Smartphone Theft Drops After Spread of Kill Switches

alphadogg writes "Thefts involving smartphones have declined dramatically in three major cities since manufacturers began implementing 'kill switches' that allow the phones to be turned off remotely if they are stolen, authorities said on Tuesday. The number of stolen iPhones dropped by 40 percent in San Francisco and 25 percent in New York in the 12 months after Apple added a kill switch to its devices in September 2013. In London, smartphone theft dropped by half, according to an announcement by officials in the three cities.

Comments

Parts

[Arcady13]

I still see lots of people selling phones for "parts" and quietly noting that the device is locked and they somehow don't have the password. So people are obviously still stealing phones without knowing they can't actually use them.

Re:Parts

[thaylin]

well, duh, the article says as much, between 50 and 75% of thefts still occur...

Re:Parts

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Given the proportion of the value that is represented in the(almost invariably fused together in newer and higher end models) LCD/OLED and capacitive sensor, parting out seems like a fairly pragmatic strategy, especially when that's the part that everybody breaks, so the demand is there. Not quite as trivial as wipe 'n flip; but not substantially greater sophistication, and the skills and tools are common and not in themselves illicit or suspicious.

Any word on whether more sophisticated 'parting'/remanufacturing is going on as well? It's not something you'd want to do as a one-off, or without proper tools; but for a 400-600 dollar device, it seems easily conceivable that actual board-level rework(especially for phone models where the silicon where the 'kill switch' data actually live is available on the open market) to produce working and unlocked units from a mixture of stolen and locked, licit but damaged, and new or salvaged ICs would be economically viable.

Re:Parts

[mlts]

This is definitely lucrative, especially around the time when a new iPhone rev comes out and people start breaking/bending their latest device. Even a disabled phone still has an intact screen/digitizer that can go for a C-note or two until the market starts getting cheaper ones in.

In one criminal justice class, this is a common MO for high dollar stolen goods... if the item can't be sold, the parts can. For example, a stolen high-end Cannondale bicycle may not be able to be sold as a gestalt due to the serial number being in a police database, but part out the fork, shifting group, brakes, and other items, and a fence can still obtain a good chunk of change from all that even if the frame is never used.

I'm glad the fact that phones being disabled has helped slow down device theft, but I don't think it will go away anytime soon, just because the demand for parts is always there.

Re:Parts

[gstoddart]

well, duh, the article says as much, between 50 and 75% of thefts still occur...

Actually, 100% of all thefts still occur. The total number might be down, though.

The thefts which don't occur aren't thefts. Unless they occur. They don't keep stats on the thefts which don't occur until they do occur.

True facts. ;-)

Re:Parts

[ihtoit]

This. Back in 2008 I came to the realisation that it was cheaper to part out a secondhand laptop than sell it as a complete unit. So, instead of a £75 (by the bluebook for the spec) loss-leader as a functional laptop, I sold the lid hinges for £70, the screen for £120, the mainboard for £150, the processor for £65, the RAM for £30, the hard drive for £40, the DVD burner for £80, case plastics for £90 all told and the battery for £40... I got more for the laptop in PIECES than what it originally cost NEW.

Re:Parts

[ihtoit]

this is the entire point of bike thefts. They're not stolen to order, never have been. They're stolen for PARTS.

Re:Parts

[Hadlock]

It's a lot more effort to fence six sets of bicycle parts from one bicycle on craigslist than fence a whole bicycle, not even counting disassembly time. Plus you have to store them until they're sold, etc. And the market for bicycle parts is very different (more picky) than the whole-bike market who just wants something they can use out of the box. People buying parts often times are part of a very small market and recognize the same sellers pretty quickly.

Re:Parts

[ripvlan]

Seems that is how the off-market auto parts works. Steal the whole car (or parts - like just Xenon headlights) and chop it up. Hard to sell the chassis because of the VIN# But you could sell the airbags, radio, tires, wheels, fenders etc for big profit. They became so good that these stolen parts made it into the regular supply chain. Next time your cellphone screen cracks - will you send it back to the manufacturer or take it around the corner to the cheap(er) repair shop?

Supply & Demand meets The Innovators.

Nowadays even the airbags have chips in them.

Re:Parts

[es330td]

You've just explained the problems common to the manufacturing business cycle. As an economist, I am always amused when I see criminal enterprises have to start operating like a business because eventually the same issues come into play. Stealing one thing to sell is easy. Trying to make an ongoing living off it becomes real work.

Re:Parts

[gnasher719]

I still see lots of people selling phones for "parts" and quietly noting that the device is locked and they somehow don't have the password. So people are obviously still stealing phones without knowing they can't actually use them.

There _are_ people who legitimately own for example an iPhone and can't get in. For example if you inherited one. Or bailiffs took someone's valuables away, including the iPhone (don't know how legal that is).

Re:Parts

[cyberchondriac]

Sound like a lead-in to Minority Report.

Re:Parts

[I'm not god any more]

I'm glad the fact that phones being disabled has helped slow down device theft, but I don't think it will go away anytime soon, just because the demand for parts is always there.

Are you suggesting Apple make their new phones non-user serviceable? I can't imagine Apple moving in that direction. Well, maybe not until California mandates that into law too.

Re:Parts

[tlhIngan]

This. Back in 2008 I came to the realisation that it was cheaper to part out a secondhand laptop than sell it as a complete unit. So, instead of a £75 (by the bluebook for the spec) loss-leader as a functional laptop, I sold the lid hinges for £70, the screen for £120, the mainboard for £150, the processor for £65, the RAM for £30, the hard drive for £40, the DVD burner for £80, case plastics for £90 all told and the battery for £40... I got more for the laptop in PIECES than what it originally cost NEW.

That's generally true - the parts separate cost more than the parts, together. Especially used parts because one needs to put actual effort into parting it out, and ensuring all the necessary pieces are there. Parts that are standard like hard drive and RAM are easy, but structures like the hard drive cage and other pieces are more difficult to part out since people usually want an assembly.

The real question though is whether or not the amount of money made extra exceeds the effort required to do it.

Then again, with repair aggregators like iFixit, if you part it out correctly they probably will accept it. Though it also makes you wonder how complicit a company like iFixit is in dealing with stolen goods.

(Remember, a company like iFixit doesn't generally buy parts from the factory - iPhone screens and such are generally purchased used from those recycling phones, though they may seed stock by disassembling brand new phones and selling them as new parts.).

I still see lots of people selling phones for "parts" and quietly noting that the device is locked and they somehow don't have the password. So people are obviously still stealing phones without knowing they can't actually use them.

There _are_ people who legitimately own for example an iPhone and can't get in. For example if you inherited one. Or bailiffs took someone's valuables away, including the iPhone (don't know how legal that is).

Well, Apple already has policies on how to "legitimize" iPhones that were acquired not through criminal means. If it was inherited, you go to the courts and get a court order saying that yes, it's yours per the will and not under dispute (since wills can be contested). Apple would be more than happy to unlock that phone and assign it to your account.

Apple won't however just take it on blind faith that the "death certificate" you present them is real and that your grandma happened to die 100 times leaving you with 100 different iPhones and iPads needing unlocking. Unless you happen to convince a judge 100 times of that.

Re:Parts

[ihtoit]

on your last point, and this might seem a little pedantic, but a death certificate is an official document, ergo issuing a counterfeit or otherwise bogus certificate is technically fraud and possession of a fraudulent instrument, the latter of which carries a minimum term of ten years. To get hammered on that times a hundred (they'll actually run five as specimen charges in English courts) will increase the likelihood of you being smacked down for the maximum term (which by virtue of case law based around the Human Rights Act is greatly reduced) of anywhere between time served + 15 to 25 years less time for good behaviour. Bit risky to hawk some handsets...

Re:Parts

[phorm]

Yup. So it may reduce cases of immoral people stealing somebody's phone because they want a shiny new iDevice/Android (but don't want to pay for it), but doesn't do so much about career criminals who market in stolen goods.

Re: Parts

[Hadlock]

It must be nice living in the suburbs.

Remember the down side

[MetalliQaZ]

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware. There are similar concerns with law enforcement, who have demonstrated a desire to be able to wipe or forever disable a phone they've confiscated (usually one documenting their misdeeds).

Re:Remember the down side

[MetalliQaZ]

Presumably once the phone has been activated on a different account, the original owner wouldn't be able to report it stolen.

Re:Remember the down side

[michelcolman]

Imagine thieves not just demanding your phone, but your iCloud password as well...

Re:Remember the down side

[BarbaraHudson]

Presumably once the phone has been activated on a different account, the original owner wouldn't be able to report it stolen.

Sure they will. The IMEI (unique identifier for the phone) doesn't change when you change sims or accounts, or even providers.

Re:Remember the down side

[geekmux]

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware. There are similar concerns with law enforcement, who have demonstrated a desire to be able to wipe or forever disable a phone they've confiscated (usually one documenting their misdeeds).

While it might be difficult to prove, tell me again how this would not be construed as destruction of evidence in every legal way?

Oh yeah, that's right. Law Enforcement did it. I forgot they don't actually have to abide by the laws they enforce upon the rest of us...silly me.

Re:Remember the down side

[mlts]

In Australia, a year or go, it was mentioned on Slashdot that this was a common scam tactic. The seller would sell a phone, call it in as stolen, then pocket both the cash for the phone and either get insurance money or have a new phone. The buyer would be out both, and possibly even have to deal with the law for possessing stolen property.

Only real protection is to make sure to have a bill of sale with the phone's ID numbers on it and a promise that if it is reported stolen by the seller after the sale, this would trigger a fine... likely too much legal work for most people.

Re:Remember the down side

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

There's also the concern for legitimate 3rd-party firmware. There likely are ways to build fairly robust kill switches without destroying the ability to replace (most of) the firmware(you'd presumably need to have the small amount that stores the kill bit and validates the unlock code be hard to replace; but everything on top of that could still be replaceable); but they aren't necessarily the easiest ways, or the ways that manufacturers who don't necessarily much care about 3rd party firmware, or even actively dislike it, will choose.

It's analogous to 'secure boot' in the PC space. In principle, an OEM that cares can build a 'secure boot' implementation that gives the user full control over keying, root of trust, etc. (and, if memory serves, some corporate-focused models do offer the ability to slave the 'secure boot' stuff to your own in-house PKI setup); but it's a whole hell of a lot easier just to burn Microsoft's keys into the firmware and call it a day. With phones, the main risk is probably all the OEMs who have historically not given a damn, and implemented weak or nonexistent bootloader lockdown; but, if mandated, will respond with stronger, equally apathetic, lockdown instead.

Cryptographic security mechanisms are a good thing; but it's usually easier to build ones that are also control/lockdown mechanisms than it is to ensure that the user retains control, especially if you are targeting unsophisticated users.

Re:Remember the down side

[tompaulco]

Phones are kind of expensive. You should get a notarized purchase agreement from the seller which also indicates that they make no further claim to the phone and they may not disable the phone, track it, etc.

Re:Remember the down side

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Reporting a phone stolen when you actually sold it should be a felony on the same level as stealing the phone to begin with.

Re:Remember the down side

[hEpen]

The racist red herring statement at the top of this post really goes does great work to avoid this subject about the "kill and wipe switch". Smart phone owners have now agreed that they are responsible enough or smart enough to own their phone or the contents on their phone ... for security!

Re:Remember the down side

[bluefoxlucid]

The kill switch is OS activated. I have mine disabled. Power the phone off, bring it up into the boot loader, wipe, then disable kill switch from within phone; or install cyanogenmod.

Re:Remember the down side

[BarbaraHudson]

Reporting a phone stolen when you actually sold it should be a felony on the same level as stealing the phone to begin with.

Making a false theft report IS a crime, last time I looked.

Re:Remember the down side

[ihtoit]

uh, it is, it's called fraud by misrepresentation.

Re:Remember the down side

[Kjella]

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware.

You can really only threaten to do it, otherwise I'd wrap it in the nearest tinfoil and hook it up to my computer over USB to back it up. If they've already bricked it that sucks but they've also lost their leverage for blackmail. Also there's no telling if they actually can and the situation doesn't really change if you hand money over, so they need to make examples and scare people in rounds. That means there's plenty time to find out how the fuck they're doing it and close the loophole, if they start just mass bricking phones they don't make money. And once you have a signature on it you can block it at the network level or push an emergency patch or whatever, it'll be nasty but I don't see the big profit. The I'd rather bet on the people who just had all their not backed up vacation photos locked down by encryption, would you like to pay for a decryption key?

Re:Remember the down side

[Lab Rat Jason]

I'm curious what the motivation is for a person to sell their phone, take the cash, then report it as stolen. Where is the profit in this? It's just malicious. I seriously doubt that would happen enough to justify any concern by the general public.

Re:Remember the down side

[gnasher719]

Making a false theft report IS a crime, last time I looked.

In the UK, it gets an awful lot worse if you actually make a claim _who_ stole it (perverting the course of justice, not even being a minister in the government can save you). And of course if you use that false theft report to get money from your insurance, it's insurance fraud.

Re:Remember the down side

[BarbaraHudson]

Wiping the phone and/or installing a different system doesn't change the IMEI. There's now a database of stolen phone IMEIs maintained for the us - just search "gsma imei database blacklist", and another one for Canada, and they merge each other's info.

Part of the problem is that people hesitate to report the phone stolen to their carrier, or think that reporting it to the police somehow makes that happen auto-magically.

Re:Remember the down side

[Wycliffe]

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware. There are similar concerns with law enforcement, who have demonstrated a desire to be able to wipe or forever disable a phone they've confiscated (usually one documenting their misdeeds).

That's assuming it's a permanent kill switch. If it's just that the IMEI is tied to your account until you release it, then this
isn't a problem. They can steal you phone but unless they can also call up the cell company and get them to release your
phone it does them no good. Paypal has a similiar system. It only allows a credit card or email to be tied to a specific
account. If you try to use the same credit card on a different account, it just doesn't allow you to do it without calling
and answering a bunch of questions which a thief probably wouldn't know.

Re:Remember the down side

[AK Marc]

I've never seen a remote kill that couldn't be by-passed at the manufacturer level. The criminals won't walk into an official dealer with 2-forms of ID that match the owner, and request a reset. A legitimate user will *never* have a device permanently broken by such kill switches. So I find your complaint unrelated to the real world and cite reality for my source.

Re:Remember the down side

[DutchUncle]

"Oh, it must have happened automatically somehow, we had nothing to do with it . . ." Of course, a real criminal would *also* love to have a way to remotely wipe a phone that had fallen into police hands. Oddly enough, the police and the criminals want the same thing here; fancy that . . .

Re:Remember the down side

[bluefoxlucid]

A cell phone's IEMI can be reprogrammed through the engineering console, at least on Android phones.

Re:Remember the down side

[jabuzz]

They should pass a law making that impossible. There is no legitimate reason the IEMI should not be in a small bit of PROM on the CPU so once set it can never be changed.

Re:Remember the down side

[Rosyna]

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware. There are similar concerns with law enforcement, who have demonstrated a desire to be able to wipe or forever disable a phone they've confiscated (usually one documenting their misdeeds).

And how would that work? The iPhone's activation lock is removed by entering the Apple ID/password that set up Find My iPhone on the device. You cannot change the username/password combo online (because the iPhone's activation lock doesn't use network access when triggered)

Re:Remember the down side

[Orange Crush]

Insurance. Sell the phone, then report it stolen & claim the insurance.

Re:Remember the down side

[bluefoxlucid]

It's radio. The radio chipset is controlled by firmware which can be buggy and hackable, thus is updated through drivers. In a lot of hardware (for example: Broadcom SOCs), radio hardware (wifi, GSM, etc.) has no standing ROM: a 50MHz ARM or Atmel controller has its 32KB of RAM loaded with a small, real-time OS running an IO system to communicate with the radio and the OS.

Consequentially, it's typically possible to overload the firmware and directly control the radio: the radio waves are controlled by software, and that software has to put the IEMI into the radio packet. You just reprogram the software.

To give you some perspective: CPUs load microcode at boot, either from OS drivers or from the BIOS, to patch CPU flaws. You can add or overload CPU instructions from within an OS, to a limited degree. The same reasoning applies: you might find a way to send a signal to the phone and take control of the radio chipset; you might find a division bug in a CPU; etc.

Hardware is built all kinds of weird ways.

Re:Remember the down side

[Lab Rat Jason]

I guess I don't understand the insurance industry all that well then, because it seems that an insurance company would want to have a way to locate that phone. If the insurance company asks around to the major carriers and says "hey, has this phone been activated on your system after ..." then they could contact the new "owner" of the phone, and track it back to the seller. (assuming the phone carriers really want to help stop phone theft).

Is there a reason phone carriers don't want to do this? Is it a privacy issue? I know it's a lot of work to track back that way, but that's what police work is for... and if police cracked down on this, eventually it would stop... or maybe that was the original problem all along, is that police didn't want to make the effort needed to crack down on this.

I just think that the kill switch becomes a buyer beware problem rather than a seller beware solution. It doesn't result in the arrest of the thief, and if a guy can move fast enough, he can probably still fence a lot of phones. Thinking about those grab-and-run thefts on New York Subways, I could totally see a thief in a big city advertising on craigslist for a phone that had yet to be stolen, and after getting the details of a "meet up" to buy the phone, then going out and stealing one an hour or two before the meetup. The kill switch won't ever result in the arrest and prosecution of that thief, but the buyer will get screwed every time.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[MetalliQaZ]

Hard to believe such a racist comment is posted from an account with positive karma, but even harder to believe this has been upvoted. WTF??

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[jeffmflanagan]

That user says a lot of odd things, and Slashdot has had an ignorance/bigotry problem for a long time now.

Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[dumky2]

I have concerns about such laws mandating kill switches too. But if manufacturers offer the feature and let customers opt-in, I'd think some reasonable trade-off can be achieved.

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Malicious kill switch activation is only a problem if Apple charges you $100 to "repair" it.

Well, Apple?

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[ihtoit]

won't matter if the thief is stealing the phone to part it out. You can't remotely kill a screen. You can only remote-kill the SIM, possibly the handset CPU via an IMEI lock.

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[ihtoit]

yeah, kinda awkward when it comes to apologising in the event of an accidental firing though...

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[surd1618]

I used to have thoughts like this, but it's not a good idea to build malicious intent into a system. If the phone pushed out a message about it's GPS location before it died, it might be handy. There would be some serious privacy concerns about such a mechanism.

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[jabuzz]

Actually you could put a kill switch in the screen, so that it no longer worked. There is electronics in there that could be disabled. You could do the same for a battery as well, and you certainly can do it for the main board.

It won't work for the case, but if you have removed the value of the screen, battery and main board the residual parts value is probably too low to make it worth a thief's while to steal if to part out.

Re:Voluntary vs mandated kill switch

[BitterOak]

the only way that anybody is protected is if a large percentage of the cellphone population *is* opted in.

You sound like one of those pro-vaccine people. Do you want our phones to all get autism?

drop on new phone sales

[beefoot]

I think this is a bad law / implementation. That will only reduce the sales of new phones. That is going to be bad for the economy, ahem.

Re:drop on new phone sales

[Bugler412]

it's good for the economy as viewed by those that sell new phones, especially when it forces a contract renewal and two more years of lock in typically (in the US, if you don't want to shell out for an unlocked phone then and there)

A better solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how states that allow most citizens to carry concealed handguns don't have a problem with bad guys grabbing someone's phone, knocking them over, and trying to run off.

I wonder if CA, NY, and the rest of them will ever figure out that "An armed society is a polite society."

Re:A better solution...

[ColdWetDog]

It's funny how states that allow most citizens to carry concealed handguns don't have a problem with bad guys grabbing someone's phone, knocking them over, and trying to run off.

I wonder if CA, NY, and the rest of them will ever figure out that "An armed society is a polite society."

Heinleinesque fantasies aside, there is absolutely no reasonable data to suggest that people who carry concealed weapons are any safer than not. For every failed attempted cell phone theft, I would raise you an accidental shooting. Neither are common, however. You want polite? Carry the weapon out in the open. For this, I recommend a nice short sword. Decorative, a wonderful fashion statement. No reloading necessary. Practicing requires aerobic exertion (although not so much strength). Doubles as a cane for emergencies. Bonus points for LED lights on the scabbard (we can start a new craze).

What's not to like?

Re:A better solution...

[OzPeter]

no such thing as an accidental shooting.

Ah .. so this was a pre-meditated, self inflicted wound? Off-duty police officer accidentally shoots himself

Re:A better solution...

[Pumpkin Tuna]

See the thing is, as an SCA guy, if I carry the sword, I'm going to have to bring the shield to be really effective. And that's going to be cumbersome in line at the Starbucks. Actually, the polearm would be fairly easy to carry around.

Re:A better solution...

[OzPeter]

See the thing is, as an SCA guy, if I carry the sword, I'm going to have to bring the shield to be really effective.

WTF? Do you see Ninja's carrying shields around with them?

I suggest you put down the roast turkey leg and the pint of ale and take a good hard look at how "effective" you SCA people are in the real-world!

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

the single biggest cause of shooting deaths outside of warfare are with weapons that were assumed to be unloaded. (source: every civilian hospital that has to deal with self inflicted and other-inflicted gunshot wounds and every police authority that collects data on firearms incidents)

You know that they say "assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups"? When you fuck up with a firearm, people get dead.

Not on my watch. I've been training with firearms for ten years, and have not had a single reportable incident of any sort. The closest anybody has ever gotten with me was in breaking my #1 Rule of Range: NEVER ASSUME THAT A WEAPON IS SAFE. Flag that fucking breech or get the fuck off my line. I've kicked experienced (even very high ranking) police officers off my range for breaking that one. None got a second chance. When you're putting peoples lives at risk through your stupidity, I don't want you anywhere near me.

When I stopped training police in 2011 I also handed off the reins to my shooting club to a new member's board. Within a MONTH they had taken the thus-far-blank incident book and FILLED IT with equipment damage, stolen weapons, stolen ammunition, no less than four shot-off digits and two police raids, the second of which resulted in the seizure of off-ticket large calibre pistols and the shutdown of the club. Like I said, not on my watch.

Re:A better solution...

[MozeeToby]

To quote a great movie: "accident implies there's nobody to blame". I believe the person you are responding to would call the officer shooting himself in the foot a negligent shooting.

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

certainly, if you'll come out from behind that AC sockpuppet and kindly let me know WHO the fuck I'm responding to?

Re:A better solution...

[aristotle-dude]

Vermont and New Hampshire are pretty polite. Very low murder and gun murder rates. They have high gun ownership and no permits required to open or concealed carry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Re:A better solution...

[misexistentialist]

Probably making the semantic point that it's "negligence". Though it's true it's a matter of degree, the cop in that elevator was doing some strange shit with his gun

Re:A better solution...

[Nethead]

That's an old scar you're telling there.

Re:A better solution...

[Lab Rat Jason]

You completely miss the point sir... the person who caries becomes more polite, not the neighbor. The neighbor has no idea who carries. Likewise, the person who commits crime is less inclined to do so because he/she can't tell who carries and who does not. Unwilling to play the odds, they move to California or New York to ply their trade. Its a win for everyone (unless you live in California or New York of course).

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

yes, I do, and the word does NOT apply to firearms. EVER.

Re:A better solution...

[StevenMaurer]

yes, I do, and the word does NOT apply to firearms. EVER.

You are clearly confusing the word "negligent" with "intentional". However those two words are not the same.

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

no, the question was do I know what the word "accidentally" means.

Re:A better solution...

[AK Marc]

Depends on whether you use the dictionary definition of accident, or the vernacular definition. Common usage has "accident" mean "blameless" and "unforseeable". The dictionary would include negligence (sometimes deliberate negligence) as an accident.

A cop shooting himself is negligence. They have the training and equipment to avoid such incidents in all cases. That it happens means it was preventable, thus negligence, not "accidental".

Re:A better solution...

[AK Marc]

Where was this? From the word choice, I'd guess not the US, but I can't tell which Commonwealth country by word choice alone, as they are similar enough to be confusable.

Re:A better solution...

[OzPeter]

A cop shooting himself is negligence. They have the training and equipment to avoid such incidents in all cases. That it happens means it was preventable, thus negligence, not "accidental".

I agree that the root cause of the injury was negligence, but the shot was not intentional - hence I still see it as accidental.

In comparison, the cop could have taken his weapon out and aimed at his foot and then fired. The root cause of his injury would still be negligence, but the action would be intentional and not accidental.

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

England.

Re:A better solution...

[AK Marc]

In comparison, the cop could have taken his weapon out and aimed at his foot and then fired. The root cause of his injury would still be negligence, but the action would be intentional and not accidental.

Negligence: "The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm."

As such, that wouldn't be negligent, but would be intentional. An "accident" is something unforseeable. Perhaps a well-cared for gun has a sudden and unpredictable mechanical failure that results in an accidental discharge. But a deliberate isn't the opposite of accident. The dictionary definition of "accident" can include "unfortunate" which would include the deliberate self-inflicted wound. That's why I didn't go to the dictionary to define "accident." But negligent is a legal term, so is 100% descriptive, not proscriptive, as are all technical terms, at least when used in their technical domain.

A cop shooting himself in the leg because he holstered his weapon with his finger inside the trigger guard (what I believe to be the #1 source of such incidents) is 100% preventable, and careless (thus negligent), but not an "accident" in the sense that "accident" implies blamelessness.

Re:A better solution...

[AK Marc]

OK, If you were down under, I'd be asking for directions to your current shooting club, if any. Some raids and then shut down is what I'd expect to see happen here, if the safety record were as you describe.

Re:A better solution...

[Woeful Countenance]

There are intentional discharges and negligent discharges. There are no accidental discharges.

Re:A better solution...

[Altus]

When everyone is carrying a short sword bet on the guy that also has a shield.

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

I already did elsewhere on this thread, so fuck off.

Re:A better solution...

[dave420]

Which you clearly don't if you think the word never applies to guns...

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

it doesn't.

When a firearm discharges, it is because someone left a live cartridge in the breech. NOT AN ACCIDENT.

IF someone hadn't left a cartridge in the breech the hammer would have hit air, and three year old Johnny wouldn't have shot both his parents with one round (I mean, what, did he have them line up?)

The fault is ALWAYS with the last person to handle the equipment.

Simple proof:

Place a handgun on the floor and place a full magazine next to it. Shout at it to load itself and fire. Scream at it. Yell at it. Berate it. Question its parentage. Troll the living shit out of it. Guess what? IT WON'T MOVE. IT IS AN INANIMATE OBJECT. IT IS A FUCKING TOOL. A TOOL WILL DO PRECISELY WHAT IT IS MOVED TO DO BY THE PERSON HANDLING IT AND NOTHING MORE, EVER.

Re:A better solution...

[werepants]

You're just playing with semantics to try to make a point. Look at the definition:

An accident or a mishap is an incidental and unplanned event or circumstance, often with lack of intention or necessity.

Intention being the key here. Lots of people get shot with firearms where there was no intent or plan. Sure it might have been negligent to leave the handgun loaded which little Johnny then grabbed off the table and shot his Mom with, but Mom certainly didn't intend for that to happen, or plan it. She was irresponsible and unsafe, but to say that this wasn't an accident is to say that nothing is ever an accident.

Your point is a good one, but I take exception to redefining words to mean what we want them to. You can make your point without resorting to mangling the language.

Re:A better solution...

[werepants]

Citation needed. There is no evidence that carrying lethal weapons makes a person more polite, or that the threat of death makes a person more polite. In fact, I would expect the opposite to be true. Keep in mind that your cherished phrase is pulled from a sci-fi book, from an author that also speculated about voting rights that could only be obtained through military service, unlimited basic income given freely to all, complex group marriages, and my favorite: the concept that the society shouldn't be able to go to war unless by popular vote, where any affirmative vote counts as signing up for the initial draft.

He has some interesting ideas, but they are fictional, and you shouldn't act as though they are facts.

Re:A better solution...

[Lab Rat Jason]

Wow you're a killjoy.

I'll cite my personal experience in the first case... and I won't bother providing a citation for the second case, because I never claimed it to be true. I've known several people who started carrying sometime after I knew them. They each got more polite. That's my experience. Sorry it's not the cold hard facts you are accustomed to getting on slashdot.

I was simply pointing out the GP's erroneous assumption about *who* gets more polite in an armed society. I was just trying to bring a little levity to the conversation. To me it looks like you are just trying to pick a fight.

Re:A better solution...

[werepants]

Not trying to pick a fight per se - just trying to clarify that there are lots of issues with this and many of the other pithy sayings of the pro-gun lobby. They are treated as axioms, but really all they do is correspond to an unproven ideology.

That said, I'm not saying I'm pro gun control. I'm really saying that I'm a proponent of evidence-based argument, and sci-fi books don't qualify as evidence.

Re:A better solution...

[Lab Rat Jason]

Well, both sides of the debate love pithy sayings, and it's never cool to be a moderate anything... we must be extreme, lest we lose any ground, and therefore lose the fight. As for me, I'm pro-gun, but I'm way to moderate to align myself with the NRA or any other officially pro-gun group. Those guys scare me more than the gun-control groups!

The providence of a pithy saying is hardly relevant to the debate though... do you reject out of hand the saying "thou shalt not kill" just because you disagree with something else in the bible? In the end, truth is truth, regardless of what other truths or lies surround it. To recognize truth, one must test it independently. I'm not in a position to spend my workday researching this, so I won't assert that it's true, but I do like the saying for what it tells you about the person who uses it... I think it says that person WANTS a society that can be both polite and armed. There are many towns in the west where this is exactly the case, and that's what people latch on to when they use sayings like that. The counter argument is that there are lots of quiet beach towns that while largely unarmed, still enjoy an equal measure of brotherly love and politeness. Either way, I'm good with a polite society. The one thing we should not have in our society is the in-your-face-about-my-guns-because-that's-how-i-defend-myself attitude. In my opinion it's just warmongering and serves to undermine a rational debate about gun safety.

A brief note on science-fiction authors though: their job is to makes stories about dystopia and make you think... so controversy is right up their alley. I wouldn't judge any society or societal goal by statements made by science fiction authors.

Whew man are we off topic or what? Back to cell phone theft!

Re:A better solution...

[ihtoit]

I don't accept your example under "accidental shooting" for the simple reason that a calculated risk in a situation involving a hostage usually results in a decision not to fire *in case shit goes south*. When a trigger happy fool in a uniform shoots a hostage, that's not accidental at all, that's a decision taken without regard to the risk to the hostage - in other words, professional negligence. The difference between a cop shooting a criminal and a cop shooting an innocent bystander is in a box on the paperwork with the following next to it:

"Was the shooting, in your opinion, justified?"

The ONLY reason a cop can tick that box is under one or more of the following conditions:

1. the victim was caught in the process or fleeing from the scene of a crime, resisting arrest or moving with stated intent.
2. the victim was armed and presented an immediate, clear and present danger to the officer concerned.

The circumstances are evaluated and the decision on whether to prosecute that officer for an unjustified shoot is taken out of his hands and burdened on whatever passes for Internal Affairs.

Re:A better solution...

[Uberbah]

You completely miss the point sir... the person who caries becomes more polite, not the neighbor.

You misspelled "more aggressive and more likely to imagine threats".

Likewise, the person who commits crime is less inclined to do so because he/she can't tell who carries and who does not.

Because a mugger lets you know in advance that he's going to rob you so you can pull your piece out first? Put your codpiece away man, no one's impressed.

Re:A better solution...

[whodunit]

The great irony of this post is that, had it been written in the late 1700s or early 1800s, it would be completely un-ironic. That was the era of the rapier; a blade designed specifically for efficient handling in narrow back alleyways in Europe for killing people trying to smash your skull in and steal your purse. Look up any of the old fencing manuals; there's a reason the off-hand accessory (usually used for parries) is a lantern or a heavy cloak (i.e. what you would have on you as a matter of course when walking about town.)

You, sir, may sniff about the increased safety enjoyed by someone equipped with a sidearm; but your ancestors had no such qualms. As for "accidental shootings," I'd be interested in the data (or lack thereof) pertaining to those, as well. I carry a concealed pistol every day, and thanks to training, practice, prudence, good safety habits and above all; modern safety features in its design, my pistol has never bitten me or peed on the carpet.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[NotDrWho]

Hard to believe such a racist comment

So you assume you know Tyyrone's race? Funny, but I never mentioned his race. So you've stereotyped an assumed race on him based on what I said about him, huh?

Remind me who the racist is again?

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's bigotry when you generalize large parts of the population. The reason this guy is racist, and a bigot is because he's assuming that all people named Tyrone will behave in the same way, simply because of their name, and in doing so stamping on those Tyrones out there who are entirely reasonable human beings.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because it's fine to be racist by the back door as long as you don't actually make direct reference to the race in question. As long as you only strongly imply that you're talking about one particular race, then you're fine, you can get off scott free.

Meanwhile, this comment is entirely friendly, and not calling you out, because I only strongly imply that it's my belief that you're an idiot.

Cars will be next

[mrflash818]

My prediction, and not exactly a stretch to predict: Cars will be next.

Re:Cars will be next

[ledow]

My car already has a GPS tracker on it, with GSM texting if it moves, and integration into the fuel pump (or any 12v-controlled output) to allow remote-disable.

It cost me GBP30 ($50?) on Amazon. It's this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pro...

Takes no longer to install than a car radio, hides BEHIND the car radio (and still gets good GSM/GPS signal), even gives you an SOS button if you want it (texts the emergency numbers programmed into it with GPS position), geofencing, speed warning, remote live tracking on Google Earth, etc.

Sorry, but you're at least five years too late.

Sadly, I fit this into a 1997 car, so it's probably worth more than the car. And with a GBP 5 / month SIM card, I get free texts to and from it.

Re:Cars will be next

[jd2112]

My prediction, and not exactly a stretch to predict: Cars will be next.

Already here. Cars can be disabled by OnStar or similar services.
Problem is by the time OnStar can disable you car it has already been stripped and the parts sent to who knows where..

Re:i.q.

[tompaulco]

They don't mention the rate of theft of androids or other smartphones. Why single out iphones? It's not like criminals know what type of phone you have when they come up and demand your valuables.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[An Ominous Coward]

Tyrone Willingham

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[WaffleMonster]

Hard to believe such a racist comment is posted from an account with positive karma, but even harder to believe this has been upvoted. WTF??

Hard to believe people still feed trolls.

ATH+++

[gatfirls]

"we are working as fast as we can to re-enable the 207 million phones disabled in last nights vicious attack on 'merica"

'Round Here

[AVryhof]

Around here, they don't steal the cellphone because it is valuable. They steal it so they have more of a head start before you can call the police.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[ihtoit]

I had to look that one up.

Touché.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's lower than a racist? A racist who thinks he's being clever about it.

Re: Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Anonymous Coward]

What race has a vast majority of its people named Tyrone?

Most people named Tyrone are of the negroid race (as opposed to caucasianoid or mongloid) but I M not aware of any race that is mostly composed of people named Tryone.

Also, I am no longer willing to dumb down my comments so the stupid will understand.

Re:well duh...

[thieh]

We can trust people in not abusing the remote kill switch, right? Right?

OnStar

[mrflash818]

That's right! ...my bad for forgetting it's already here.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[AK Marc]

So he's a "he"? You are assuming the historically-male name Tyyrone to be male, but not that the historically Black name is Black? Not only are you a racist troll, but a hypocritical racist troll.

Wider effects

[leehwtsohg]

The killswitches seem to have a much wider effects than realised by these insightful articles.
Murder rate at the same time in San Francisco
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/ar...
and New York
http://gothamist.com/2015/01/0...
seem to have also decined!

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's bigotry when you generalize large parts of the population.

Bigotry has nothing to do with generalization in and of itself. Bigotry is the intolerance of tribes different from yours. It is perfectly reasonable to make broad statements about a group based on statistically significant trends occurring within that group.

Problem arises when generalizations (e.g. All Americans are FAT) are assumed to be transferrable to specific people within that group when no such assumptions are warranted. For example I happen to be a crack whore.. as a result I am as skinny as fuck.

Genetic variation between any two people of the same race far exceeds genetic differences between races which is a very problematic fact for anyone caught making assumptions about specific people based exclusively on broad statistical data.

Nevertheless racism is routinely invoked in diagnosis of certain medical conditions to which certain groups are statistically predisposed. This helps patients understand risks and decide on further diagnostic steps. You don't hear anyone bitching about it and labeling the practice racist even though the same logically consistent uses of statistical information can in the aggregate be used to justify all manner of crazy shit.

In the end "racist" label is not about logic plenty of people screaming racist frankly do so from logically unsupportable positions themselves. It is about having something positive to contribute, not being an asshole and wanting peace... yes Americans are FAT. Calling them fat helps nobody... doing something positive (e.g. crack cocaine) to help fat people improve their health helps everyone.

The reason this guy is racist, and a bigot is because he's assuming that all people named Tyrone will behave in the same way, simply because of their name

Oh bullshit OP made no such claim, he was obviously talking about Tyrone specifically not everyone who happens to share a similar name. I strongly suspect Tyrone has more babies in other area codes to wit he is not yet cognizant.

Re:well duh...

[davester666]

Of course you can't. There has already been widespread abuse of these remote killswitches.

Re:well duh...

[Rosyna]

At least on iOS, it's not so much a "remote kill switch". That is, it cannot be triggered remotely. For iPhones, if you opt in, a setting is set on the phone that if the iPhone is erased a username/password is required to activate the phone again. While you can initiate a remote wipe, that wipe just causes the iPhone to respect the initial offline setting.

For users, it's better if the iPhone is not wiped because then it can still be tracked with Find My iPhone.

Re:well duh...

[Rosyna]

Citation of a smartphone remote kill switch being abused? Especially one that, like iOS, is triggered on an erase and is only based on the owner's credentials for unlocking?

Re:well duh...

[davester666]

whoosh

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[Howitzer86]

Just spit-balling here, but that might say more about the mother than the son.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[AK Marc]

http://www.urbandictionary.com...

Your ignorance of names and people doesn't make you an expert. I don't know any black people named Tyyrone either. What would you be saying if he used then name Shaniqua instead? I've never met anyone name Shaniqua. Would you be claiming no gender or race is attached to that name?

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[cyberchondriac]

Hard to believe such a racist comment is posted from an account with positive karma, but even harder to believe this has been upvoted. WTF??

Are you an American? That would explain your lack of sense of humour. It's called black humour and ironically your righteous indignation makes you sound racist to non-Americans. Get with this century already.

Umm.. that's not what black humor is. Black humor isn't about black people; it's about satirizing the morbid: suffering, pain, death, disease, violence, et al. a sort of self-deprecating look at humanity and our vulnerabilities.

monthly payments

[Khashishi]

Do they activate the killswitch if you are behind on monthly payments?

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[ShaunC]

Two y's, for a youble yose of his pimpin'.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[ne0n]

It's laden with philosophical musings and empathy for a guy with two babymamas. Are you a racist player hater?

Iphone kill switch

[Nukenbar]

If my phone is stolen and I activate the "kill switch" can a person still restore the phone and use their own sim card, or is the "kill" all the way down to preventing a DFU restore?

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[AK Marc]

Again, you ASSUMED this character was black based on his description of his behaviors alone.

Nope. Your lies are lying again.

Citation needed

[dlenmn]

They're stolen for PARTS.

O RLY? Parting out a bike takes effort and most used bike parts are worth very little. Most stolen bikes are not fancy ones with valuable parts. There simply isn't enough demand for crappy parts to account for the number of crappy stolen bikes; most are sold intact. Having lived in a number of college towns (where there are lots of bikes to be stolen), I know several examples of stolen bikes reappearing intact with a new owner. That's even been the case for expensive bikes, which evidently were not sold for parts. I realize that's anecdotal evidence, but it's not inline with your absurd proposition that the entire point of bike thefts is to sell them for parts.

Re:Citation needed

[Em Adespoton]

Bike theft is often linked to substance abuse -- opportunistic theft, not some crime ring breaking the bikes down for cash. The same is likely true for the remaining phone thefts.

Re:Now what's Tyyrone going to do for a living?

[AK Marc]

Wait, so you are now lying about arguing with me? What are the past 10 posts? They are all argument. All you are doing is lying, and lying about lying.

Laputin Machine

[allquixotic]

Flatlander Woman.

Re:Laputin Machine

[allquixotic]

Dang it... got it wrong... should be LaputAn machine (s/i/a/).

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