back to article NYPD: iPhone thefts rising ten times rate of other crimes

Thefts of iPhones and iPads in New York City have increased at a rate ten times higher than other crime during this year – and the police are offering help to protect your Apple kit. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne told Bloomberg that iPads and iPhones are a "magnet for crime, including robberies, driving the …

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  1. HMB

    Find My iPhone 5

    Quickly! The thief is in a gas station on top of the Houston skyscraper over there! :P

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      To negate the risk of theft..... Buy an Android phone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I''m not convinced, plebs were looking longingly at my HTC Desire when it was new, the other half told me to put it away when we were at an outdoor flower festival and I was taking pictures....

  2. Arctic fox
    Headmaster

    Crimewave?

    Except where the theft involves serious violence against the owner I would have thought that a major US urban police force might have higher priorities than petty larceny? An example of "PR-policing" from the NYPD perhaps?

    1. toadwarrior

      Re: Crimewave?

      No matter what the daily mail wants you to believe there isn't actually that much real crime on a day to day basis.

      Secondly, no every cop is cut out for fighting rreal crime. That's why they've even been known to be handing out bike lights at my local train station.

      I know your nerdy fanboy senses are tingling but no need to get yourself worked up over this. The police aren't in apple's back pocket.

      1. Arctic fox
        Headmaster

        @toadwarrior RE:"The police aren't in apple's back pocket. "

        I can assure you that I was not suggesting that they were and furthermore my "nerdy fanboy senses" are at all times fully under control. :P

        I was referring to the desire of the police to be seen to be doing something when the crime concerned is attracting public attention and (implicitly) how more serious offences don't get the attention they should.

    2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Crimewave?

      It may surprise you, but many of the people who commit "petty larceny" are also involved in other bigger crimes. Once the cops have an excuse to search a flat on the grounds that there's a stolen phone in it, they can find all sorts of other things.No smoke without fire, and all that.

      Same thing applies to cars. I'm told that UK police often check out supermarket car parks looking for cars with expired tax discs, bald tyres, etc. The owners who display no regard for the little laws are often mixed up in bigger things.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Indeed

        my satnav was satnabbed earlier this year (for various reasons the car was unlocked on the drive when it was nicked). Didn't report it as no damage done and it was an old model anyway (I'd have bough another within a few weeks). I just informed Garmin it was stolen, in case the scrotes tried to unlock it.

        Imaging my jaw-dropping surprise to get a call from the police a few weeks ago telling me they had recovered the satnav (along with 20 others !) after a local towrag got arrested for something completely unconnected. They searched his house and lo and behold.

        The most intriguing thing the copper dealing it told me was that most people don't lock or register their satnavs. So the other recovered ones are going to sit in the evidence room.

        If the dumb crim had thrown my satnav away when he realised it was locked, he would probably have skated.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I was stopped once

        by a copper, because the car I was driving was missing the tax disc (I was working for a garage and had trade plates). When I asked him why the police were involved in a revenue matter, he just smiled and said that almost invariably people who didn't pay their road tax almost always didn't have an MOT, or insurance, and it would be a evens bet they would either be banned or just not have a license - 5 crimes from one stop. And these people are many times more likely to be involved in hit and runs.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Crimewave?

        And sometimes they''re just goddamned poor, and the rozzers like grinding them down a bit more.

        1. TeeCee Gold badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Crimewave?

          Don't be daft. The cost of the tax disc is trivial by comparison to that of maintaining the car to a standard where it'll pass the MOT and insuring it.

          If the driver's skimped on the tax disc, it's highly likely that he won't have some of the more expensive bits required to get one.

        2. JimmyPage Silver badge
          WTF?

          Re: Crimewave?

          So being poor is a defence to criminal behaviour ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Headmaster

            Re: Crimewave?

            It's not 'criminal' behaviour. They're all 'Civil Offences' and you don't get a criminal record. Mind you, I don't suppose you'd call it civil behaviour, either!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If out and about during the hours of darkness it may be wise, although less 'trendy', to ditch the trademark white headphones. A black pair don't say "I have several hundred dollars worth of tech on me"

    1. Arctic fox
      Thumb Up

      @ AC 2012 01:47 That is, I suspect, a little bit tricky for a certain *particular* section........

      ........of their customer base for whom a great deal of the point of the exercise is that everybody should know that they own a product from A Certain Famously Cool Mobile Phone Producer. The fact that after dark in certain areas of the average major city this is equivalent to walking around wearing a large billboard saying "please mug me" does present them with something of a conundrum. I will admit that the mental image of a couple shadowy figures lurking in a doorway watching their mark strolling down the street and the one saying to the other "me first with the barista" is irresistible.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Exactly what I was thinking, nothing says "foolish person with shiny kit in pocket" more than a white set of headphones.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I sometimes go the whole hog and wander round downtown with just a little Philips MP3 player in my hand plus the black headphones.... people think ..... "aww poor beggar" or ... "gee, weird, he seems to be doing it just to actually enjoy music" :P

  4. toadwarrior
    Trollface

    It's almost certainly android owners who are upgrading to something that works. It's just that they're no used to paying for things.

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Happy

      Gosh, there must be some sad SOBs around to downvote a deliberate troll that good. Have a compensating upvote for making me smile.

  5. JaitcH
    FAIL

    This story smply illustrates ...

    that thieves have as few brains as iP5 purchasers.

    I hope that the find my crap program doesn't use Apple MAPS - they'll never find them!

    1. Tom 7

      Re: This story smply illustrates ...

      Nothing to do with thieves:

      Sensible person finally cracking under lack of expected activity: Why haven't your cornered me and shown me all the amazing new facilities of that iPhone you spent all night queueing for?

      Fanbois:(thinks: my chihuahua is too small to have swallowed this massive disappointment) I was mugged and it was stolen (uses PC to locate 'Will it blend').

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why bother?

    Surely as soon as the handset is stolen you just deactivate it via the IMEI number and it becomes a paperweight? Also the tracking stuff will lead to cops straight to it.

    Additionally, I do tend to see a lot of iDevice users walking around with them on show in one hand at arms length in a kind of 'look at me' style. I even saw some guy the other day walking down the street listening to music on his iPad, which he was carrying out in front of him.

    1. ScottAS2
      FAIL

      Re: Why bother?

      For reasons best known to themselves US operators don't use the IMEI blacklist, so your nicked iPhone is fully-functional in the 'States. Except for the Maps, of course.

      To be fair, I believe they are just about to start enforcing the blacklist, like operators in most of the world have been doing for years.

  7. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Acceptable losses?

    > "thefts of Apple products increased this year as the theft of electronics by other manufacturers declined."

    So does the number of "thefts" bear any relationship to the release of new models? Given that a phone is so easy to brick once nicked, as the reduction in thefts of "other manufacturers" goods indicates, you've got to wonder what's really going on.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    sting operation?

    Walk around with a fake iPhone, filled with tear gas and indelible dye (or Semtex for the more committed?), with the trigger linked to the "on" button. That will sting all right. Should put a dent in any potential thief's career...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: sting operation?

      Ahh Semtex, wonderful stuff, produced in the Soviet Bloc, and exported to the IRA via Libya using kindly donated money collected in American pubs (Noraid) to blow up UK civilians, and indeed the UK Goverment Cabinet in a hotel in Brighton in 1984.

      Somehow, this suddenly became unacceptable behaviour after 9/11, can you imagine why? :P

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ became unacceptable behaviour after 9/11, can you imagine why?

        Yes. By then it was thought Thatcher and Tebbit were over and done with and normal morality could be resumed.

        But he's back, isn't he! Truly, Tebbit is The Undead, back calling for legal murder (again).

      2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: sting operation?

        > indeed the UK Goverment Cabinet in a hotel in Brighton in 1984.

        According to IRA information, the Brighton Hotel bombing used Frangex, a commercial form of gelignite manufactured in Ireland. Most IRA bombs in NI used ANFO, it was much easier to get than Semtex.

    2. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: sting operation?

      Semtex? I thought all that was needed is a buggy battery...

  9. mhenriday
    Pint

    «... to help purchasers of Apple's latest kit register their new shiny-shiny ...»

    «[S]hiny-shiny», indeed - until that low-quality aluminium casing gets scratched («normal[ly]», of course)....

    Henri

  10. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Are these "real" crimes?

    Or phone lost/smashed/dropped in water which would otherwsie be uninsured?

  11. Daniel Owen

    Not Android?

    Why aren't crims robbing androids?

    No resale value? Nobody wants to buy them?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not Android?

      For much the same reason that they like sportswear tat with the most famous logos all over it like Nike, i.e. advertising-susceptible types :P

      On a side issue, I tried explaining my Eastern European other half about the "no-logo" movement.....

      got just a blank stare! For now, they just want company branded stuff, Japanese, South Korean or German, or Swedish, but maybe that will change.

      No, she doesn''t rob iPhones, as far as I know..... ;)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not Android?

      > Why aren't crims robbing androids?

      Of what, electric sheep?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I always thought the Americans were 10 year ahead of the UK (or so people say)?

    Then why are they chasing after tech thats just OLD? Being seen with a mullet wouldn't make people think "wow, he's on trend". Being seen with iPhone isn't a status symbol anymore, quite the opposite in fact!

    Owners clearly don not know that it is 2012 and what tech is available out there.

    Its akin to your granny thinking the VCR is great!

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Id bet most middle class people have between $1k and $5k of "stuff" either on their person or in their vehicle at any given point in time. Whether phones, jewelry, watches, tablets or what have you.

    Where I'm at we have signs everywhere saying "take, lock and hide" trying to remind people not to leave crap out in their car. So I applaud the New York police for being visible in reminding people that they are now walking around with a target on their back. Are their "more important" crimes they could be working on? Possibly, but this is certainly one that is easy to stop if people just paid attention and takes no more than a simple reminder every so often.

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