“I’ve seen a couple of pieces recently on what appear to be increasingly frequent snatch-and-grab robberies of display devices from Apple Stores,” Ben Lovejoy writes for 9to5Mac. “One thing stood out for me: neither author appeared aware of the security measures Apple takes to render stolen display devices useless. And if tech writers don’t know about them, it’s guaranteed that thieves don’t either.”
“The thieves are going to be rather disappointed when they try to sell the devices, because they won’t work,” Lovejoy writes. “Once the device goes out of range of the store Wi-Fi, it is automatically bricked. There’s something quite satisfying about the idea of these thieves thinking they’ve just snagged tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment only to discover that what they actually have is a pile of junk. Or, at best, something they have to break for parts – an expertise they are unlikely to possess. But it would be far better to prevent the thefts in the first place.”
“I’d like to see Apple make efforts to publicize the fact that it has these protections in place, and there’s absolutely no point in stealing display devices,” Lovejoy writes. “That would soon see an end to this type of robbery.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup. Proetct your employees, customers, and copious retail store glass from idiots, Apple. Let the world know that stealing display devices is a fruitless endeavor!
As we wrote back in October 2016 about Apple retail stores removing security tethers: “So, this’ll be great as soon as thieves understand that there’s no point in stealing devices from Apple retail locations. Until then, expect a bit more e-waste in trash bins around Apple locations.”
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All of the products they grabbed have been bricked by Apple, rendering them inoperative. As usual, these criminals are stupid. Efficient e-waste generators? Yes. Criminal geniuses? No. – MacDailyNews, December 9, 2016
SEE ALSO:
Why Apple retail locations can remove security tethers from their demo devices – October 17, 2016
Apple retail locations removing security tethers from iPhone display units – October 14, 2016
“ “Once the device goes out of range of the store Wi-Fi, it is automatically bricked.”
Problem solved.
RTFA, if you’re able.
The problem is not “solved” if the criminals don’t know about it (which is the whole point of the article).
Wow. Forgot your chill pills this morning? I suspect one criminal telling another criminal what happened will spread the news much more quickly and accurately than “advertising” or the “media”. Criminals don’t need nannies. On top of that how would that kind of advertising campaign go exactly?
… all Apple needs to do is have signs with the display phones, and hopefully the morons can read.
This reporter and his reporting is mis leading. Many of these thefts are organised and arranged for the stolen phones to be stripped and its parts sold individually, not the whole phone itself. Once the phones are broken up the unused parts are thrown away. The insinuation that the thieves are stealing phones to sell as a whole phone is incorrect. Having the phones bricked soon after is irrelevant.
It’s like the movie Dr. Strangelove: what’s the point in having security measures no one knows about? If Apple could get this message out, they’d save themselves a lot of headache with insurance claims and fixing storefront windows…
How about an Armed Guard that drops one of these people right on the sidewalk in front of the glass entrance?
Let that video get on social media and this crap will end. Nice, color, hi res video of a perp getting tapped in the head/hoodie with a MacBook Pro in his hand.
Thankfully, stealing $2,000 does not yet warrant an automatic, extra-judicial death sentence. Well… at least SUPPOSEDLY.
In some parts of the US you can shoot an intruder. A their obviously intends some level of harm- so why not?
I am not a 2nd Amendment Worshipper, a gun owner or an NRA Member, but people and businesses have a right to defend themselves and the clientele against robbers.
Why not? If an armed robber threatens harm, then equal measures of self defense are absolutely warranted and legal in the USA at least.
As far as I’m concerned, the instant a criminal demonstrates willful intent to harm anyone, they have excused themselves from a trial by jury. The overpopulated planet doesn’t need to coddle parasites like these. everyone is sick and tired of paying to house them in luxury country club prisons.
I am also fully for gun control. If you’re too pathetic a marksman to down your target without military style automatics with huge ammo cans, then you are a pathetic excuse for a gun owner. Gun ownership should require regular marksmanship testing and licensing just like car ownership. Fail the psych exam, and the gun is auctioned off to pay down the bloated national debt. Simple and fair.
And if these planned snatch and grab thieves are unarmed, then historically it was NOT cruel or unusual to catch and publicly shame them. A few permanent scar and a week in the stocks were much better deterrents than the wimpy penalties doled out today.
In medieval England, when stocks were used as a form of punishment, the stocks were generally used to shame drunkards or vagrants. it was commonplace to hang people for even quite minor thefts. Those able to pay fines would be fined.
Prisons to detain people for extended periods as a punishment in the way we currently know them did not exist until the late 18th century and prior to that, jails were merely holding cells until the offender was brought to justice ( which was generally pretty swift ).
Like that armed policeman at that high school in Florida who hid under a car outside the building?