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Jobs' Burglary Manhunt Yields Kenny the Clown
theodp writes "Even in death, Steve Jobs managed to get specialists from the Apple-friendly Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) to team up again with Apple investigators and local police to track down the whereabouts of a stolen Apple device. Unlike a 2010 stolen iPhone prototype incident, which ended with a raid on a Gizmodo editor's home, this new investigation into the $60K burglary of the late Apple CEO's under-renovation Palo Alto home ended with the recapture of an iPad from Kenny the Clown, who accepted the device as payment of a debt owed to him by burglary suspect Kariem McFarlin. PCWorld has the details of how Palo Alto Police, REACT, and Apple investigators connected the dots to track down Jobs' stolen iPads, which may trouble some privacy advocates."
Dunno, I can't see any place where they went beyond the law this time. Based on the article, it seems as if they took pains to build a legal case, even to the extent of checking for open APs nearby.
Not sure why, but I've always felt that way. Maybe it has to do with when I was 5 and my father was killed by a clown.
news at 11
apple audits network traffic that hit their servers. isn't this taught in MCSE class?
True, but your post is a classic "slashdot is has gone to the dogs." I am sure you can find a many posts from 2002 saying something like "I can't believe slashdot posted another stupid article about Theo and all the dumbass BSD flaming politics. Can we get on with the real news, or do I just need to go over to Ars for good?"
news at 11
Steve Jobs' home was just the most high profile. isnt this what police supposed to do? catch criminals who rob lots of homes?
Finding only secured Wi-Fi signals, investigators could argue it was being used by the person paying the bill or those with permission.
Gee Mr. Persecutor, I know the router is locked down now, but it was insecure before my brother-in-law pointed it out to me.
That's probably an argument you'd make to a judge to invalidate the search; though I think you'd have a hard time arguing they didn't have probable cause for a search since the router was secured when they checked. That would provide, IMH-nonlawyerO, reasonable justification for a warrant.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
So when do *I* get this type of service when my iPad is stolen? Since it is so easy for Apple to cooperate and cough up the info needed to locate the device, why the HELL won't they do it for Joe Consumer? If Apple did this for every stolen iDevice, they would become worthless as theft targets.... hell, they would be come a liability to steal them and try to sell/reuse them.
When I read the headline, my mental image was of course of Kenny the Clown moonlighting as a second story man. Now, that would be a surveillance tape I would like to see.
Can you post the links to your story submissions, please?
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Aside from the issue of allowing the iPad to connect to Apple's servers to wipe and reinstall the OS, he should have realized that the real value of an iPad or Mac from Jobs's home would have been the content of the device. If it turned out to be Jobs's personal device (as opposed to his family's), who knows what might have been on it... design plans for rounded hexagons, or seamless rounded translucent-aluminum dodecahedrons? His family, and the world, may have lost this brilliance forever... like burning Leonardo's notebooks for firewood. I hope they throw the MacBook at this barbarian.
People whine about progressive taxation, but compare a lost iPhone from Apple with a phone stolen in a "regular" robbery. The poor person gets to give a statement, and if the right serial numbers are turned into the police, he may get a phone call 10 years later, after a trial in which the device was evidence. But Apple makes a phone call, and millions of dollars are spent tracking it.
The rich get special treatment. The rich get protection perks the rest of us don't. Then the rich complain that a poor person in a high-crime area with no police patrols doesn't pay enough taxes, but the rich person in a low-crime area has constant patrols.
The issue here isn't the privacy concerns of your iDevice, but that you are raped by taxes for programs that mainly benefit the rich, while being told that the rich get nothing from the programs because they opt out with private security (though I didn't see any mention of the Apple private security doing the recovery work, that was all government).
Learn to love Alaska
True, but your post is a classic "slashdot is has gone to the dogs." I am sure you can find a many posts from 2002 saying something like "I can't believe slashdot posted another stupid article about Theo and all the dumbass BSD flaming politics. Can we get on with the real news, or do I just need to go over to Ars for good?"
As someone who has been on this site since well before you could even get a user account, its absolutely gone down hill steadily for a decade now. Its really dropped off enormously in the last two years. Slashdot, and its community, like to act like they're so intellectual, but Slashdot is driven by ad revenue, and it hit on the exact same solution to driving ad views that Fox News did -- identify an overzealous market and carefully pick the stories that market wants to hear. Keep them whipped up in a frenzy, because a frenzy drives views. Slashdot is as guilty of driving and profiting from polarization as any of the far left or far right media outlets in the political space.
In that context, this story makes perfect sense. Its Apple, its got the opportunity for a "zomg, our privacy!" jab.
I suspect for a lot of us who were around back then, the only reason we're still here is 15 years of habit, and some sad desire to somehow find a way to bring back the community as it used to be.