“The theft of Apple devices is so rampant in New York that a team of cops has been assigned to work with the tech giant to get the stolen gadgets back, The Post has learned,” Jamie Schram and Chuck Bennett report for The New York Post.
“Every time an Apple device is stolen, detectives attempt to get tracking numbers from the victim or online record,” Schram and Bennett report. “That number, known as the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, is then shared with the officers in Police Headquarters who pass it on to Apple.”
Schram and Bennett report, “The California-based company then informs the NYPD of the device’s current location — and it can track it even if it was reregistered with a different wireless provider. ‘We’re looking for ways to find individuals who have stolen Apple products and return the products to their original owners,’ said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. ‘It is being done to learn the pattern who is stealing.’ Cops also hope the partnership helps catch the crooks who are taking and reselling the devices.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
When will people learn, about the only thing a stolen iPad is good for is tossing around in the stockroom at Walmart…
Petty theft. Why not spend taxpayer monies and resources on things that matter….like the theft of our constitutional rights.
Constitutional rights is not the beat of a New York cop.
Good point. More like: a New York cop will beat the constitutional rights out of you.
Justice is far more important than your ‘rights’. Most people who go on about their rights seem to have no idea about their responsibilities that should go hand in hand with those ‘rights’. Please list your ‘rights’ and then the associated responsibilities with each ‘right’.
Without rights, there can be no justice.
Also, when you imply that responsibilities are demanded for the existence of rights, it brings up the question: responsibility to who? Who can hold you to account for not fulfilling your responsibilities? When someone isn’t “responsible,” what is the penalty?
Rights are (supposed to be) freedoms that cannot be taken away from you.
In this case, you have it 180 degrees out of phase. There can be no rights without responsibly and there can be no rights without justice. True justice makes us all feel safe and secure. Selfishness is not a virtue and rights are often about self. Who will let you have ‘freedom’ when you trample all over their freedom without concern for how your actions affect them?
You seem to think that justice will exist if you invoke it by name. My point is that, without rights, justice cannot be obtained, unless you get lucky and the all-powerful dictator just happens to be benevolent. Without rights, virtue is impossible. If you are forced to do something that people might call “good,” were you really virtuous? Helping others can only be a virtue if you have the right/choice to NOT help others.
Nothing will shake you from your paradigm. You are 100% right in your own mind. The ‘dictator’ you speak of if just will protect your rights and respect you as a person. When you are obedient to just laws, you have the greatest freedom and your ‘rights’ are completely unimportant.
Wow. History teaches us that viewpoint leads to tyranny.
My point was that, without rights, you are guaranteed to have a dictator and can then only hope they are just (unlikely).
With rights, you have the potential to NOT have dictators, and thus the possibility to actually be virtuous and free and.
When every action you can possibly take is required by law, that isn’t freedom, it is mindless obedience. That isn’t an opinion, that’s the definition of the word. Unless, by “freedom,” you meant the absence of power to make any decisions. Ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four and see the term “newspeak” in it?
Your tin foil hat seems a bit too tight. Watch out, they are out to get YOU.
I’ve really tried to avoid ad hominem attacks. You’d be well-advised to do the same, unless you’ve given up trying to defend your viewpoints with reason.
What “they” are you referring to? Where do I ever allude to some conspiracy? My point was about human socio-political interactions. Your viewpoint seems to be built on a world-view that ignores the realities of how human beings interact.
You seem to be OK with just hoping that leaders will be beneficent, rather than studying how to build systems in which people are able to hold those in power accountable. That’s why rights are important – they are supposed to provide people with the necessary powers to have a say in how those with power will use it.
So I’m guessing there are no immediate plans for a Surface theft recovery team?
No, the thieves are giving those back.
Why bother? They Surface in Dumpsters soon enough.
The NYPD could lower the iOS device theft rate by 1)-backing off on the stop and frisk bullshit and 2)-stop hassling people over small amounts of marijuana.
There are far more important criminals- like those who stole billions and cumulatively trillions on Wall Street in 2007-8.
The two are completely unrelated. No NYC street cop will ever be asked, or expected, to investigate and, arrest and charge the “far more important criminals who stole billions and trillions on Wall Street”. Street cops catch street criminals: those who sell drugs (among which is marijuana, at this time). Stop and frisk seems to be one of the useful tools.
I understand that a street cop has no dealings with Wall Street other than the hookers regularly employed by the brokers and banksters.
The greater point is that NYPD is wasting time and effort on crap that is ill advised. Stop and Frisk is a thin cover for racial profiling.
It would be extremely difficult that anything NYPD does these days is a waste of time and effort, considering their current track record. Without the desire to debate methods and means, the results are that the crime rate in NYC is lowest in the recorded history in every single category, and among over 200 cities in the US with population over 100,000 people, NYC ranks close to the last (around 190 or so) by crime rate, right after Fresno, California. We can debate the social, political and other ramifications of NYPD’s methods and policies, but their results are hard to dispute.
What I’d like to see:
When your iDevice is stolen,
* You file a police report and send a copy to Apple, along with, say 10 to 20 bucks.
* And either, Apple locates the phone and sends this info to the proper police dept.
* And/Or Apple bricks the device.
* If you manage to recover it Apple will unbrick it.
If this doesn’t get it back at least it will render it useless. And if this system is advertised widely then thieves will eventually come to realize that a stolen iDevice is worthless.
A cool way of bricking the device would be to keep it from being turned off so location services still works (and is enabled even if disabled previously), but the user is prevented from getting ANY response from the phone when they try to turn it on (to preserve the battery for one thing).
New TV series?
Why the heck does Apple not allow real device recovery? They could solve every iDevice theft immediately yet they are not willing. Perhaps it means more sales, which would be the bottom line of a soulless approach.
I was burglarized, the only items stolen were the iDevices from me, the wife, my daughter.
“Find my iPhone” didn’t do anything. Even a moron in a hurry knows how to avoid that one.