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It's Time To Start Taking Stolen Phones Seriously

Posted by samzenpus on from the something-worth-stealing dept.

itwbennett writes "'Find My iPhone' is neat, but it's time for smartphone makers and carriers to stop pretending their anti-theft measures are anything more than minimum viable products, says blogger Kevin Purdy. He's not the first to point this out: As reported in Slashdot, 'NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said overall crime in New York City was up 3.3% in 2012 due to iPhone, iPad and other Apple device thefts.' And now San Francisco and New York attorneys general are calling a 'Smartphone Summit' where representatives from Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft are due to meet and discuss the implementation of a industry-wide 'kill switch' system."

11 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. But, But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When a phone is stolen, another phone gets purchased. Reducing phone thefts will cut into new phone sales!

    1. Re:But, But... by Randall311 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean "free" as in the price of the insurance right? So not so free...

    2. Re:But, But... by calzones · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I keep seeing this line of reasoning on the matter here on /.

      Honestly, it's pretty fucking vapid. The marginal revenue companies get from people buying replacements for stolen products is simply not a viable business model. They may prefer not to spend money dealing with a problem they see as the consumer's and not theirs, but to ascribe some insidious plot on their part to make extra money off of people who get their stuff stolen... it's inane.

      --
      Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
    3. Re:But, But... by justthinkit · · Score: 4, Insightful
      $Phonemaker does nothing, tons of phones get stolen, $Phonemaker makes tons of replacement phones (i.e. tons of money).
      .

      Or

      $Phonemaker makes a used phone useless, no phones get stolen and $Phonemaker loses tons of money in lost replacement phone revenue.

      Can you explain how each phone stolen is "marginal", as opposed to 100%, gain? Basically, if they do nothing they find money for zero work. This model dictates exactly what they should do -- absolutely nothing. No wonder they are having a big pow-wow about it. Might need to have annual meetings even.

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      I come here for the love
    4. Re:But, But... by rogueippacket · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just think it through. Ha ha ha...
      No but seriously, there is no guarantee that a user who has their phone stolen will buy that same phone again. So it's already not 100% gain, they may go to a competitor or buy a refurbished phone from their carrier. Next, assuming they do buy a replacement from you, there is also no guarantee they will buy the same model. They may buy a cheaper one which has lower margins, as many people do when they feel they were targeted as a result of owning the hottest model or simply cannot pay off their subsidy right away.
      Okay, so as a result of this theft, you may wind up selling another phone and make a few bucks - but there are no guarantees whatsoever, and this means you cannot plan around illegal activity when building your financial models. This was the point made above, the returns are simply too small and too unreliable to factor into the models when compared to something like adding new features or running a series of marketing campaigns.
      To coin a car analogy, it would be like Audi saying "Our cars are stolen the most, so we can expect greater revenues as a result" - would you buy an Audi knowing that? Or would you buy a phone from the first manufacturer who allows your car to be killed when it is stolen?

  2. Not free by DaveSlash · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After a $150 deductible

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    Burn FAT not OIL
  3. Re:Blacklist IMEI? by MavEtJu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They said that in the article: It gets sold to a carrier which is not querying the US version of the Stolen Phone database.

    We need something like DNS but then for IMEI numbers. .imei :-)

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    bash$ :(){ :|:&};:
  4. Re:No Kill by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What we need is central industry DB that a stolen phone is registered to. Once registered to this DB no carrier in US would allow on their network.

    Apple, Google, Blackbery would ban these devices from their servers also.

    You could have stopped right there. That alone would have negated a lot of the incentive of stealing phones in the first place.

    If anyone buys a phone without checking and later it is found to have been slolden then they get to share in the charges from the person who committed crime. If he killed or maimed they get charges as accessories.

    That rings far too much like "guilty until proven innocent".

    It's stolen property... handle it identically to that. The possessor surrenders it to the authorities at their own expense.

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    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  5. You aren't looking at systemic effects. by xmark · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, the phonemaker gets more revenue. However, the money used to fund those replacements comes from an increased levy on all phone purchasers who have coverage. So everyone with coverage pays more for phones. The extra money that everyone pays for phones means less money spent on all other possible purchases. So Apple's revenue increase is Krogers' or Target's or Shell's decrease.

    We usually disregard widely-distributed costs and look at local effects. This is especially true of politicians. But those effects are real and directly affect the aggregate economy numbers.

  6. Re:Are you serious? by Nanoda · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's really for stolen phones .. just like the kill switch for the internet was for emergency purposes. This has nothing whatsoever to do with cutting off people's means of communicating effectively with each other.

    Don't be asinine. Your cellphone can already be tracked, tapped, disabled, folded, spindled and mutilated. What this is about is centralising and sharing information about stolen phones so that the utility of stolen phones diminishes to the point that you walking around with an iPhone doesn't look like an easy 200$ target to ne'er-do-wells.

  7. Re:Are you serious? by Dahamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because there are so many phones stolen and so many more serious crimes to investigate that the police don't give a crap about your stolen cell phone. You must not have ever had one stolen, because almost anyone who has (myself included) can confirm this complete lack of interest ;)

    If the police cared, the technology is already there to catch many phone thieves. But everyone knows they won't bother. It's much easier (and nearly free) just to make the phone a brick to discourage it in the first place than spend MANY thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on investigation, arrest, booking, court hearing/trial, and imprisonment for a $500 piece of electronics.