Hardbitten NYC cops: Sir, I'm gonna need you to, er, upgrade to iOS 7 The New York Police Department's motto, Fidelis Ad Mortem – or "faithful unto death" – could easily pass as the utterance of a fanboi pleading lifelong allegiance to the late Steve Jobs. And it would seem that New Yorkers also keep faith with the Jesus phone – judging by the police force's latest crime-prevention campaign …
"If people who are going to mug you for your expensive iPhone/iPad know that they aren't going to work after they've been stolen, that would stop quite a few muggings."
From what I've heard/read, many phones stolen during muggings are to stop the victim from phoning the police and give the muggers a few more minutes to get clear of the scene. I have no idea if that is true or just hearsay, but makes some degree of sense - in which case whether the phone is locked or not won't make a difference, stealing it stops the victim using it regardless.
I think the point isn't so much muggings as ordinary thefts. But even then if you leave your device on display then thieves are probably still going to grab it since it might not be updated or attached to Find my iPhone; if they get it without seeing what it is first (via pickpocketing, stealing a bag or whatever) then they're unlikely to come and give it back.
> From what I've heard/read, many phones stolen during muggings are to stop the victim from phoning the police and give the muggers a few more minutes to get clear of the scene. I have no idea if that is true or just hearsay
Yes, that is true. We used to just ask them not to phone until we were well clear, but you cannot trust your victims anymore these days. Where is gentlemanship gone? :-(
Mugger: Give me your wallet and iphone.
Muggee: Ok, here you go (S.E. grin on face).
Mugger: Hey, what's your unlock code for this thing?
Muggee: I don't have one, it's a fingerprint lock (still grinning).
Mugger: No problem (pulls out pruning shears).
Muggee: (no more grin)
My point being, if you are somewhere remote enough to be mugged, then it makes sense for the mugger to ask for the unlock code, and I wonder just how far they are willing to go to make money off that iphone.
Security != safety...
As long as the users have any control at all on the added security features, these features make them _less_ safe, not safer.
The hit-and-run kid will still grab your phone no matter what, because even a locked/wiped/etc phone is worth more than nothing at all. And for the more serious muggings, well it will just make the perp want to hang around longer, which is not really _decreasing_ the probability of an "accidental" stabbing/shooting now, is it?
About 3 yrs ago, my wife had her handbag snatched, iphone and all. After filling out a police report (req'd for insurance re-imbursement) she also gave them the IMEI number as she still had the original box. The plod had no idea what to do with this even though she said they could render the phone banned with it. Nothing was done, and calling Orange was useless as they said it's only the police that can issue the ban.
No idea who's right or wrong, but needless to say some scum made a few bucks from it.
"If people who are going to mug you for your expensive iPhone/iPad know that they aren't going to work after they've been stolen, that would stop quite a few muggings."
There's an old saying, "Dead men tell no tales". Modify it to meet the current environment, "Dead men lock no phones".
For a hardened criminal, the street violence won't decrease, it will increase in severity.
The fingerprint scanner was never a security device, out was always a data collection device.
As for the police, reminds me of the clueless fucktards that work on the security scanners at Heathrow who put up the sign saying ipads and kindles need removing from hand luggage. They get all arsy when I leave my nexus7 and kobo in my luggage and have trouble understanding what the problem with their signs are...
The leaflet looks like it was designed by someone in-house: it looks amateur and strikes me as a paper version of something I would consider a scam.
I think they should also be urging all of us to move to trauckers' wallets, as it is much safer to have your stuff chained to your belt. And, while they're at it, they could suggest strongly that we sew hidden pockets into our clothing for our car-keys etc. One can't be too safe.
All government product safety related collateral looks like that in the US; from basically any agency, State or Federal. The format is based on that used by the Consumer Products Safety Commission. The CPSC based their design on the original 'design format' developed during WWII.
It was developed when scams didn't often have accompanying collateral, printing things at home was impossible and anything printed was 'official': Simpler times for sure. Problem now is that everyone knows what official product safety/recall brochures look like and nobody wants to change it due to possible confusion.
"I think they should also be urging all of us to move to trauckers' wallets, as it is much safer to have your stuff chained to your belt. And, while they're at it, they could suggest strongly that we sew hidden pockets into our clothing for our car-keys etc."
Old trick I relearned from a SAS type, eyewash bottle with bleach, aim for eyes.
If you're squeamish, plain water will also rather distract the bastard, just not as long as blindness does.
Using bleach for personal protection is as illegal (and effective) as wasp spray. If you hang around after your mugging, or if you get caught walking around with it, you're probably going to go to prison for at least as long as your mugger, for a premeditated attempt to seriously injure another person. It's safer to go with pepper spray.
Don't know about where you are, but here in DC the Chief of Police has a raging hard-on to squash 'Apple Picking'. She's been campaigning about it for years with radio appearances and posters in the Metro and city buildings. There's even a special task force to follow up on iPhone thefts.
I guess she's angling for a role at Apple when she leaves the DC Police force.
That's great, until you either want to actually use anything that's on the Internet - or shock, horror use the phone for the purpose for which it was designed, i.e. to actually talk to another human being.
Airplane mode just makes it, quite effectively, an iPod Touch.
@Pete Spicer
"Airplane mode just makes it, quite effectively, an iPod Touch." Incorrect. It makes it an iPhone that you'll have to wait for a week or two to find a workaround for the lock.
For example, if you have access to the phone (i.e it's not locked or you see the pass code) you could steal the phone, dump the SIM, reassign it to another (fake) AppleID and quickly wipe the device. This would only take a few minutes- during which time the victim isn't going to be able to call for help anyway.
If you want to remove data from it, swipe the phone and stick it on Airplane mode. You should then be able to pull data off with impunity, erase data, etc. All that's then required is a way of faking Apple's server's acknowledgements for login traffic running on a WLAN and you'd be able to change out the user name the phone's registered to. Alternatively, How Hard Can It Be to re-flash an iPhone with a 'blank' image (perhaps taken from a 'legit' iPhone)?
Nice theory, but you can't assign it to another Apple ID unless you know the password for the current ID. Activation is by device ID, not mobile SIM number so changing that won't help either. Once the device is tied via Find my IPhone to your ID it won't let you change that association without entering your password, which the thief won't have.
Do any of you really honestly believe that a crack addict on a NY street is thinking "Hey, there's a lady using an iPhone. I could really use one of those, unless, of course, it has iOS7, in which case I won't be able to activate it on the network of my choice. Oh well, guess I'll just go to rehab instead."
They're snatch-and-run thefts and then sold in the next alleyway for $20
It doesn't matter if he's selling it for $20, $50 or $250 dollars. The point is, he probably doesn't know what kind of phone it is before he mugs you. He just wants the phone to sell to a fence. The fence is the one who disposes of it. Maybe he know the technical details, maybe he doesn't and sell it to a guy who does. Maybe the guy hacks it, maybe he turns it into parts to resell. Either way you're still out an overpriced iPhone. To me this smells of the same Kabuki theater in which the TSA is engaged.
So a mugger is going to hang around long enough to extract the password out of you and test that it is correct? The whole point about these kind of things is not that they make theft impossible, but that they increase the risk to the thief and reduce the resale value of a stolen phone. Those two factors together will reduce the number of thefts.
> So a mugger is going to hang around long enough to extract the password out of you and test that it is correct?
Well they do escort you to the nearest ATM to get at your cash, so yes, yes a mugger is indeed going to hang around long enough, if it is important to them.
That would mean to have done something through software to circumvent the protection. To fool a sensor is nothing else than fooling a sensor. It is costlier to fool a sensor like this than having a piece of software that does that for you (if that would exist).
/down icon because disappointed with El Reg - too sensationalist...
iOS7 does bring a significant security benefit, namely that the genuine owner can brick the device at a distance and make it impossible difficult for the thief to reactivate it. If all manufacturers followed suit, and word got out that stealing mobiles was pointless, it would reduce street crime by a not-insignificant proportion.
The NYPD promoting this, even if it's just an enterprising desk sergeant running copies on the departmental laser, is to be commended rather than ridiculed. Good initiative.
Hmmm......so iOS7 introcudes the dacility to remotely brick the device. I wonder if RIM patented the technique when they introduced it for the Blackberry phones oh so many years ago? May not save them but it would help Apple get rid of that pile of off-shore cash they are struggling with...
iOS7 didn't introduce the facility to remotely brick the device (that's been around for ages) but it did introduce linking the AppleID to the DeviceID, thereby keeping the phone bricked when a new SIM is inserted. On previous versions of iOS the bricking didn't survive a phone wipe, meaning the only thing you were protecting was your data.
Yes, but the herd mentality seems to regard sensible ideas promoted by the police as somehow being risible.
It reminds me of our local police superintendent telling people that putting barbed wire around their back gardens might result in problems, but that roses and blackberries are completely legal and "we have a free service for removing burglars from your hedge". This is the kind of obvious advice that seems to come as news to quite a lot of people (and yes, if you wish to circumvent the gate and enter my back garden via the fence, there is indeed a seven foot high blackberry patch at the only point of ingress.)
Totally agree with you - it makes it difficult, not impossible. But it doesn't have to. Anything that makes the result of a theft less valuable has potential deterrence value.
A $600 new phone is already gonna be discounted heavily when offered to the local pawnshop - "Honest guv, it's me granma's and she just passed away".
A $600 bricked phone may just not be worth stealing, most of the time.
To quote one of the more "clever" commenters hereabouts:
"All that's then required is a way of faking Apple's server's acknowledgements for login traffic running on a WLAN and you'd be able to change out the user name the phone's registered to"
If our local crackheads and muggers were that competent, then they'd have another line of work. Duh!
Hmmmm ....
It only takes a nerd to offer the wipeout service for all the muggers/pawn shops in the area to render the
security scheme useless.
Wait until some clever hacker offers it over the net ... just install that software in your laptop and, voilà, your laptop becomes apple servers and unbrikes the device.
Let's see how much time takes to the start of such 'commercial wipeout services' ..
Cynical me ?
Excluding Apple product related thefts, the crime rate in NYC actually fell last year. Instead of which it rose. Therefore those hardbitten cops with performance targets to meet will pursue any avenue to reduce iCrime. See: http://9to5mac.com/2012/12/28/new-york-city-mayor-bloomberg-blames-iphones-ipads-for-increase-in-crime/
This post has been deleted by its author
...who cares if the phone can be unlocked? Who even cares if it can be switched off? One or two tools, and you've popped the case, ripped the battery out, and have the screen, sensor and any other salvageable spares either on Fleabay or winging their way across the seas to be sold in other territories.
Any phone "anti theft" measure is not so much anti theft, as preventing random bods from peering at your data.
Your forgetting what 80%-90% of these thefts are for. Smack head don't want to strip down a phone and sell it for parts for money they might get in a week or two. They want something hey can sell right now for another hit. These people are not seeing beyond there next high, but they won't waste time stealing something worthless to them.
It's so easy to stand on the sidelines and throw rocks at someone who has tried, however imperfectly, to make things better. Especially when the group is a government agency and especially in triplicate when it's law enforcement.
But get this: smartphone theft is a pain in the ass for the cops as much as it is for the victim. If it's not your smartphone, you see a loss of a few hundred dollars. If on the other hand you are the victim you see your digital identity, which is extremely valuable, disappearing down the street. So the cops have to reconcile the victim's perception of the severity of the incident with what they know objectively about the the chances of getting it back.
Now we have technology that allows a user to remotely wipe the device, reducing the impact of the crime to normal-but-annoying levels. Isn;t that worth publicising?
I would love to see cops handing out flyers saying, "FFS, Windows XP users, get off yo' asses and upgrade already. And lay off the email attachments". But sadly, I think I will have to wait.
> My old Nokia 6310i looks more appealing every day. Back to simplicity.
Did they ever fix that Bluetooth bug that would allow all the contacts (and maybe texts too) to be accessed remotely without having properly paired? [Details may be wrong it was a long time ago when I had one]
Great phone though, battery lasts all week but I would swap a modern smartphone for one. Most of the internet being usable almost everywhere is great and I can live with charging every day or two.
"We heard it takes people's fingerprints. That's got to be better than us doing it ourselves."
Probably think they just need to ask Apple for them.
Sure Apple don't store them of course. The NSA can help out though if they feel like it ;)
Alternatively they've read how easy it is to hack, so they'll welcome the ability to hack a perps iPhone if they've upgraded to iOS 7.
...as it will make zero difference in crime numbers (pickpocketing, stealing or mugging.)
Of course, NYPD would love you to register your phone - hey, it's a voluntary database, they can check everything without fearing another judge will come down hard on their asses for using clearly illegal, racist, anti-constitutional methods:
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/13/judge_rules_nypd_stop_and_frisk
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/9/17/from_mosques_to_soccer_leagues_inside
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
