iPhone turns Pittsburgh man into Columbo, helps cops catch robbers

this is awesome. both what he did, as well as the fact that he actually got a police response. a few years ago, my iBook was stolen in the city's Oakland neighborhood (next to Shadyside) & i managed to track the thief as far as his IP address.... which was received by the Pittsburgh police with an "okay, we don't know what this means and don't have time to pursue it anyway, but we'll smile/nod at the amateur sleuth". granted, GPS is much more precise/immediate, but it also says a lot for the cops that they were actually willing to listen this time around.

PIN- Personal Identification Number, ergo 'PIN number' makes absolutely no sense, and is certainly redundant. I really wish journalist would stop making such silly mistakes.

Great story though.

As someone who grew up in Pittsburgh and lived there for over 20 years, I can tell you that the location the victim was at was on the BORDER of not WITHIN one of the wealthier neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. I personally would not be hanging around that area alone at 1AM but that's just me.

Was he standing at an ATM? If not, why'd he give correct PIN numbers?

Curious: I received two months of free MobileMe with my iPhone 3G S in July. It's going to expire in two weeks, and I don't need it for anything else so I'm going to let it. If my iPhone were stolen after that time, could I quickly renew my MobileMe account to locate it? Would my username associated with the account (and the iPhone?) be technically deactivated and not available? I had a nice, short username back in the iTools days and found that I could not resurrect that one with this freebie account (no one else has it either).

The article recommends not chasing the criminals yourself, just be a hapless victim. I say carry a gun in a crime infested area of any city to protect yourself. We have a right for self defense.

The Jews in Europe were also hapless victims.

tsk tsk... stupid thieves. never bring a pellet gun to a potential real-gun fight.

Not in this case mind you, but this is Pennsylvania, we citizens legally carry *real* guns here.. concealed or openly, and those "pellet-gun bandits" made out lucky this time.

I have to admit, I really do love hearing these types of stories when they happen.