Smartphone Mugging More Popular Than Ever 285
A reader writes with this snippet from gizmodo: "The Associated Press reports that smartphone robberies now account for nearly half of all robberies in San Francisco, as well as an impressive 40 percent here in New York City. And the numbers aren't just high, they're getting higher fast. In Los Angeles, smartphone robberies are up 27 percent from last year, with no signs of slowing down. The thefts come in all varieties as well. Victims have reported having their phones—iPhones in particular (surprise!)—yanked out of their hands while talking, snatched just as public transit reaches a stop, or even taken at gunpoint." When I was relieved at gunpoint of my (very, very dumb) phone a few years ago in Philadelphia (very, very dumb), it made for a lousy evening. Have you been robbed (or accosted) like this? If so, where?
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
IMEI blacklists are widely used in Europe. The problem is that, at least in Norway, few people actually bother to have the IMEI blacklisted if the phone is stolen. I get this impression from a number of forum posts where people seem oblivious to the possibility, and also other people openly admitting to be using stolen phones without being blocked (or visited by the police, even though they use a SIM registered in their name...).
News Flash! (Score:2, Insightful)
When you wave an expensive item around, you attract attention....
Also it is Apples fault for allowing Stolen iphones to continue to operate. If you were able to go home and log into your apple account and set the phone to "STOLEN" so the phone only shows on the screen "STOLEN PROPERTY, CALL XXX-XXX-XXXX to return it" the street value of them would drop to $0.00
But apple chooses to not let this ability that would be trivial to put in place to exist.
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, there are people in the criminal world who specialize in doing things other criminals cannot; chop shop operators reduce cars to parts for resale, fences resell stolen property, money launderers of various sorts make ill-gotten gains look legitimate. I suspect that were IMEI blacklisting to become ubiquitous, we would see criminals specializing in reprogramming IMEIs. Might slow the torrent of theft, though.
Re:apples stance (Score:3, Insightful)
iPhone theft inclines the victim to purchase a new phone. Deterring iPhone theft would reduce that purchasing pressure. It doesn't matter to Apple if they get paid out of pocket or from an insurance payout.
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)
So breaking South Korean law is a legitimate reason to change your IMEI number? Do you also put fake number plates on your car when you drive there?
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
On most devices, IMEI numbers are traditionally burned into a soldered IC, are non-reprogrammable chips, and the numbers cannot be changed, without replacing the phone's main PCB.
There won't be criminals specializing in reprogramming, if the cost to reprogram is so close to the revenue to be gotten from reanimating a stolen phone
Re:Serial Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
The wireless carriers do not care about stolen smartphones because they get to sell a new device to the victim and a new data plan to the next user of the stolen device,