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Apple thefts continue, but don't work so well for the crooks

by Mel Martin Sep 2nd 2009 at 2:15PM

Another day, another dumb criminal gets snared by Apple technology. In this case, 2 dumb criminals. This latest foiled crime involved the theft of 4 iPhones from the Apple Palisades store in West Nyack, New York.

According to the Journal News up that way, the two crooks ran from the store, and police put out a description of the thieves. The phones were also tracked using the built-in iPhone GPS, and the info led police to a hardware store parking lot in Orangetown.

The hapless thieves are scheduled to appear tomorrow in court to answer to to the charges relating to the stolen iPhones and also to explain why they had 2 more stolen iPhones in their possession. The apprehended men are now in the Rockland County jail, hopefully thinking it may not have been so smart to steal phones with GPS tracking. Oddly, the Journal News article quotes cops saying the value of the four stolen phones was close to $4,000, which seems quite high; perhaps they meant the value of all six phones found with the suspects.

Meanwhile, our friend 'Jim' says he is getting good cooperation from his local police in apprehending the thieves who stole his MacBook and iMac. As you'll remember from our previous coverage, Jim has the Back to My Mac feature of MobileMe and using the screen sharing function saw someone filling out an online job application, which helpfully listed their address, phone number, name and Social Security number. Then yesterday, Jim snagged a picture of one of the alleged crooks who had used the built in iSight camera to pose for a snapshot..

As Jim continues to make contact with his stolen laptop, he finds more goodies. Someone logged into their MySpace page, and Jim was able to copy and download various pictures of the alleged perps. He also retrieved one of their cellphone numbers.

Police have made a couple of visits to the address, but haven't found anyone at home. They are persisting and will undoubtedly find them, likely ruining their day.

[Thanks to Jim R. for the West Nyack tip]


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Another day, another dumb criminal gets snared by Apple technology. In this case, 2 dumb criminals. This latest foiled crime involved the...
 

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Michael Murdock

So let's just give away all the secrets to the idiots out there who take things from the Apple Store. Every Phone and Ipod and computer should have parental controls enabled and then have Find my stuff enabled so that when these bozos take them, that they are caught and get taught a valuable lesson. DON'T.

Love,

Mike

September 08 2009 at 3:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
found.iphone.in.venice

Too bad such features are not adverted on TV so EVERYONE (and I mean grand-ma's and so on...).
If so, I wouldn't have had much trouble:
http://foundiphoneinvenice.blogspot.com/

September 07 2009 at 6:02 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jon

You guys really need to stop publicizing this. It's not a helpful feature if everyone and their mother knows how to disable "find my iphone."

September 03 2009 at 12:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Jon's comment
airmanchairman

@Jon, trust me, the criminal confraternity are already wrapping their heads around this new GPS / Cloud / Security model that has caught their less-intelligent brethren on the hop.

The more arrests by the cops, prosecutions and convictions brought in a court of law will pretty much publicise this more than any blog comments here or anywhere.

Good thing worth preserving is that technology has suddenly caught them on the hop, and the advantage needs to be pressed home by the industry as a whole, not just Apple, because we all know the race between detection and criminal evasion is never-ending.

Many days are for the thieves, but just ONE day for the owner of the house, as the old saying goes....

September 03 2009 at 4:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tommy

I'm mobileme'd and undercovered up. I'll never get "stole" on again, or if I do, I'll catch the mother#@$*er.

If I was "Jim" I would not go back to work until I found my computer.

September 02 2009 at 6:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
pathumxx

I remember someone mentioning something about writing a script that takes a picture using the isight and then emailing that picture as soon as the person logs in. where can i find this script? i was thinking about creating a "guest" account as suggested in a different post and putting the script in that account.

September 02 2009 at 5:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
breadbaker

'tis a nice feature... not considering the price.
After all.. I have yet to get my iPhone or Mac stolen to see the sense in having an overpriced service like that on my monthly bills.

September 02 2009 at 5:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to breadbaker's comment
tdowling

Isn't that kind of like saying you don't see the sense in seat belts because you've never gotten in an accident?

Anyway, MobileMe is pretty great, especially if you have more than one Mac or work from multiple locations. Having the iDisk available on any computer and being able to access my desktop from my laptop are particularly invaluable to me.

September 02 2009 at 5:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Yoshi1080

Back To My Mac never worked for me because of some mysterious network problems. Also didn't really see a use for it since my Mac had to be awake for it to work. With Snow Leopard's Wake on Demand I might give it another try, though. I also have .Mac but I don't really get what it has to do with it. Didn't Back To My Mac work as well without it?

September 02 2009 at 4:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Payload

I don't understand how find my iPhone helped them find phones stolen from the store. New in the box they wouldn't be powered on, and display phones would be tethered to an alarmed anti theft device. Say they got out of the store with the phones, does Apple really have "Find My iPhone" turned on and tied to a Mobile Me account on their display phones?

September 02 2009 at 4:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Payload's comment
aminor70

No one said they were new in the box. I'm sure they were display models on the sales floor that are tied to the stores mobile me account. Yes the stores have thier own account. These idiots don't care if they set the alarm. That is why they ran.

September 02 2009 at 5:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jake

Strange that the people aren't home every time the cops show up. Unless of course the thieves are cops.

September 02 2009 at 3:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jmcmurtrey

My wife was in San Antonio on business yesterday and had her phone stolen. When she called me to let me know I tried to find it using mobile me, but the crook turned it off. I sent a message saying I'd offer a reward if they just returned it, but after several messages, and 24 hours, I was never able to catch it online. I did get to use the remote wipe feature, which said that it was started about an hour ago. Now we're out an iPhone 3gs.

My only complaint is that it doesn't somehow work when the phone is off. I don't know how they'd do that, but it would be a nice to have feature (I'm sure they could make it work as long as there was battery life).

September 02 2009 at 3:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
3 replies to jmcmurtrey's comment
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