The scary part, though, is the cops' handling of the situation. Luckily for me, I was quick enough to react and hide away my most important item, my iPhone 4. As soon as they were gone (within 30s) I called the cops, and soon thereafter we had 5 squad cars show up. They interrogated us and made us write statements, but would not send a car after the suspects, who had fled in a direction we had indicated to them. After telling us there's no chance they'd recover our stolen stuff, they took off. We asked for a ride back to the bart station, to the police station, anywhere (it was night in a shady part of Oakland. We had nothing… no money for a cab, and we sure as hell didn't want to walk alone around Oakland.) They just refused, saying they had "other shit to do" and left.
The fact that I got mugged at gunpoint in Oakland comes as no surprise to me—I shouldn't have been there in the first place. However, the police's blatant incompetence came as a terrifying shock.
My motorbike was stolen the 12hrs before I went sitting in a hedge in a field where I found some tyre tracks in some mud (nobody sensible would have a trials tire on a chicken chaser) of my bike earlier that day ( skipped classes at my EE uni course). After ~4hrs sitting in the cold and dark I hear the bike near to the field and set after it and try to pull the thief off as he goes around a roundabout (he just wobbled into the curb and goes off and I get flung to the ground). I phone the police telling them where my bike is ( I had reported the theft hours ago). I chase after the guy and he drops it somewhere (it went quiet) so I phone for my housemates only for 1 to drive home because he "doesn't like this one bit". I spent 20minutes waiting for the police only for me and a friend to fail at tackling the guy off the bike when he comes back and rides off.
I go looking for the bike with a friend (I hear it stop a long way off somewhere in a council estate) and interrogate one of the thief's friend who tried to follow the thief. Waste of time, it turned out the friend had put fake plates on his scooter. My friend miraculously spots my bike in a dark alley and we push it home. Then 3 fucking police cars turn up almost an hour after I tell them and I convince them I phoned them but I have nothing on me (I was certain I was at least going to get beaten up that night) so I get put in the cop car and taken home to get ID. Then they are happy that I wasn't the thief.
That was the 2nd time my bike got stolen.
1st time it was in a locked garage blocked by a locked car (smashed the window of the car to release handbrake and crowbarred the garage door and cut the lock. A few years later they torched the both and my bike along with my stuff stored in it [i was at uni]). Usual stuff first, police come down, take info and tell me they wont be able to find it. I bunk off school and go riding around on my mountainbike checking out all the council estates and woods near my home (Plymouth, England). Sure enough I hear it come down a path and see 2 people on it. I throw my mountainbike in front of them and they came crashing down and I banzai charge at them screaming. One of them runs for his life and the other just hung around claiming he didn't nick it (was offered a "go") and wanted compensation for damaging his "trackies". I believe him though as I had an inkling as to who knicked it. I ride out of the woods away from home with the mangled bicycle on my lap and I get my dad to come by to pick it up(http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnobleuk/5783020123/), clear the woods between me and home and then I ride back. Police's response when I tell them I retrieved my bike back "oh, good for you."
For some unknown reason this heap of a bike got stolen 3 times. The 3rd time I gave up only for the police find it dragged 50meters away from my home where someone tried to use bolt-cutters on it. The police then tried to charge me £250 for retrieval fees. I slipped off from work to avoid that scam.
New York used to be very, very bad. People thought that was just life in the big city. Then they decided to maintain order, even painting over graffiti as soon as they found it, and enforced even minor laws. The criminal element perceived that bad behavior would not be tolerated. Malcolm Gladwell describes it in Tipping Point.
We didn't catch him (right then at least), but I was still impressed with the quick response.
I've only moved to NYC few months ago and never felt remotely as threatened as some of my late night walks in SF. Still I keep hearing NYC has its own share of bad hoods but my guess is in proportion to its overall size, they comprise a significantly small % of area than sf.
So I'm not sure if they behaved quite right, but the article makes it sound less bad than the summary. Rescuing someone who is not thinking clearly and doesn't want to be rescued can go bad in all sorts of ways.
And that's to be expected. Those that do think outside the box left the box a long time ago.
You're never going to convince a flight attendent that you can turn off the network and keep using your smart phone until one of the people who make the rules gets an iPhone and learns about the magical "airplane mode".
And it sort of should be this way. You want these people following rules, not making them up as they go. Its really the higher ups and ultimately the citizenry that need to change the way they think.
As far as I can tell, no one has the will, political or otherwise, to take steps towards a remedy.
It isn't just the police department. The state had to come in and run the schools after the school district went bankrupt.
Did I mention that Ebonics as a second language originates from Oakland? When they were rolling up the 60s, a lot of the batshit insane got swept towards Oakland, and it has been festering ever since.
Gun crime doesn't exist in Ireland like it seems to in the US. The idea that someone out to mug me and take my wallet would have a firearm pointed at me and not just their fists is, to me, quite scary. I don't know what the statistics are like for such crimes at gunpoint and while I write this I realise that this fear might well be the result of my limited exposure to American news outlets.
I guess my question is: is it justified or is this just my lack of experience of living in the states running amok ?
The most dangerous places are places where there's access to firearms for criminals, but they're illegal or prohibited for citizens. The most heavily armed states in the USA actually have lower gun crime and violent crime. Likewise, extremely heavily armed countries like Switzerland and Israel also have low violent crime rates.
You've got to go to one side or the other to be safe. Near complete removal and prohibition of firearms (like Japan) works. Arming all legitimate citizens who want arms works. But having firearms available easily for purchase on the black market, but restricted/prohibited legally tends to promote the worst of both worlds.
"Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them."
I really doubt there's anything new or interesting to be had from rehashing the gun politics argument over again.
The latter. Most of us live in places where crime is not a problem. We're not all in mortal fear for our lives, having property stolen left and right at gun point.
And .. the modest amount of actual crime I've seen, no guns were brandished.
I'd rather be threatened with a gun than by a big palooka with his fists.
* Fists or a gun, you're going to do what he says. He's got the drop on you, we can assume he's picked a place where help is unlikely to come, you can't get away quickly.
* A guy like that is big, likes to fight. He's going to do some damage. If he gets into it, he can cripple you for life, rack up some serious hospital bills.
* Criminals with guns don't seem to have much of a chance to learn to use them well. Contrary to TV, while shooting a gun is easy, actually hitting something is difficult. It takes practice.
I've never mugged anyone, but I would guess that the first step is to establish control over the victim. With a gun against an unarmed victim, the mugger gets control easily. With neither armed, the mugger might need to actually attack and force submission before the victim decides if he should fight back or not.
Sure, we could say "Yeah, but this software let the blog author see them absconding with the laptop," but debating the evidence is conducting a trial of sorts, without giving the accused the benefit of a chance to cross-examine their accusers and present their side of the story.
I'm very comfortable with the idea of using software like this to gather evidence, and I'm very comfortable with criticizing the police for failing to act, but I'm not comfortable with publishing these pictures.
As for a crime lower than stealing my bicycle: That's crazy. Even if you have a bicycle worth more than your laptop, the loss of time and possible identity theft that could happen with a lost laptop more than outweighs the financial loss of either.
Now onto a subjective matter. A bicycle is a highly personal item for many people. It may not involve identity theft, but for some people it involves a loss of freedom and mobility that can't be replaced easily. My current bicycle has been highly personalized for my use. Having it stolen would be like having a bit of my soul stolen.
If you don't feel the same way about your bike, I quite understand.
UPDATE:
You said that "The dude lost his right to privacy when he stole a laptop." Did you notice what you just did? You convicted someone of an offence without trying them in a court of law. If we were in a jurisdiction where murder is a capital offence, you could use exactly the same logic for lynching and hanging a man without bothering to try him. He lost his right to life when he murdered, and we know he murdered, so fetch a rope and a horse.
Now some (strawman alert) might say that the evidence is overwhelming. Well, where do we draw the line? What's the rule for "We don't need a trial?" Pictures on the Internet? Eyewitness accounts?? Confessions? All of these have been proved unreliable in the past, which is why we have trials.
I'm uneasy with this kind of plastering as well, it has this "mob lynching" vibe that is often for the worst rather than the best. It appeals to our worst instincts, and you can sense that the author is angry and we are helping him to punish this guy when we look at this.
I felt dirty to be honest. If you don't believe it, ask yourself: why didn't he blur his face ? Would his message be less efficient ?
Also, are you uncomfortable with the publishing to the extent that it is a punishment? I interpreted it as an attempt to get people's attention and thus make it more likely that his property is returned, rather than a punishment.
There's a whole "presumption of innocence" thing going on in my head. I feel like people are telling me that it only applies when they haven't been shown what looks at first glance like compelling evidence.
In this case, the guy is using a photographic device that is not his (we don't know if he stole it or not), specifically, he is pointing the camera directly at his face. My gut feeling is that it would be a fine line to walk, but that there might be a decent argument that he has no reasonable expectation of privacy. It's not his device, he knows there's a camera in it, and he's pointing that camera at his face...
Just another way to look at it.
People would still be eager to punish the guy in the pictures, pre-trial and regardless of his story.
if you personally saw a murder you don't need no trial to know who is the killer. trial is to convince everybody else.
In this case, trial might be required to charge this guy with anything, but you can see him driving away with the laptop just as it was stolen. might not be enough to charge with theft, but pretty much enough for me.
I don't think you know why we have trials. We don't have trials to convince everyone else. We have trials because your eyesight alone is not sufficient evidence, you need to consider all of the facts, not just what you think you saw.
In the USA these kinds of allegations are made public whereas in France both parties (alleged victim and alleged per(p|v)) are treated the same private way until a court deliberates.
Its unlikely that any of the guys friends read HN, but its not that unlikely that some idiot seeing the blog post would send some email to the guy that would alert him.
Also, I don't even think its possible to drive with a macbook on your knee like that.
Unless, this guy had my MacBook in a viral ad campaign that is.
Edit: Here's the owner of the MacBook http://twitter.com/#!/jmk He seems real, but he does work for an agency that specialises in interactive ad campaigns.
Now, this could still end up being marketing and the world may still Rapture on Oct 21. But if Hidden weren't your client before this, they should be afterwards.
He's been posting off/on to his personal FB/Flickr accounts about the stolen laptop saga for a few months now, and mentioned setting something like this up to try and get some attention after he pretty much exhausted all his other avenues. Looks like that part worked :)
Hope someone recognizes the scumbag (if he turns out the be the thief that is...)
I'm also really surprised that hiddenapp.com didn't link to this blog on their splash page. Let's say you build an app and someone use it and popularize it, would you link to it on your frontpage? Of course; that'll give you even more credibility. It probably doesn't link to it mainly because they don't want to be associated with this ad campaign.
> I reported the crime to the police
It's typically frowned upon, in a manner of speaking, to file false reports. This would be a terribly stupid campaign.
edit: I suppose he could be lying about filing. Don't know if that's a thing...
The 'this app is awesome' comments, and the prominent FB like / Twitter plugs kind of lend credence to the theory too.
I had my MBP taken with http://preyproject.com/ installed. Now I live outside the US , (in Ireland) and while the police where helpful & curious about how the tech worked, they just did not do anything, even though I got a photo of the guy, his first name and geo location of his apartment block in the first week.
So 3 months later, and although I'm still watching the guy watching porn on my laptop, I have built up a substantial profile of him, through persistent (obsessive according to my girlfriend) tracking.
So just this week I passed on the following details to the cops - fullname - email - phone number - postal address - bank account no - online betting account no - lots of photos of him and his flatmates/friends.
They were kinda shocked I was still on the case, but said they will dispatch someone to go pick up the laptop this week.
So my advice; if you stick with it, and hand them the case on a plate it might work out.
This is how one hacker got his computer back from a thief after tracking him for a few years.
Prey, Hidden or Undercover.
It does have a few small bugs, and one thing I didn't like is the 100 report limit. You see, the 100 rpt limit means that if you want to do 2min monitoring you have to really keep on top of the reports.
Overall 2 thumbs up from me for prey.
Also, get something not worth stealing then you don't have to worry about it. Anyone half decent can be productive on a piece of junk.
If you have something valuable or desirable, you have to spend $15 on an app to track it, deal with insurance companies, deal with the police, buy a burglar alarm to keep your premiums down, buy gates to protect your house, worry about getting mugged, worry about leaving it somewhere, worry about status etc.
It is just not worth it.
I live in the knowledge that if someone decided to nick my laptop, they would be seriously disappointed (and I'd be 80GBP down rather than 1000GBP + all the above down). Ironically I left it in a McDonalds in London for 2 hours and it was still there when I realised and went back. Even the staff left it there and cleaned around it.
Don't buy decent equipment to increase productivity, buy cheap hardware because it (most likely will be) stolen at some point!
Also don't make decent money because at some point you will most likely become a victim of identity theft.
Oh and make sure you live in a run-down old shack because someone is probably going to rob you otherwise!
Stop making yourselves a target people...
I make enough money to be happy and not sacrifice time with my family.
I live in a nice house in a nice area (which my family appreciate) - I can afford it because I don't have to pay for a new car and MacBook Pro every year :-)
I am not a target. I am just a person in the crowd not flashing white earphones around.
Oh did I say: I have a family who are more important than shiny stuff.
They don't seem to like it either.
My Thinkpad X61s goes everywhere. I took it to NYC, walked even drunkenly walking around in the middle of the night with it in my backpack in Brooklyn and Manhattan and on the subway. I've hesitated upgrading my iPhone 3GS just because it's starting to look a bit busted but gets me along perfectly fine. I was using it to sync photos while there to Dropbox in case either/or got stolen.
Of course, I've had my car broken into three times, and each time has made me more and more anal about it. The first time was the worst though, a 1965 Fender Bandmaster at work on christmas eve, worth about $800. What was shitty about that was I had just got out of band practice, hadn't gotten home, it was in a very conspicuos, non-hidden place on a very busy day (I worked at a grocery store) and nobody saw anything.
Other times were much less severe, a shitty CD deck ($40), some CDs (maybe $60 I spent?) and a crappy coat. Mostly I just got sick of replacing the window, but that was only $15, so it didn't matter so much.
Any lawyers want to chime in on whether the owner has a right to reclaim his property legally? May be if it is in plain sight in the public?
Sure, it's just another repo. Get a court order, then hire the sheriff's office to enter the property and retrieve it. How do you think rent-to-own businesses work?
They can go to the Sherrif and say "This person signed a legal document stating I gave them X equipment with Y serial number. They have not returned/paid for it in the allotted time...come with me to their property; if we find it and they don't have another legal document signed by me stating otherwise, obviously they don't have the right to posses it".
Isn't it a little different here? Here it's disputable who the property belongs to, and in what context this person has the property. Wouldn't a criminal charges of some kind have to be made instead of the process say, a car dealership goes through to repossess a car?
Either charge the thief and recover it from them, or investigate the person for possessing stolen property and if it turns out to be stolen, then returning it to the rightful owner?
Aren't repossession agents bound by some constraints as well? Is rent-a-center allowed to surreptitiously record it's customers in case they don't return stuff (without notifying them and/or getting a signed waiver?).
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm just curious how all this stuff works legally.
They must be too busy installing illegal exhaust systems on their police Harleys (http://motorcycles.about.com/b/2008/06/16/oakland-motorcycle...).
Sorry to be off-topic. As a former Oakland resident, it's the first thing that comes to mind when I hear Oakland PD. Seriously, though, if you can provide the exact location of your stolen property, how can the police not see tremendous value in following up on it?
People that steal without being punished are going to keep doing it. But preventing crime really isn't in the best interests of big city unionized police forces. Most have effectively insulated themselves from the demands of the average citizen.
How is recovering your property "tremendous value" to the police? They're not paid on the basis of property recovered. In fact, the more robbery and so on, the more likely it is that they'll get more money.
I'm not going to address your implication that the police are attempting to maximize their market demand. This is an issue of short-sightedness, laziness, and oblivious focus on more glamorous crime in order to placate the electorate.
For more examples of Oakland PD's short-sightedness, look at the enormous crime wave following the Acorn Gang sting. They arrested a bunch of gang leaders, which left the unsupervised lackeys to wreak criminal havoc across the region.
Nothing about him working for whoever makes the Hidden app, though it's hard to find info about exactly who makes that app on their web page. I still can't tell if it's legit.
EDIT: He works for ExactTarget (http://www.exacttarget.com/) which is a marketing firm that does social media stuff among other things. Seems pretty likely to be an ad for the app. Or a huge coincidence.
Flipcode Ltd, PO Box 8946, London, WC1N 3AX, +442071938418
Google says Flipcode Ltd is http://flipcode.co.uk/
Guy's probably Muslim, for example. Looks like he might be of Arab descent. (Third pic has "Muhammed" and "Allah" on the wall written and framed in Arabic).
In telling the police more about the identity of this individual (who might be the thief or someone who bought the product from the thief), gathering any additional details can be important.
That's all. This is like an eyewitness report. Sorry if it seemed malicious.
It supports all the major OS's, including phones.
That alone was plenty to convince me not to install it.
EDIT: it still does: https://github.com/tomas/prey/blob/master/config#L44
In that case, I know if I was going to steal a laptop, the first thing I'd do is format it. Do any of the programs remain after a hard disk wipe?
Also, for those using the Prey panel - why does it have an option to save your password? If you're still logged in when the thief makes off with your laptop, and he has any knowledge of these kind of programs, they'll just log in and deactivate your account or change settings.
> In that case, I know if I was going to steal a laptop, the first thing I'd do is format it. Do any of the programs remain after a hard disk wipe?
I have a non-passworded guest account specifically for that purpose. If someone steals my laptop, I want them to be able to use it so that Prey can get me information. Going along with that, my BIOS is passworded and won't boot off anything but the hard drive, so that the only way to wipe the drive is physically removing it. I'm counting on any thief not being technically sophisticated to go that far, and it also gives my information a bit more security (in theory it stops a thief from running something like Orphcrack to get my account's password).
I don't believe that any of these programs will persist after the hard drive is wiped or replaced, though I have heard of manufacturer-provided solutions which live in ROM and install themselves into the operating system automatically (I'm probably getting some details wrong).
> Also, for those using the Prey panel - why does it have an option to save your password?
Yeah, the "Remember me" checkbox is really weird (I'm assuming that that's what you're talking about). I suppose that it makes life more convenient for some people, if they're using a desktop or suchlike to manage other devices. Or maybe it's just something that the developers reflexively included.
Of course if you do have a tracking program you might leave the device otherwise unprotected to discourage reformats.
I don't think it's a fake. He works for ExactTarget, an e-mail marketing services company.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2359512
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/23/dont-steal-a-computer-f...
Just be sure to setup a password to lock the device, otherwise a thief can just turn it off.
"Guy driving away with my MacBook."
So guy steals a laptop and drives away, puts laptop on a seat next to him, with screen up?!?
http://gizmodo.com/5801592/twitter-vigilante-reclaims-a-stra...
http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/06/01/6763712-police-arrest-macbook-thief-caught-on-camera-by-victim(I don't know that for sure, but it certainly seems that way, and there are very few details on the site, particularly a disclosure.)