Slashdot Mirror
New York Thieves Wearing Apple Store T-Shirts Steal $16,000 In iPhones (pix11.com)
An anonymous reader quotes this article from a TV station in New York about a "brazen daylight heist" made possible by wearing the right t-shirt:
Two thieves put on Apple store employee T-shirts and headed past the Genius Bar to the repair room, grabbed what they could and walked out with more than $16,000 worth of stolen iPhones... Police said just one hour before, the same thieves may have stolen three iPhones 6's worth $1,900 from the Apple Store on 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in the West Village... Earlier this year, three thieves pulled off two similar, but much more lucrative heists, at the Upper West Side Apple Store at Broadway and 67th Street, a training center for Apple employees. Once again, they dressed as Apple employees and stole a total of $49,000 worth of iPhones.
They were probably undercover FBI agents trying to reduce the availability of iPhones to consumers.
What can you actually do with a stolen iphone at this point?
There are presumably markets where IMEI blacklists won't cause you any trouble(or you can use the thing as a glorified ipod touch); but Apple presumably has knowledge of serial numbers/device IDs/etc. and there aren't a lot of alternatives for things like iOS updates Indeed, if they felt like it, Apple would be in an excellent position to brick the devices if they ever made the mistake of accepting an update from Apple.
Do they just part them out? Are their actually still jailbreaks and such for the newer models good enough that you can operate one outside of Apple's sight? Do you just resell them to optimistic idiots looking for suspiciously good deals on idevices and make this their problem?
I can see that 'compact, expensive, widely desired' are all good qualities in a theft target; but 'bristling with radios and globally unique IDs burned into the hardware and firmware; and nearly impossible to use without the vendor's continued cooperation' seem like egregiously bad qualities.
Two thieves put on Apple store employee T-shirts and headed past the Genius Bar to the repair room, grabbed what they could and walked out with more than $16,000 worth of stolen iPhones
The good news is that only 10 phones were stolen.
blog
It's in Chelsea or maybe the Meatpacking District (if you read some of the signs in the area), but it definitely isn't West Village.
Obviously for iPhone.
I just pretend it's here for the social engineering angle.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is news because even at those prices they're too expensive?
The thieves are idiots because Apple probably has the serial numbers of those stolen iPhones and thus will nuke them from orbit?
Sorry, but until you sell something, your loss is just what you invested. Else I claim that the hardware I slapped together costs 10 grand (despite costing 5 bucks to make) and my insurance claim is for 10 grand.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ah yes, Valentines day used to be the glorious hacker holiday. The only day a speed delivery uniform and a bunch of flowers opens you every door.
Sadly companies caught on. But it was good times.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sorry, but until you sell something, your loss is just what you invested.
Speaking as a certified accountant, I can tell you that that isn't true at all. It might be what you get reimbursed for by an insurance company but it isn't the full value of the loss incurred. Apple is self insured so they won't get reimbursed by anyone. Until the device can be replaced and sold, the value of the loss is the cost of the device, the cost to replace the device, the cost to transport and sell the device, the cost of investigating and dealing with the loss, the cost of the lost revenue for whatever period the device was unavailable to be sold, and I can keep going. Basically you have the cost of the device plus the opportunity cost of the lost revenue for whatever time the revenue is lost. If a sale is lost permanently (customer comes in to buy iPhone, can't get one and buys Android instead) then the lost value of the iPhone is the full retail value. If they can replace the phone the value is the cost of the device plus the opportunity costs involved.
Else I claim that the hardware I slapped together costs 10 grand (despite costing 5 bucks to make) and my insurance claim is for 10 grand.
The selling price of the iPhones is well known and the cost to build them is easy to prove. A company the size of Apple is self insured so there is no insurance claim to be made. The value of the phones at minimum is higher than their cost to make and could in principle be the full retail value of them if certain factors prove true. The real value of the loss is somewhere in between in the long run most likely but it definitely is more than just the cost to make it.
1. Apple pays all taxes required by law, and they play by the same rules as any other company.
2. Apple didn't break any laws by refusing to crack the encryption on one of their phones, if they had then the FBI would have pursued it rather than giving up--and Apple is innocent until proven guilty.
3. The FBI doesn't have the right to unilaterally refuse to investigate crimes just because they don't like the victim--that would be pretty fucked up.
4. By all accounts this was a local crime and will be investigated by the NYPD, not the "feds"
5. EVERY product can be decrypted, it just takes time & money.