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Filmmaker Installed Security Software On a Decoy Phone To Spy On Smartphone Thieves (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: Dutch film student Anthony van der Meer had the unfortunate pleasure of having his phone stolen while having lunch in Amsterdam. Unsatisfied with the response from the Amsterdam police, who register an average of 300 stolen phones per week, Meer decided to find out what kind of person steals a phone. He downloaded DIY security software on a decoy Android phone, intentionally got the phone stolen, and was able to spy on his thief for weeks. He recorded the ups and downs of his covert investigation and turned it into a 22-minute documentary called Find My Phone. Meer preloaded the decoy device with an anti-theft application called Cerberus, which allows the owner of the device to access any file on the phone remotely, as well as discretely activate the phone's camera and microphone. Meer and his friends were able to navigate the technicalities of surveilling the thief with relative ease. They even snapped a close-up of the guy's face. The hard part, it turns out, was getting the preloaded phone stolen in the first place. It took Meer four days to get his device pilfered in a city with high rates of theft because concerned citizens kept coming to his rescue.
Not to sound too paranoid, but a guy who switches out phones to use a new stolen phone every two weeks or so, sets the phone to Arabic, and makes a few calls back to Egypt every few days... does the film make find nothing even a tiny bit odd in all that?
The rest of it wouldn't matter but the "use a phone for two weeks than toss it" approach to phone use seems mighty suspicious, along with apparently just sitting idle... waiting to be activated as it were...
Also, no description of his preferred porn? Not a very hard-hitting documentary!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The "story" such that it is doesn't go much deeper than the Slashdot summary. It would be nice if there was a more tasty tease to watch the film, such as the perp used the phone to run some sort of huge prostitution business or a huge drug ring or maybe some sort of Islamic terrorism.
Given that there is no such tease, we can assume the perp used it to call his grandma now and then in some faraway place.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"van der Meer had the unfortunate pleasure of having his phone stolen while having launch in Amsterdam."
You really got to watch out for that... Having Launch. That's what sent Bob Denver into space.
I had to laugh when the thief consulted an imam who told him that Allah would give him what he wanted if he prayed every hour for 24 hours. But the thief didn't notice Allah had already given him a smartphone without praying! Those mysterious ways are really universal. Take another person's possessions and thy will receive. Fool another person, and you will receive tithes.
Bert
Well, it was not a fan favourite iPhone but a mediocre HTC. I do not believe the aftermarket for HTC spare parts is too lucrative, even if the police told so.
Because a modern phone isn't really a phone any more.
It is what used to be called a Personal Digital Assistant, a handheld computer that might just occasionally be used for making voice phone calls.
It is a web browser, diary, ebook reader and everything else. Most people use them on wifi and avoid the phone companies whenever they can.
The word you're looking for is entrapment. However that requires a policeman to actively encourage the criminal to commit the act.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think thief should file a lawsuit against filmmaker for making his private live public without consent. Probalbly he would be able even to defend himself from charge of theft, because it evidently was a provocation.
Maybe he should have had the thief agree to a 4,207-page EULA first. After all, that's how corporations have made invasion of privacy legal for years.
Government doesn't even bother anymore. They just fucking do it and dare you to do something about actions that once were illegal and (in America) used to be constitutionally protected.
TL; DR - Control is an Illusion. Privacy is a Delusion.
Yeah they should lock away that 'filmmaker' scumbag for good and give that thief a medal for exposing a conspiracy of illegal privacy violation.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
I'm not sure how phone theft is still happening. At least iPhones, not sure about Android. But if you put a password on your phone then report it stolen, I thought it was useless at that point? Could never be reactivated by another person. Is that not the case?
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