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Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

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Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#281

Post by jimt1234 »

consf wrote: post #271
jimt1234 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will absolutely work. My friend is from China, but lives here in the US. Most of her friends and family are still back in China. We communicate primarily over iMessage, but also on WeChat. About 2 years ago I sent her a video about the Tiananmen Square protests over WeChat by mistake - I meant to send it over iMessage. The next day she called me, really mad; her WeChat account was shut down, without explanation,…

"My account didn't get shut down." - But why not yours?

This is a mystery. My guess is that the Chinese censorship system (The Great Firewall) knows my account is not associated to a Chinese National, so they don't care. Or, there could be legal restrictions/complications because I'm a US citizen. Who knows? I wouldn't be surprised if my little fuuck up didn't land me (or my WeChat account) on some sort of list, though.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#282

Post by mrguyorama »

readyman wrote: post #98
mrguyorama wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misconception: Police are trained to investigate and solve crime Reality: Police absolutely hate doing the "boring" parts of their jobs. Property crime clearance rate is an abysmal ~10% and everyone knows a handful of people who reported a theft, large or otherwise, and got nothing but a police report. Meanwhile they had plenty of time to come to our local supermarket and harass a 6 year old that tried to pocket a ca…

Uvalde

Protecting children is literally "boring stuff" to cops it seems

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#283

Post by mrguyorama »

estebank wrote: post #69
eevilspock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On any given day, in any police department in the nation, 15 percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with. ~ I'm a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing, http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-…

> Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining 70 percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with. This is why I find it bizarre that the behavior of bad cops is minimized by calling them "a few bad apples", when the entire aphorism is "one bad apple spoils the bunch".

Because the ones saying it ARE the bad apples. It's important to realize millions of Americans see a cop pull a gun and shoot a black guy in a traffic stop after he informs the cop he owns a firearm LIKE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO and just go on with their day.

It does not bother them.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#284

Post by whimsicalism »

throwaway7ahgb wrote: post #265
whimsicalism wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i see homeless people in SF disassembling iphones so clearly they have routed around this

Seriously? There has to be a story here. You're saying they sit on the street with multiple phones, like a repair shop?

yep, although i've only seen this once (at the intersection of oak & baker). it surprised my economic intuition as i would expect them to be pawning off the whole phone and then someone later on in the supply chain doing the disassembly

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#285

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nebula8804 wrote: post #229
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really have to be careful with third-party iPhone repairs, especially in China. I had my phone repaired once, and when I got it back...it kind of worked, but they swapped out another part for something that was broken to ensure repeat business. That was in the iPhone 1 days though.

Its been about 17 years since the iPhone 1 days...

Yes, I'm old. This was in 2009 I think (I bought it in 2007). The e-markets are a lot different now (you can still find obscure shady offices repairing older hardware), and iPhone repairers that were scamming people are probably long gone.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#286

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

Fripplebubby wrote: post #72
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand the impulse to steal because a job doesn't pay well? I don't. I would understand the impulse to go back to school to develop a marketable skill, but not to use the force of the state to steal from people. Edit: Would you still find this behavior understandable if the TSA agent directly stole from passengers as their bags were scanned? What if the passenger in question ignored the collaborating-TSA-agen…

I don't accept or condone theft. That's an extreme position. But I do try to understand the way our flawed world works, instead of just wishing that people would see things the same way I do.

Did it really increase your understanding if you just learned about an issue (TSA-abetted phone thefts) and chose a "common sense" reason for that issue (low wages) seemingly without any actual effort?

I'm glad you don't condone theft, and even that you seek to understand the world, but I don't think that you've increased your understanding of the world in this case.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#288

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

joe5150 wrote: post #92
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You understand the impulse to steal because a job doesn't pay well? I don't. I would understand the impulse to go back to school to develop a marketable skill, but not to use the force of the state to steal from people. Edit: Would you still find this behavior understandable if the TSA agent directly stole from passengers as their bags were scanned? What if the passenger in question ignored the collaborating-TSA-agen…

It seems willfully obtuse to read "understand the impulse" as "excuse the behavior" in this context.

Plucking an excuse for illegal behavior out of thin air and calling it "understanding" seems willfully naive, to the point of providing a fig leaf for the bad behavior.

Yes a literal interpretation of the parent comment does not point to "excusing the behavior", but I believe a more realistic interpretation was warranted here.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#289

Post by callalex »

bachmeier wrote: post #126

Seems that stealing a phone with the wrong information on it would be a good way to end up at the bottom of a river. > watching my phone move around Manhattan before it finally stopped at Rockefeller Center. I didn’t bother confronting the thief. Sure, this person didn't confront them, and most probably wouldn't. The one out of a thousand that does might not be messing around.

Most criminals are unbelievably stupid, particularly when it comes to risk assessment.

Re: Things the guys who stole my phone have texted me to try to get me to unlock it

#290

Post by squigz »

altairprime wrote: post #194
mullen wrote: post #171

If someone in China starts harassing you or threatening you, just start sending messages that the two of you are conspiring to overthrow the Chinese government and the messages will stop real quick. These Chinese mafia types talk tough until you start sending anti-Chinese government copy-pasta to them and they shut up real quick.

It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing. Instead, ask how many students died in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. That specific phrase should specifically auto-alert the censors to a known forbidden topic, without resorting to threats against China. How long of a lost phone message can one set, anyways?

> It's probably best not to declare war upon China in writing

Why not? Is the Chinese government going to send some people to Canada to disappear me?

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