iPad bandits stake out NYC Apple store iPads have become the latest must-nick item amongst New York's ever inventive criminal fraternity. However, while the device's portability and all round loveliness is part of the attraction, we suspect NYC's crims are not reading Wired during their downtime. Rather the big iPhones' light weight and high value makes them …
It's easy enough to do, you have software on there that you know the access key to. Said software is flashed onto the ROM
If sim changes or you 'ping' it, via say sms or it periodically fetches a page from the interwebs and then knows it is stolen - and can email/sms/whatever it's location every now and then.
If it's on the if Apple gave a shit about third party developers at all this would be really easy to do, because you could do it in the same way as you do on any other device (winmo, android et al).
Of course they don't at which point it's up to apple to offer the option. Maybe some real physical security options would be nice too, a fingerprint, smart card, facial recog options would be an idea.
That's how you describe a favourite pet or cherished loved one, not a chunk of metal and plastic!
They are the must have gadget and thieving scum will nick anything that they know they can flog off for some pocket money, when demand is high.
Now if only we could get a run on the price of dog-shit, we'd have cleaner streets in days! That or a run on dog-knappings!
What an idiot suggesting people should have a wild west shoot out to prevent iPad theft.
Really? Is killing a sneak thief the appropriate response to theft?
8 million plus people in this small space requires a little more civilization than whatever you can muster up in your wild-west fantasy land of suburban boredom. The reason people don't steal iPads from UPS men in your area is that they drive up to loading docks in the local mall. Here in a real city, the driver is double parked on a real street and loading stuff onto a hand cart.
That makes it a little more difficult for deliveries, but the upside is that we can walk places rather than drive from mall to mall in four ton SUVs. And that's why people want to live here and why tourists want to visit. No need for internet tough guy Dirty Harry wannabees to stride around the streets with their penis substitutes.
What in the past would have been an example of "Frontier justice" has evolved into a much more civilized state. Where the so-called sneak thief would have been shot or lynched on the spot for his misdeeds, things are vastly different in the modern-day metropolis.
Instead, in our civilized society, a heavily armed (and properly licensed, of course) private security guard is hired to protect the interests and property of the Apple corporation's New York operations up to and including giving a severe case of lead poisoning to any miscreants who should have the audacity to try and help themselves to said property. Subsequent to all such incidents, a swarm of low-level government functionaries will descend upon the scene to issue citations to the thief for multiple counts of dumping a hazardous substance in a public place (leaving several pints of blood and a dead body on the sidewalk) and all onlookers for loitering too close to an incident site in which citations are being issued. Several onlookers will also be tased, kicked, and charged with resisting arrest for daring to ask why they are receiving a citation for loitiering.
The family of the thief then sues the security guard, the Apple corporation, the New York Police Department, and a 62-year-old man from Elko, Nevada who just happened to be nearby. The city of New York simultaneously counter-sues the thief's family and all others within a two-block radius of their residence, for biohazard cleanup costs plus the cost in man-hours of all citation-issuing government personnel involved at the scene of the incident, plus interest extrapolated out based on the estimated 15 years of litigation.
Thus, life goes on in the (civilized) big city. The lead still flies, but more money changes hands as a result and we all feel secure in our superiority to our forebears.
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