“MobileMe provided the groundwork for a little social engineering. Rob made quick work of wrangling a name and phone number from the provided contacts, supplying the police with everything they needed to get Rob his phone back,” Terpstra reports.
Terpstra reports, “By the end of the night, he had his original iPhone in his possession.”
Full article here.
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Awesome christmas present.
Nice. I may need to try MobileMe…
MW: Research – I may need to do some research on MobileMe.
The MWs are always within context.
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I hope the thief gets raped in prison.
Privacy, privacy, whert thou has gone privacy?
Really, if you steal a iPhone you have privacy rights.
Yes even thief’s have rights. The same rights protecting you from mistakes or malicious people in power protects those who most likely FOUND your iPod and was trying to return it to you. Making a few phone calls to friends in the process to find out just how to locate you.
Yes, I found a iPhone once and tried the same thing as this guy. Trying to return the iPhone to the proper owner. I wound up giving it to the police, which the idiot owner reported it stolen and I was charged.
$3120 spent on lawyer and a few months of court battles later I was found not guilty.
So you give up your rights to use a iPhone. Just make the right choice and don’t even bother picking one up. It could be a drug dealers phone and you unwittly become heavily involved.
VERY, VERY, scary!
Glad to hear that mobileme is good for something. The web interface is a slow, useless mess.
Wow R2. I must say I agree with you!
@pg
I’m so tired of people picking one aspect of a very broad service and judging the whole thing based on their opinion of that one aspect.
MobileMe has been invaluable for me.
@Coolfactor: Agreed. I subscribed to MobileMe (then, dot-Mac) early last summer and have been very pleased with its overall functionality. Not perfect, but it is great to be freed from having to sync my iPhone to my laptop and my iMac. I really don’t know why people keep complaining about it.
Your example (and therefore your story/honesty) doesn’t quite work…simply making phone calls to friends in a wonderful attempt to help return the phone to its rightful owner would not be MobileMe “sunk” to the new phone. This person was ADDING contacts to his Address book – this is not the same…and even if this thief WAS actually trying to “send a message via contacts” by adding his own personal contacts – all he had to do then is add a contact named “I FOUND YOUR PHONE” with an accompanying phone number. AND, your story doesn’t make sense either…why would an already overburndened law-enforcement system add to the docket such a ridiculous case? You returned the phone…TO the cops…and since it was reported stolen you ended up with lawyer and court costs to try and clear your name and record (and stay out of jail?)? You say you tried the same thing as this guy? By what?…adding YOUR OWN PERSONAL CONTACTS TO THE ADDRESS BOOK? Put it this way…if you ever find yourself in the same situation, and another unstoppable desire to be such a great Samaritan overtakes you – try Calling his contacts – not adding your own…why not start with ones that appear to be relatives due to the most common last names…? Just another bullshit story…methinks.
@ DBM
I wound up giving it to the police, which the idiot owner reported it stolen and I was charged.
Do you really expect us to believe that YOUR the victim in this? That it cost you three-thousand dollars and several court appearances to be cleared of the charges?
Your anecdotal account began with a thief’s point of view! NTM that it’s wafer thin and full of holes, like cheese. Especially the part where you stated you, “tried the same thing as this guy. Trying to return the iPhone to the proper owner.”.
The reality is, you probably did something pretty stupid after “finding” an iPhone and it cost you three-thousand dollars for the privilege of telling the judge you’ll never do it again.
@R2
Despite claims made in the movie Office Space, I don’t think a Court Justice can order that kind of sentence in this country.
Don’t Bug Me:
I call bull on that one.
Had the story been true, the author must have been somewhat unintelligent. If you find a cell phone, you either give it to the police, or try calling some people in the address book, reporting the phone found. In all likelyhood, some of those people will recognise the number/name and relay the lost phone message to the rightful owner. How much simpler would that be. If you found a cellphone, you DON’T go adding your own friends’ numbers into the address book. Unless you intend to keep that phone, what possible purpose would that serve?
The ‘founder’ (thief) of the phone in the original story should spend some time in jail for what he did. As for our Don’t Bother Me fellow, I’m anxious to hear more. If you indeed returned that iPhone to the police, how did the original owner end up suing? Did you hold onto it for a week (or a month) before giving it to the police? Did you enter information into it (numbers, messages, notes, etc)? If yes, why, for the love of God??? Please, do elaborate on this a bit further.
See? MobileMe does work. Unfortunately, it only works if you’re trying to find a stolen iPhone….
Please don’t encourage DBM to ever speak again. He’s a liar that is too dumb to realize how dumb his lie is. Instead, why don’t we treat him with the same respect we would if we were all in the same room together.
We should laugh at him and call him an idiot.
Ha ha ha! … Idiot.
@ coolfactor
I said, “The WEB INTERFACE is a slow, useless mess.” I’ve been using .mac/mobileme for 4-5 years now and have found it invaluable. I’m not making a sweeping generalization. However, the web interface is a slow, useless mess.
My iPhone is password protected, so only an emergency call could be made. If someone connected my iPhone to their computer, the most they could get would be my photos via Image Capture. iTunes would report, ”This iPhone is synced to another computer; Do you want to wipe it clean (including the phone number) and install your own stuff?” That’s the beauty of the iPhone — it requires a computer w/ a complete backup copy of everything on the iPhone to use it. If you lose your iPhone, you only lose a few notes and photos — everything else is backed up to your computer. Why would you not password-protect your iPhone?
@ don’t bug me – you had to spend $3120 on lawyers & court time over an iPhone? I don’t buy it.
You’re either lying or you returned the phone the stupidest way possible. If you returned it to the cops, why would you have been charged at all? .
Your story just doesn’t make sense.
mw – might. As in I might believe your ridiculous story, but probably not.
@DBM
You know where you fucked up? It was when you HUNG UP on the owner!
Anyone who has ever lost, or had their phone stolen, knows what I’m talking about.
@ Don’t Bug Me
Don’t let the morons get to you. I know from experience how unfair our legal institutions can be.
I had my wallet stolen in a bar and the thief later used my ID when he was caught breaking into a store. Despite my obvious innocence my job was put in jeopardy as my security license was revoked for having an alias to a thief. I had to fight for weeks to get it back, all the while being looked at sideways by my employer, who was willing to toss me out on my ass for nothing more than an erroneous allegation. I had my front door kicked in and was harassed by 6 of the biggest militant goons when the thief didn’t show in court. The local press printed my name as the thief causing me a ton of grief every time I had to show my ID. I got pulled over in road checks a couple times and it took 4 hours to clear my name each time. It took 6 years to get it cleared from my name and during that time there’s no way to know how many job opportunities I lost when security checks found this link.
Our legal systems operate most on allegations not realities, evidenced by a large amount of innocent convicts that are exonerated years later when evidence proves them innocent. It may feel counter-intuitive, but if you find a lost phone these days it’s probably better to just kick it into a ditch and keep walking.
@brau
but if you find a lost phone these days it’s probably better to just kick it into a ditch and keep walking.
Also don’t carry your wallet into a bar… or work for people who look at you sideways… avoid road checks… and move frequently
…in walks Brau.
Holy crap, if you think “we” are the “morons” in this one-sided back and forth after reading his story…wow…I think both of ya’ should just lay down in that ditch on top of all the cell-phones you didn’t help return and wait for the stupid stick to come back around and beat the rest of the sense outta ya’.
MDNWord: provided – As in provided you meant anything you said.
One time I lost my iPhone in a brothel. The next morning I happened to find a knife in an alleyway. Later in the day, I happened to find the guy who dropped his knife. Wouldn’t you know it, he had my iPhone!
Jumping for Joy, I ran down the block to catch up with him. “Hey good news,” I said. “You can give me that iPhone!” I tried to hand him his knife in exchange for the iPhone, but slipped and handed it to him a little to quickly.
The guy groaned about giving me back my iphone but he was more preoccupied with holding his knife. Anyway, I went back to my apartment and that’s when I realized this iphone may not have been my iphone.
The cops gave me a hard time and it took me 20 years to clear my name. Good grief, all I wanted to do was return this guy’s knife. Some people are vicious opportunists.
Two things:
1st – All you would have to do is call your own phone from the found one. Caller ID should give you the owner’s name, then start calling his favorites to find him.
2nd – I have MobileMe and it has worked very well. There have been a few minor glitches, but no more than Gmail has had. I think that it was well worth the investment and it saves me a lot of headaches. The Mac/iPhone synchronization alone made it worth it, and the iLife integration makes it that much cooler and more useful.