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It’s one of the reasons why I keep Dropbox’s Camera Upload turned on at all times. Not just because I like to keep my smartphone photos backed up safely to the cloud, but as a loose security measure as well. Case in point? A Brooklyn Mom who found her wallet — along with her Samsung Galaxy S3 — pinched during a street fair. Less than a few weeks later, imagine her surprise to find pictures of an unknown couple uploaded to her Dropbox account. These photos, taken with her stolen smartphone, quickly became more racy, with nude selfies and even their homemade amateur sex video winding up in the victim’s Camera Upload folder.
After contacting police, they simply threw their hands up in the air and said there was little they could do. In just about every state, it’s illegal to buy stolen property, but proving the party knew the merchandise was stolen beforehand is damn near impossible. This makes jail time highly unlikely for the couple should the original owner attempt to find them and prosecute.
In any case, it’s likely 1 of 2 scenarios occurred. Either this is the actual couple who stole her phone during the fair, or this couple bought the phone without ever knowing it was stolen (Craigslist, pawnshop or what have you). In any case, somewhere along the way nobody once thought to factory reset the device before using it, leading to their nude love sessions winding up on someone else’s account. Pretty embarrassing, if you ask us.
Sounds like this sorta stuff happens all the time. You may remember an article from last year where one man’s stolen Android, lead to the recovery of said device with the help of the Cerberus security app. While we love the Android Device Manager for recovering lost or stolen devices, we think the iPhones ability to keep a stolen phone from being activated is one Google should consider in future updates.
PEOPLE, Y U NO FACTORY RESET??
Most criminals are not smart.
Incorrect sir! The smart criminals do not get caught!
We can only assume.
Video or it didn’t happen
I’m sure I don’t want to see a video of this one.
Freakin nasty… I agree with David.
Don’t challenge Chris on that.
Surely handling stolen goods is still a crime? Whilst there wouldn’t be jail time for this couple their collars would still be felt. And who knows, maybe the real perpetrators could be found with a little diligence. If the cops could be arsed to do their job…
Now multiply that by every cell phone that gets stolen. Police don’t have the manpower to track down every cell phone, just like they don’t track down every stolen wallet. This is petty theft. Heck, even if they could prove these people were the ones who actually stole the phone, they probably wouldn’t get jail time.
“Aha! We’ve caught you, thief! Now face the consequences: A minor fee”
I read this somewhere else about a month ago.
First I’m reading it. thanks Chris
Thought it’d make a fun little post. ;D
Ha ha..
That couple needs to get on the BigCiX workout plan….ASAP!
Keeping a stolen phone from being activated is not an Apple invention… you just call your cell carrier and they black list it. Which is a very simple step this person did not do.
Unfortunately that is not possible with lots oft carriers all over globe. Had to figure that out myself onetime…
not Nexus or carrier free phones.
Not true. If the network carrier gets the IMEI number they can block it from being used as a phone,
in theory they COULD but they WON’T. not unless it’s one of their OWN devices.
What do you mean? Eg, if you found a phone running on any carrier, the owner can call up AT&T etc and get them to block it.
and how will AT&T know for sure who the true owner is? how will AT&T verify the identity of the caller and the true ownership of the BYOD phone? AT&T and other carriers do not want to get involved in that mess.
How will AT&T know who the owner is? The IMEI number of the phone is on your account. You verify it’s your account with your security pin and then report it stolen. AT&T and T-Mob share a blacklist
But they won’t do it. How do they know you sold the phone and now want to be a prick. They won’t do it to an unlocked phone period. They should, but they don’t.
the problem is (and this applies to iphones as well) most blacklists only apply to the carrier, so other carriers have no idea its a stolen phone. The feds need to create a master datatbase and they are working on it…slowly. this still wont solve the problem of international resales. The u.s. government did recently start a program with mexico to have u.s. blacklisted phones be blacklisted in mexico as well, but mexico is only 1 country. Its especially bad because in a lot of countries phones are even more expensive than u.s. so its worth money to ship them overseas to resell them.
exactly.
I told my wife not to use that phone to take our pics!!!! Damn….I need to lose some weight ;)
I say post the video and pics all over the internet. I think they’ve earned some very public, very global recognition. ;p
lol. some random paisas came up on her phone. the lady is an idiot for not having password protected her phone.
Why? I never password protect my phone. That’s supposed to stop somebody from stealing it? You’re kidding right?
lol I didn’t say that. don’t put words in my mouth.
no but password will protect your data. do you want these two Mexicans reading your emails?
Quite frankly, I don’t care. They’ll see about 20 Piazza notifications for my eecs classes, but that’s about it. I don’t have that “lose or drop” syndrome either though. I could see how that’d be a problem if you were a business person though.
Why not snag the exif data off the pictures to locate where these pics are taken so they can be identified? If nothing else you could make 10ft prints of them and lean them against their mailbox or something!
Who knows if that couple really stole the device though. They could have purchased off the street or on Craigslist without knowing it was stolen. Is that enough to go after them and possibly ruin them?
And even if they were the ones to steal it, there’s no way to prove that they’re the culprits as they’d likely fall back on the “I just bought it off some guy” excuse.
at least she would get her phone back, and possession of stolen property over $500 is crime, if they claim they didnt know theyd get a slap on the wrist but its still on their records
Samsung Galaxy S3… do they even break into 3 figure territory?
Also, a lot of mobile theft happens when people leave/forget their devices in public places or are otherwise careless with their devices. There’s a lot to be said for keeping a close eye on your own things.
The law/police base stolen property value on basically the msrp of a new one, since cellphones all magically cost $500-$700 if you pay full price.
Also possession of even $5 worth of stolen property is still a crime, just a smaller one.
And if they actually were the one’s who stole it, it’s “grand larceny” since in most states $500 is the cutoff from petty to grand. (My friend got iphone pickpocketed in nyc and that’s what they wrote the report up as)
While that all may be true, I doubt anyone’s going to get jailed or fined pictures or no pictures.
It’s sad but the majority of larceny reports end up in limbo. Hope your friend got better news and a tighter grip on their phone.
Day late and a dollar short no?
Is it really pornographic when they look like that?
I used to work for a Co-lo. There was a certain website that was hosted on a box with about the ugliest 2 people ever having sex. They would periodically come up and do maintnenance, and man, it was hard to look at them and not laugh. But someone was helping them make a profit. These two are freakin’ porn stars compared to the toothless trailer trash on that site.
I weep for you
Fortunately, that toothless pair has faded from my memory, except for the impression of “Ewwwwww!”
Tiny peter for the thick lady.
Cerberus people…it WORKS!!! I test mine everyday and i LOVE the instant pictures it takes when someone turns off your screen. I am in control of MY phone…even if someone steals it.
That feature is for root user only, correct?
Nope. Standard fare and you can choose which camera if your device has front and back cams.
A single licence covers 5 devices. Best app I’ve purchased so far.
Other features:
– Vid capture
– Call log retrieval
– Send alarm to device
– Send message to device (black text on white screen – I scare the kids with this occasionally)
– Get location history
– Etc.
to bad the only thing its REALLY good for is remotely wiping the device since apparently the police wont do anything about it being stolen.
It works great on a phone. Not as well on a WiFi tablet though :(
well that’s gross…
i’m curious to how the iphone one works…
if i indicate the phone as stolen, anyway to reverse it… if i find it back or something?
coz it could be used to:
* sell phone to someone
* report phone as stolen
* contact someone and say pay me more if you want phone unblocked