have time to dick around on such a trivial thing indicates they have too many cops already.
1. Re:Don't cut cops? by fluffy99 · 2012-05-23 16:12 · Score: 1
  
  The next time I see a bunch of Oakland police union leaders screaming about not cutting anymore cops, I'm going to laugh in their face and show them this article.
  The fact that ten cops have time to dick around on such a trivial thing indicates they have too many cops already.
  Or, it means all the cops were scared for their jobs and were trying to win brownie points by finding the Chiefs kids phone.
2. Re:Don't cut cops? by superdave80 · 2012-05-23 17:21 · Score: 1
  
  Then they're shitty cops if they are worried about their job more than protecting the public.
apple by jsh1972 · 2012-05-23 11:55 · Score: 0

Hey should have got the cops that went to the guy's house with apple's detective over the iPhone he allegedly found left in a bar after the LAST iPhone had also been left in a bar pre-release. Hmmmmm. Anyway, yeah, those cops could find the SHIT out of an iPhone!
another example of by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 12:04 · Score: 0

a public sector PIG feeding at the public trough
I think you have it all wrong by the_Bionic_lemming · 2012-05-23 12:20 · Score: 1

A lot of comments here are about incompetence at not finding a phone with a map and location etched in X.
I think they were standing next to the guy who had the I-phone, and that guy was cowering and frantically trying to hand over the phone to the officers, but the officers hate the chief who was misusing them to find his snotty cry baby son's phone and stood there asking each other if they could see anything that looked like a phone.

--
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
this dude is crazy by milkmage · 2012-05-23 12:42 · Score: 4, Informative

same guy sent a COP over to a REPORTERS house at MIDNIGHT because he was worried about a story which was about to run.
http://www.dailycal.org/2012/03/10/berkeley-police-chief-sends-officer-to-reporters-home/
Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan ordered a sergeant to the home of a reporter around 12:45 a.m. Friday to request changes to a story that Meehan felt inaccurately portrayed him, media outlets reported this weekend.
1. Re:this dude is crazy by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 19:09 · Score: 0
  
  "The police department has been criticized for not responding soon enough to a call from Cukor, and Oakley reported that Meehan had apologized Thursday for the department’s slow response. Meehan said he had only apologized at the meeting for the department’s slow response in providing information to the community.
  Of course he didn't apologize for the slow response, they were busy looking for his kid's cell phone. Get your priorities right people! The missing cell phone of the Chief is FAR more important than responding to a report of a murder in progress.
2. Re:this dude is crazy by nitehawk214 · 2012-05-24 01:24 · Score: 1
  
  same guy sent a COP over to a REPORTERS house at MIDNIGHT because he was worried about a story which was about to run.
  http://www.dailycal.org/2012/03/10/berkeley-police-chief-sends-officer-to-reporters-home/
  Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan ordered a sergeant to the home of a reporter around 12:45 a.m. Friday to request changes to a story that Meehan felt inaccurately portrayed him, media outlets reported this weekend.
  From the article
  
  Meehan has since apologized for his actions Thursday night...
  Probably by sending a SWAT team to the editor's house.
  And this went down about 2 months ago. One fuckup we can forgive as long as they learn their lesson. Two blatant abuses of power in 2 months. Of course the City Manager takes the chief of police to task over something like this, she doesn't want to get shot during a routine traffic investigation. How the fuck do we let assholes like them run our cities?
  
  --
  I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
My daughters cell phone by future+assassin · 2012-05-23 13:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

was stolen from her locker at school. I actually left the phone on instead of disabling it to see if the retards would call someone. Sure enough when I checked the phone bill there was a call made to a number which I called and told them to return it or I'll go to their house and cut their hands off. The mom called back crying and begging to not do anything as she will get the phone back.
Anyways after the phone was stolen my wife went to the school and told them about it. They did fuck all about it. A week later when nothing happened with the school she want to the police station and they said they couldn't do anything about it for some fucking reason. So mean while other students had their lockers broken into.
After I got the phone back and got the names of the kids who where breaking into lockers, once again the school did fuck all so this time I went to the police station with the name of the people who did the break in. The retards told nothing they couldn't do anything because the school is a public place or something like that and I had to talk to the school RCMP liaison. Well so I call expecting to talk to someone and got an answering machine. Another phone call a few days later and I got nothing.
Any ways moral of the story don't rely on the police for anything.

--
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
1. Re:My daughters cell phone by j-beda · 2012-05-23 14:00 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you could do a private criminal prosecution in Canada. It might get some press coverage where you could complain about the lack of follow-through.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution
2. Re:My daughters cell phone by future+assassin · 2012-05-23 14:13 · Score: 1
  
  I just didn't have the time and money to do something like that. What was really scary is how the RCMP said they couldn't do anything about the locker break-in as its on public property and I had to go through an RCMP liaison. WTF? I bet if I punched that kid in the head on school property I they sure would be there fast. Same with the school, they wouldn't do shit about it and no one was disciplined.
  
  --
  by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
3. Re:My daughters cell phone by NonFerrousBueller · 2012-05-23 20:14 · Score: 1
  
  The irony is if you had somehow made public the names of the kids responsible for the thefts you would probably be sued for charged with violating libel/slander/privacy laws. Frustrating!
4. Re:My daughters cell phone by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 00:20 · Score: 0
  
  Well, set a trap then. If they steal, have them steal something they will regret. Badly made fake money will get them arrested when they try to spend it. For the more violent, there are all sorts of traps using explosives, spring-loaded knives, poisoned dope, pressurized battery acid.
  Sure, this is illegal too. But after they steal the trap device, you just deny it was ever yours. And if they can somehow prove it was yours: "Yes, it was dangerous. That was why I kept it locked up!"
5. Re:My daughters cell phone by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:58 · Score: 0
  
  $50 put in the right hands buys a crude and basic form of justice (if you need to outsource that sort of thing)
Even more stupid iphone and cop story. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 13:12 · Score: 0

My boss told me last year cops came to his house looking for an iphone that somebody had only misplaced in a store. Apparently somebody left it in a store and someone walked off with it. The owner called the cops to try to recover it. Apparently the cops went looking door to door only based the Find My Iphone data that obviously is not very accurate.
Wow, what a childish article by SmallFurryCreature · 2012-05-23 14:36 · Score: 2

So, the cops should not deal with crime in schools because there is crime on the streets? That is awfully specific. How about crimes on the side-walk? Is crime in the park alright?
Sounds like it was written by a church lady, someone who just wants to be outright at the indecency going on everywhere, even if she has to take a stepladder and binoculars around with her to find it.
The issue is rather simple, it is the insane privacy expectations of people where they are outraged if the police has any clearance to do their job and are equally outraged when the police has any clearance to do their job. "How dare you pull me over to test me for drink driving, why don't you shoot that guy with a laser guided missle because I think he might or might have had something to drink and I just don't like how he is driving". The British tabloids are REALLY good at this, whine about drink drivers in one article, then whine about the horrid effects of drunk drivers getting actually sentenced to anything at all. "Get them off our roads! You can't deny someone access to their car!"
And people wonder why politicians don't listen to the voter. The issue isn't that every voter has a different demand, it is that every single voter has multiple contradicting demands.

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1. Re:Wow, what a childish article by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:12 · Score: 0
  
  So, the cops should not deal with crime in schools because there is crime on the streets? That is awfully specific. How about crimes on the side-walk? Is crime in the park alright?
  No, idiot. The problem is that the chief of police was diverting resources from regular policework to a minor crime that happened to involve a family member.
  If any old fool could walk into a police station and immediately get ten officers (or heck, even one) to start working a petty theft case, this would be a nonissue. The police are a public resource, not the chief's personal band of lackeys.
2. Re:Wow, what a childish article by natophonic · 2012-05-24 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  The issue is indeed simple, and you've completely missed it.
  We see 10 cops investigating the Chief's kid's missing phone, while the police can't even be bothered to file a report of an ordinary citizen having their phone snatched right out of their hand. We see thousands of people needlessly losing their homes to banks that have perjured themselves by 'robosigning' documents, and the DAs settle with the banks for fractions of a penny on the dollar; meanwhile, Bernie Madoff rots in a real, not-Clud-Fed prison for having the temerity to rip off rich people.
  We are supposed to be equal before the law. In theoretical legal sense, we are, but in a practical sense, when it comes to enforcement, we are not. As the public becomes more aware of this, they are angered, and rightly so.
bait phones by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 15:13 · Score: 0

... Derp, Write an app that allows you to remotely activate camera, call, & sound recording. Better yet fill the inside of your phone with C4 so if it's ever stolen you can do a remote wipe. I mean it can't be that hard if terrorist do it with Nokias. Better yet buy a Nokia, no one will steal that shit, ever.
Can Be Disabled by Deorus · 2012-05-23 17:39 · Score: 1

Find My iPhone can be easily disabled if the phone itself is not locked. Being off is not an issue, because it'll signal its location as soon as it's connected when the option is enabled, but if you just disable the service in iCloud's preferences, or log off from iCloud entirely, then it won't be tracked. Find My iPhone is nowhere close to being the privacy threat that everyone who never actually used it makes it out to be.
It can tell you which house, and nearly the room. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-23 18:17 · Score: 0

You haven't used the feature before, have you? The iPhone's accuracy can be pretty good.
at least they tried by Max_W · 2012-05-23 20:10 · Score: 1

Negative result is also the result. Probably they realized that they do need the knowledge of the net to perform their job.

The inventor of special forces, Russian imperial genera Suvorov used to say: "One beaten is worth two unbeaten."

There is always the next try.
Blame the Telcos by lewko · 2012-05-23 21:19 · Score: 1

The market for stolen phones could be destroyed immediately if carriers blacklisted ESNs and IMEI numbers (the unique serial number embedded in GSM phones).
But they won't, as they make money regardless of who is holding the phone.
These blacklists could be international just as easily as any other roaming agreement.

--
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
1. Re:Blame the Telcos by LunaticTippy · 2012-05-24 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  That is problematic. Are you willing to destroy the secondhand market? How do you handle erroneous listings? What happens when everyone starts spoofing ESN/IMEI?
  
  --
  Man, you really need that seminar!
2. Re:Blame the Telcos by lewko · 2012-05-30 18:57 · Score: 1
  
  Second-hand does not mean stolen.
  
  --
  Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
This ended badly for the cops by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:20 · Score: 0

With 9 cops reprimanded and their salary docked. One cop lost his job.
Ha, ha. Just kidding :-)
wow, 235 comments and no one's said it yet? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 01:47 · Score: 0

Looks like the only thing left to do is an hero.

normally, that would fall upon the chief's son, but seeing they've got ten failures of police officers trying to find the phone, maybe the whole PD.
Lost my phone, park ranger helped me find it by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 02:01 · Score: 0

I lost my phone in a field of waist high grass while playing with the kids and dog.. It was set on vibrate. Spent 20 minutes looking for it, then the park ranger stopped by, and suggested I quit looking, head into town, get a cool drink and some food, and then return in about 2 hrs, when the sun was down. Very first call I made when I returned had it shining like a spotlight, leading me to it.
Totally useless in the above situation, but might help one of you someday.
Stupid article by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-24 07:34 · Score: 0

The police were tracking a stolen phone. The phone was providing its location in real time. The cops knew roughly where it was, but their only option for recovering it was to knock on some doors and ask if anyone had seen a missing iPhone. It's not like they could reasonably storm 10 apartments or even a single house to locate the phone.
Detectives are usually working on cases where they can arrest perpetrators of major crimes. If they had run into a house full of stolen goods, or a major drug operation, they might have recovered something.
BTW if you do have a way to recover your stolen goods, and the police aren't interested in the information, the only way to get them back is to recover it yourself using violence and the element of surprise. Is it worth killing or injuring someone, going to jail or getting yourself killed or injured to recover the item(s)?
Where I live, the stolen goods usually end up in houses which also have lots of stolen or illegal weapons, drugs and a few crazies who are likely to answer the door with machetes or sawed off shotguns. And this is supposed to be one of the more affluent Chicago suburbs.
Either Or by hesaigo999ca · 2012-05-24 08:48 · Score: 1

Either it shows how incompetent the cops are at using technology, and could not find it even with gps tracking enabled....while some geeks that know what they are doing used it to track the criminal, but then were turned down by the cops when they tried to give the location and have the cops go get the stolen property back.
Or..... it shows how truly way off the coordinates can be when using apple gps tech.
My bet is more the cops didnt know what they were doing....
Seems obligatory by Hordeking · 2012-05-26 05:14 · Score: 1

Herpy Derpy had a cell-phone,
Whose cell-phone was theft prone.
All of the chief's canines,
and all of the chief's policemen
couldn't find the cell-phone even with tracking software on it again.

--
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci