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

washingtonpost.com

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

#181

Post by Hnrobert42 »

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…

It’s sorta hard to trust that your data is unbiased fact when you use the term “copaganda.”

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

#182

Post by chongli »

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…

Apple, on the other hand, is also explicit about tags not to be used as an anti-theft device. The word "theft" doesn't appear even once on…

As well they should. The last thing Apple wants is some parent tracking down their kid’s stolen bicycle using an AirTag and wind up getting killed by the thief. They want people using these things the way my dad uses them: to find his car keys (or whatever else he might lose)!

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

#183

Post by Workaccount2 »

luma wrote: post #178
segmondy wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are we still talking about the police in the OP? Who needed someone to give them GPS coordinates to find the stolen goods after at least 14,999 previous tool thefts went unsolved? Not exactly batman level detective work here, this case was cracked because it was handed to them on a silver platter.

I guess you haven't dealt much with the police before...

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

#184

Post by tdumitrescu »

bredren wrote: post #62
INTPenis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea but I remember the Sopranos episode where Christopher's father in law owns a hardware store and sells fenced goods out of it. It's not hard, but the owner can get done for it of course.

I just read (by audiobook) two great fiction works by Colson Whitehead that include some of these ideas, Crook Manifesto then is prequel Harlem Shuffle. Great stuff.

Nitpicking: Crook Manifesto is the sequel to Harlem Shuffle, which came out years earlier. There's a third installment planned.

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

#186

Post by dylan604 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #180
MisterTea wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Selling overseas would require hardware changes with the plugs Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, and a few other Central/South American countries can plug these tools right into the wall.

China exports lots of stuff to the USA and those containers go back empty. They can easily be filled up with stolen iPhones and catalytic converters for recycling, so that they aren’t all empty. Power tools probably not though.

I thought the empties carried all of the stolen cars to their new homes.

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

#187

Post by ssl-3 »

gnicholas wrote: post #97
bagels wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes 3 minutes to remove the speaker. There are great tutorials on youtube. I've only purchased airtags for use as theft recovery, and if they beep it defeats the purpose.

Don’t iPhones pop up notifications if there’s an AirTag that doesn’t belong to you following you around?

They do.

And they'll even use RF locating techniques to draw an arrow on the screen that points at the AirTag (so that it can be found and destroyed).

Taking the speakers out of AirTags doesn't really improve the situation much; at best, it seems kind of naive.

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

#188

Post by talldatethrow »

1024core wrote: post #96
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.

You will find similar pockets of responsive police in areas like Piedmont (in Oakland), Atherton, Hillsborough, etc.

Kensington Police (near Berkeley) knew me, my car, and my two motorcycles just on a semi friendly basis. I didn't live there. I was just dating a girl who lived there her whole life.

Small town life exists even in major metro areas if you're wealthy.

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

#189

Post by WalterBright »

Anechoic wrote: post #160
WalterBright wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I've never heard this. Reference, please?

https://nleomf.org/slave-patrols-an-early-form-of-american-p...

There was always enforcement of the law. Banditry, murder, etc., had to be dealt with. And sheriffs predated this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff_of_Nottingham_(positio...

The Code of Hammurabi:

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

Wouldn't that be useless without a mechanism of enforcement?

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

#190

Post by jjulius »

WalterBright wrote: post #176
jjulius wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you are responding to is saying that Seattle did not defund the police. Literally the second sentence in your link is: >The answer is not that the Seattle Police Department was defunded. What do you think you are refuting? Edit: And how on earth do you cite a hiring bonus as an example that they have been defunded ?

Yes, I misremembered it and I was wrong about it which I discovered by googling it. But the number of police is way down, so it had the same effect as defunding. Part of the reason for the reduction is the Seattle City Council abused them by calling them murderers. The cops felt unsupported by the Council and unwanted, and they left. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/defamatio... https://www.bigcount…

>But the number of police is way down, so it had the same effect as defunding.

So we all agree that SPD wasn't defunded. Thank you.

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