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Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

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Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#161

Post by dylan604 »

pwg wrote: post #151
BobaFloutist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the police are going to be very interested in a random $200 theft.

One random $200 theft? Probably not too interested. 15,000 $200 thefts, all sitting in one spot in a storage locker, they just might be interested (and, it seems they were interested).

You say that like they knew it was there after investigating lots of very small value crimes which led to a very big take down.

Instead, a couple of cops followed up with a gift wrapped solved case of "locate my stolen items at this exact location", and stumbled into a big take down just because they decided today they'll do some real police work.

Had this one civilian not been pissed off enough to plant trackers, this caper would have continued for years.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#162

Post by jonathankoren »

PointyDog wrote: post #71
rdtsc wrote: post #11

> He called police, who got a search warrant Kind of sad, that I was surprised they did that. It's definitely a local thing. I'd expect the police to shrug, and say it's too bad, just file a report to use for insurance. I remember people saying "so what if you have tags, police won't do anything and you shouldn't be confronting thieves anyway". Apple, on the other hand, is also explicit about tags not to be used as a…

I lived in Howard County for a year. With the combination of county income tax and affluent property taxes, every service was exceptionally well funded. Having lived in Mountain View & Sunnyvale, CA as well for a decade my experience was Howard County itself had quicker and better services than those cities. It doesn't surprise me at all that their police department is competent and helpful.

I'm sure your anecdotal experience is true for you, but funding is not linked to clearance rates. Counter to copaganda, police are worse at solving cases compared to 30 years ago, even as crime rates have fallen dramatically and funding has increased.

If you think preventing and solving crimes, then American police are objectively bad at their jobs. If you think of police as revenue generators, then they're good at it. Because the police spend all their time on things like traffic citations. Even the police unions occasionally say the quite part out loud, like when the NYPD union famously said that they would not arrest anyone "unless absolutely necessary". Unsurprisingly to people that have looked into policing, crime doesn't increase during police work slowdowns.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#163

Post by jonathankoren »

scotty79 wrote: post #156
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that security should be a socialized good, it's a good idea. That doesn't change the fact that police in the United States and elsewhere were formed in the basis of law not to protect people but to protect property. Even today courts have ruled that police are under no obligation to protect civilians from direct, inevitable harm. They are not there to protect you, they are there to protect "the peace…

They are to protect order. So you, as a victim of a crime, are only a concern to them to the degree you make your harm public enough to disrupt order. Then they might attempt to solve a crime or make an impression they are doing something to prevent similar ones, but dissuading you from complaining too publicly about it (both by taking your report and showing it was useless) works just as well.

Let's also not forget that cops also pointedly refuse to their do their job when their feelings are hurt when people complain that they don't clean up the corruption and abuse in their ranks.

See: Chelsea Boudin and the SFPD. See DeBlasio and the NYPD.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#164

Post by xeromal »

segmondy wrote: post #115
PointyDog wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Howard County for a year. With the combination of county income tax and affluent property taxes, every service was exceptionally well funded. Having lived in Mountain View & Sunnyvale, CA as well for a decade my experience was Howard County itself had quicker and better services than those cities. It doesn't surprise me at all that their police department is competent and helpful.

Exactly this. Since there's less crime in affluent areas, the police actually have time to investigate what get's ignored in other areas. By also solving these crimes, it tells the criminals to avoid those areas, it's kind of a feedback loop.

It's also this way in smaller towns. I live in a small north GA town and you can ask the cops to come by your house during the holidays to see if anyone has broke in. Cops here are much more useful than when I'm in SoCal where I could even get cops to show up within an hour when a hit and run caused me to crash into someones back yard and total my car.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#165

Post by hluska »

jonathankoren wrote: post #162
PointyDog wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Howard County for a year. With the combination of county income tax and affluent property taxes, every service was exceptionally well funded. Having lived in Mountain View & Sunnyvale, CA as well for a decade my experience was Howard County itself had quicker and better services than those cities. It doesn't surprise me at all that their police department is competent and helpful.

I'm sure your anecdotal experience is true for you, but funding is not linked to clearance rates. Counter to copaganda, police are worse at solving cases compared to 30 years ago, even as crime rates have fallen dramatically and funding has increased. If you think preventing and solving crimes, then American police are objectively bad at their jobs. If you think of police as revenue generators, then they're good at i…

Are you saying that police should arrest people when it’s not necessary? How do you figure that?

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#166

Post by diogenescynic »

jeffbee wrote: post #81
kube-system wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every flea market I have ever been to in my life always has some guy with a huge amount of lightly used and heavily assorted high-dollar power tools. Before Home Depot started putting tools in cages, I used to see a lot of craigslist/marketplace/etc postings for brand new and unopened tools, posted at amazing prices.

Yeah, and then people act like the flea market is some precious cornerstone of the local culture. In my city there is a flea market that has dozens of freshly stolen bikes every week. There's a fund where people buy back the bikes and reunite them with their owners. Unfortunately, there's no fund supporting violence against these bike thieves.

The Bay Area flea markets have tons of stolen clothing too. It often still has security tags on it!

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#167

Post by adolph »

throwup238 wrote: post #132
skyyler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends highly on the region. Most US prisons look like daycare compared to Japanese prisons, wrt prisoner treatment. (The prisons in the southeast US are an exception to this)

I don't really mean it in the quality of life sense as prison is pretty awful in most of the world, especially in developing countries. The 13th amendment codifies slavery into our prison system and few things are as barbaric in my mind. It's basically a few small rungs down from sacrificing prisoners to Quetzalcoatl and the rain gods, which is graphic but no more dehumanizing. States with prolific death penalties ju…

> It's basically a few small rungs down from sacrificing prisoners to Quetzalcoatl and the rain gods, which is graphic but no more dehumanizing.

The sacrifice would then be laid on a stone slab, a chacmool, by four priests, and their abdomen would be sliced open by a fifth priest with a ceremonial knife made of flint. The most common form of human sacrifice was heart-extraction. . . . The cut was made in the abdomen and went through the diaphragm. The priest would rip out the heart and it would then be placed in a bowl held by a statue of the honored god, and the body would then be thrown down the temple's stairs. . . .

The body parts would then be disposed of, the viscera fed to the animals in the zoo, and the bleeding head was placed on display in the tzompantli or the skull rack. When the consumption of individuals was involved, the warrior who captured the enemy was given the meaty limbs while the most important flesh, the stomach and chest, were offerings to the gods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_cultu...

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#168

Post by russdill »

rdtsc wrote: post #11

> He called police, who got a search warrant Kind of sad, that I was surprised they did that. It's definitely a local thing. I'd expect the police to shrug, and say it's too bad, just file a report to use for insurance. I remember people saying "so what if you have tags, police won't do anything and you shouldn't be confronting thieves anyway". Apple, on the other hand, is also explicit about tags not to be used as a…

It likely has to do with the dollar amount.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#169

Post by adolph »

throwanem wrote: post #56
supportengineer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has to be a shady operator somewhere with no scruples, who sees the market demand for this use-case.

GPS trackers with SIM slots and cell radios have been available for ages, and easily enough found for purchase that I don't think mentioning them here adds meaningful risk. AirTags distinguish on Apple's UI polish - including the care for stalking mitigation - and platform integration, rather than their basic functionality.

Also and perhaps most importantly battery life.

Re: Carpenter's AirTags help uncover 'massive' case of stolen tools in Maryland

#170

Post by [deleted] »

adolph wrote: post #167
throwup238 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mean it in the quality of life sense as prison is pretty awful in most of the world, especially in developing countries. The 13th amendment codifies slavery into our prison system and few things are as barbaric in my mind. It's basically a few small rungs down from sacrificing prisoners to Quetzalcoatl and the rain gods, which is graphic but no more dehumanizing. States with prolific death penalties ju…

> It's basically a few small rungs down from sacrificing prisoners to Quetzalcoatl and the rain gods, which is graphic but no more dehumanizing. The sacrifice would then be laid on a stone slab, a chacmool, by four priests, and their abdomen would be sliced open by a fifth priest with a ceremonial knife made of flint. The most common form of human sacrifice was heart-extraction. . . . The cut was made in the abdomen…

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