Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

cyclingtips.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 144 posts

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#31

Post by lozenge »

claviska wrote: post #3

> And the irony, of course, is this: the pictured bike itself was never stolen, but the rushed magazine photo has been – by hundreds of people, perpetuating a fake crime over and over. At what point (if ever) would using a photo like this fall under fair use? The author doesn’t seem to care, but I’m curious if copyright is ever forfeited due to widespread use or inaction of the copyright holder.

No, copyright isn't forfeited like that, only trademarks are.

It fails this part of fair use: 'The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes. Courts typically focus on whether the use is “transformative.” That is, whether it adds new expression or meaning to the original, or whether it merely copies from the original.'

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#32

Post by usrusr »

dustintrex wrote: post #18
jackvalentine wrote: post #8

To me this story is about how garbage most illustrative imagery on the internet is.

Why? Virtually all stock photography involving people is staged, and that's OK, because they're meant to be just that, illustrations.

Makes me wonder if perhaps one day there could come an irreversible fashion of, well, illustrating the illustrative nature of stock photos like that by uniformly pushing them through your publication's style-GAN. Almost surprises me that this hasn't happened yet.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#33

Post by pmontra »

aigo wrote: post #27
ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

Another tip: lock your bike close to more expensive ones.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#34

Post by srmarm »

jackvalentine wrote: post #8

To me this story is about how garbage most illustrative imagery on the internet is.

Absolutely, I occasionally have to buy stock photos and am shocked at how overpriced and cheesy they are. On the flip side you've got hordes of quite talented wannabe influencers putting our content for nothing. There's surely a market to be made there getting reach and money to the influencers and imagery to publishers.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#35

Post by fy20 »

aigo wrote: post #27
ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

I had a bike stolen 10 years ago from an underground garage, they just ignored the locks and cut through the rack

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#36

Post by srmarm »

javajosh wrote: post #6

As a father, I would be mildly concerned about this notoriety, especially as a traveler. Airport authorities are not known for the subtlety of their understanding, and it is entirely plausible that this man might be arrested and jailed on the basis of not only being photographed committing a crime, but now admitting to it, calling himself a thief. Yes, this would be preposterous, wrong, and I might go so far as to ca…

I can barely read your comment as it's been down voted but two theoretical risks come to mind. One being some ML decision maker that scrapes the web to build a profile of someone and decides this person is a criminal.

The second being a human decision maker with poor English reading the headline and not fully comprehending the story.

Both cases unlikely but an interesting idea anyway.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#37

Post by mcv »

aigo wrote: post #27
ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

Professionalism in bike theft isn't so much about tools, but about organisation. Professional bike thieves will have a van, load it up with exactly the bikes they already know they can sell, and drive their load to the other side of the country (if your country is small like Netherland, that is), and sell them there. Or maybe sell them in a different country.

I've noticed that sometimes more expensive bikes simply don't get stolen while cheap ones do. I assume that's because of an easier market to sell them. There was a period when my son's children's bikes got stolen all the time, while my far more expensive cargo bike wasn't, despite it being only locked with a ring lock, and no chain. But of course a kid's bike is also much easier to pick up, and it had a very light lock.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#38

Post by Freak_NL »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #26

Slightly off topic, but I think bike thieves are becoming more and more professional recently. Here in Berlin many now use small cordless screwdrivers with a custom gearing mechanism that operates a bolt-cutter. With that they can even cut through thick steel-bar type bike locks in a few seconds, without making any noise. I saw that in a police report lately but I can't find a link with a photo of the device now, unf…

These days not having an e-bike is probably one of the easiest deterrents. Next step seems to be to avoid design bikes like Van Moof. And finally, have your bike look used.

Then again, my bike is probably not the first one they'll consider, given that it has a 70cm frame making it all but impossible to ride for anyone under 195cm (being 200cm myself). If you steal a bicycle you have to be able to sell it, and given that a lot of professionally stolen bicycles are exported to countries with lower GDP's and that there aren't that many (if any) countries where tall people are as relatively common as in the Netherlands that match that criterium, I am relatively safe I suppose (as long as I lock it to a barrier or bicycle stand).

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#39

Post by Freak_NL »

mcv wrote: post #37
aigo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

Professionalism in bike theft isn't so much about tools, but about organisation. Professional bike thieves will have a van, load it up with exactly the bikes they already know they can sell, and drive their load to the other side of the country (if your country is small like Netherland, that is), and sell them there. Or maybe sell them in a different country. I've noticed that sometimes more expensive bikes simply do…

In the Netherlands they won't attempt to sell them here. Too much risk with frame numbers etched in and other ways of marking it. The safest bet is to move them out of the country on the day they steal them; way out to Eastern Europe.

Re: I became the internet’s most notorious bike thief

#40

Post by aigo »

mcv wrote: post #37
aigo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have had this level of professionalism in London for some time now. It's not necessarily true that you must ride an older, uglier bike, though this will work. All that is needed is to be the least stealable bicycle in the rack. In my case this means two locks of different kinds. It's a big deterrent and they will move on to other, easier targets. If you can avoid being the lowest hanging fruit, you will probably b…

Professionalism in bike theft isn't so much about tools, but about organisation. Professional bike thieves will have a van, load it up with exactly the bikes they already know they can sell, and drive their load to the other side of the country (if your country is small like Netherland, that is), and sell them there. Or maybe sell them in a different country. I've noticed that sometimes more expensive bikes simply do…

That's really interesting and completely the opposite to here.

In London, most stolen bikes are expensive (or expensive-looking) and they are primarily resold within London.

Post reply on HN