An Easy Way To Curb Smart-Phone Thieves, In Australia 234
First time accepted submitter xx_chris writes "Cell carriers can and do brick jail broken cell phones but they won't brick stolen cell phones. Except in Australia. The Australians apparently have been doing this for 10 years and it reduces violent crime since the thieves know they won't be able to sell the stolen phone. The article points out that cell carriers have a financial disincentive to do this since a stolen phone means another sale."
every stolen phone is a potential new sale (Score:3)
sounds like game stop.
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Re:every stolen phone is a potential new sale (Score:4, Informative)
You have stores that sell insurance on your phone, so a stolen phone does not mean an extra sale.
So the replacement phone comes from ... magic land? It doesn't get 'bought'?
You're confused, the fact that by paying for insurance you're just prepaying for your next purchase doesn't mean a new phone isn't bought, it just means you don't think things through far enough to realize you're being swindled by buying insurance.
So cell carriers, just do it (Score:2)
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Phone isn't bricked, its just blocked (Score:4, Informative)
It will continue to work outside Australia. Phone theft still occurs here.
Re:Phone isn't bricked, its just blocked (Score:4, Funny)
yeah but nobody wants to buy a phone with Australian auto-correct.
#TODO: insert funny English -> Australian translation
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Nice conspiracy theory.
The Australian standard voltage is 230V +10% -6%. So 255V is outside the allowable range. If they deliberately set the supply to 255V, they'd be exposing themselves to a huge lawsuit. Any 250V-rated components or insulation that failed, causing damage or fire or injury, would all be their fault.
Also, by setting the voltage that high, the power used by other loads (some types of lights and motors, and various other things) would increase noticeably. Generating that much extra power wou
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I have complained. They sent out 2 guys who took measurements that confirmed the Inverter's digital readout. Then they sent another guy who put up 2 data meters; one on the pole leading to my house and another on the local transformer. The problem is real and I'm doing something about it.
FYI: At peak load 6~9am and 4~7pm, the solar power does feed into the grid system. As soon as the peak power drops in the neighbourhood, the system switches off.
Also, there were verbal guarantees that voltages up to 260V wi
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It is not unbelievable and it is happening. Why do you disbelieve?
16-bit (Score:4, Funny)
The last guy who came said that some inverters can be tweaked to get past the 255v limit.
Wouldn't this require switching from an 8-bit inverter to a 16-bit inverter?
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Two things occurred to me then: The government had done so
Re:Phone isn't bricked, its just blocked (Score:4, Insightful)
> I'd known about the ability to block a digital phone since the change from analogue
Question. What difference does it make if it's analog or digital? The fact is that the carrier has a way of identifying that phone on the network with a fair degree of reliability (otherwise they wouldn't be able to bill you for your calls) so regardless of if it's analog or digital they still have a way of blocking it.
The ability to block cell phones didn't start with phones going digital. It started when phones no longer required you to tell the operator who you were before you made a call. Unfortunately the willingness to use such a feature is a completely different problem...
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+1 Insightful. I completely agree.
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You can't undo programming a bunch of bytes in an EEPROM? I doubt that the phones used OTP memory for that. It'd probably take a minute with download cable and factory service software to undo the anti-theft block...
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Spanish numbering, for example is backwards. for six thousand with 2 decimals, they would say 6.000,00. of course, they would say that we're backwards, so w/e. i'm guessing cyrano isnt a native english speaker, instead one that numbers like that.
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True, but a comma is larger and easier to notice. Especially when drawn with a pen(cil). :)
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imei changer.. (Score:5, Informative)
Odd... I thought Sprint did this? (Score:2)
Maybe I'm not up to date but last I checked Sprint does in fact blacklist the ESNs of stolen phones.
I know that the only safe way to buy a used Sprint phone is to have the seller meet you at the Sprint store and lookup the ESN to make sure it isn't blacklisted.
Verizon uses CDMA so they have the same situation (no sim card, just built-in ESN) so I don't know why they wouldn't offer the same service.
IIRC, the CDMA carriers get batches of valid ESNs from their vendors... they won't allow any unknown ESN onto t
That's funny, I thought everyone does it (Score:5, Informative)
I read this and went "this is news?" Then I read the supposition that nobody outside of Australia does this and I lost it. I vote this the stupidest article in many months.
I thankfully have never had a phone stolen, but my mother and several of my friends have. The carriers range from AT&T to Verizon to T-mobile to Sprint to Boost mobile, to Orange and O2 in the UK. Universally, they called up the carrier and the IMEI number has been blacklisted, or the equivalent for Sprint/Verizon/CDMA phones. Banning the IMSI, which is tied to the phone, makes it useless since it is no longer more than an iPod Touch (or equivalent Android device). Those bans are effective within a country, since they share lists with each other. One of my friends has actually gotten her phone back when the guy went to the local T-Mobile store and tried to buy a prepaid SIM and it didn't work. The store called the police from the back room and kept the guy busy, and they came and picked him up. Apparently it's policy for them since it happens pretty frequently.
This is all in the backwards US, with our relatively small GSM contingent. In other countries it's clearly much easier, since there's just a list.
Finally, Wikipedia talks about this like it's old news. It's literally in the third sentence of the article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMEI#Blacklist_of_stolen_devices [wikipedia.org]
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I read this and went "this is news?" Then I read the supposition that nobody outside of Australia does this and I lost it. I vote this the stupidest article in many months.
Amen! My lady tried to tell me about this article, and then I explained GSM vs. competing CDMA implementations and IMEIs to her and how at best you might steal a phone from ATT and use it on T-Mo or vice versa but probably not.
'Cell Carrier' Network (Score:2)
Anyone who lives here knows that Telstra would never knowingly pass up an opportunity to do business unethically.
well (Score:3)
The devices are not bricked, just IMEI-blacklisted (Score:5, Informative)
All this is is a list of blacklisted IMEIs that's shared between most (not all) carriers. The phones are still perfectly functional when used in other countries with compatible UMTS/GSM frequencies, and on carriers that don't use the IMEI blacklist.
Some carriers do subscribe to the IMEI blacklist but take so long to update it that they might as well not. I'm looking at you, Vodafone.
Not only can stolen phones be sold overseas, but it's pretty trivial to rewrite the IMEI on many phones. This is a disincentive to casual theft, but not much more.
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Getting rid of the thieves without the skills or equipment does have a significant effect.
Phone Tracking (Score:2)
It's simple. We alrea
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A number of years ago, we were all told that the phone companies needed to track our phone for the 911 service. That way they could find us if we called, but didn't know where we were. We were assured that it wasn't so the government could track our location. As of today, I have not heard about a single case where the tracking was used for the phone owners benefit, and every time I have called 911 from my cell phone, the person on the other end needed me to give them my location.
I don't know about you, but every time I've called 911 from a land line, the operator has asked me to tell them my location, too. Redundancy is important, a database error or a SNAFU with the GPS chip can't be risked when it comes to true emergencies. You don't want the ambulance to show up across town from your gunshot wound because of your new neighbor Robert'); DROP TABLE Residences;.
So why then have it, if they're just going to ask anyhow? Because sometimes they can't ask, consider a hypothetical per
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If their claim that the tracking is for 911 is true, then cell phone theft should be trivial for the police to act on.
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If their claim that the tracking is for 911 is true, then cell phone theft should be trivial for the police to act on.
While I'm not wholly unsympathetic to this viewpoint, no, not really.
The thing you've got to consider is that most police departments are in fact vastly understaffed for their workloads. Or at least for their potential workloads.
Let us assume that your nominal PD has the man power to follow up on a tip from the Cell company (And that the laws concerning warrants etc permit them to Stake definitive action on those tips.)
The cell provider advises them that stolen phone W is active on the network, an
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As of today, I have not heard about a single case where the tracking was used for the phone owners benefit, and every time I have called 911 from my cell phone, the person on the other end needed me to give them my location.
Sigh, you're confusing procedure and reality.
I hit a deer about 3 weeks ago in a rural area of North Carolina at about 1am, hilly area with bad reception. Took 3 911 calls just to get the conversation going. When finally connected you are asked your location (even when you're at home) as confirmation to make sure they don't blindly send someone to the wrong side of town while you die. The same thing happens at any major medical procedure for instance, you'll be asked several times what procedure you're h
Uhh, Japan? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Japan as soon as you contact the service provider they remotely lock the phone, start tracking it, and if you've reported it stolen they report its position to the police.
No good in Europe (Score:3)
This is fine if you're an island thousands of miles from other large population centers. The problem with Europe is that you're never more than a few hours drive from the next country. So even if every carrier in the UK agreed to block stolen phones, I can be in France within 120 minutes of leaving my house and I can sell them there.
This would need to be Europe wide to have any effect here.
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This is fine if you're an island thousands of miles from other large population centers. The problem with Europe is that you're never more than a few hours drive from the next country. So even if every carrier in the UK agreed to block stolen phones, I can be in France within 120 minutes of leaving my house and I can sell them there.
This would need to be Europe wide to have any effect here.
Actually there is an world wide database (http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/programmes-and-initiatives/fraud-and-security/imei_database.htm) with an blacklist. But as long as there are carriers in neighbourging countries, who would rather sell airtime than block their customers, its is not going to be effective.
Grain of salt (Score:3, Informative)
Yes the Australian carriers, can disable phone, however, the phone i had stolen, and the 2 that have been stolen from my son, well we were told that although they can disable the phone , they normally don't and probably won't. All they normally do is disable the SIM. Yes they have had the technology to do this for 10 years, no in real terms they do not do it.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a phone is stolen, they get another sale. If the phone is unusable after being stolen, it's less likely to be stolen, so there are fewer thefts and fewer sales.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Interesting)
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they brick it with the IMEI number of the phone (akin to the mac address of an ethernet card)
They do not brick (Score:3, Informative)
I found a phone, and it wasnt bricked. I just made sure to pull out the orig SIM, and go 100% wifi, no cell networks at all.
Eventually after a month, even after the phone was 'unlocked' to allow other cariiers, they barred/blocked the phone based on IMEI number alone.
It wasnt bricked, just 'barred', and not usable, except for wifi.
Re:They do not brick (Score:4, Informative)
You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
Re:They do not brick (Score:5, Funny)
You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
Write a submission to Slashdot saying it might be an iPhone 5 prototype cleverly disguised in an old Nokia case?
Re:They do not brick (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what you're supposed to do when you find a phone, right?
cheekyboy is a dickwad and a thief. But, if you find a phone, don't give it to the police. They will probably do nothing. The two times I've found phones I've texted someone ("Dad") in the contact list, explaining the situation and how the owner can meet me in person. One of the times I even got a very nice finder's fee from the obviously well-off owner. The other one was a crappy phone which belonged to a student, so I declined the offered (nominal) compensation.
Both people were surprised and happy. It cost me very little effort, and I hope that someone will do the same for me if I should ever lose my phone.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a phone is stolen, they get another sale. If the phone is unusable after being stolen, it's less likely to be stolen, so there are fewer thefts and fewer sales.
Exactly. This is why there are consumer protection laws; yes, I know, more laws = big government, but that's not always bad. In cases like cell phone carriers where there are precious few choices and very little difference among the choices there are, having a law requiring the service provider to brick the customer's property at the customer's request only makes good sense.
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I think the only viable excuses American/Canadian cell carriers have (EU and AU will block stolen phones) for not doing this is that Americans are too stupid to.
Truth, go back to the TDMA and CDMA days before GSM. When someone reports the device stolen, the device is deactivated, but because the cell phone is still in the system, the thief could always call back in and reactivate it if they know the customers information (which in the US is the last four digits of the SSN) most of which can be found if they
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Informative)
what tripe!!! all the above is done in AU.
A blocked IMEI can still call 112 the international emergency number as well as 000 the local equiv of 911.
Each carrier keeps a local copy of the stolen register and updates regularly and the phone IMEI is then blocked ***at registration*** to the network not on a per call basis if it is used at all.
One thing Au has over the US is only 3 networks and not a patchwork of carriers, this makes things rather easier.
The AU example if I remember correctly was a Govt. mandated requirement, ie. do yourselves or we will make it law.....
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The problem with big government -- and I know this is a shock to everyone who wants to make big government a party-lines issues -- has nothing to do with regulation and everything to do with redundancy. In the US we have the FDA, DEA, and the ATF (and probably other agencies) regulating what I can eat or otherwise put into my body. Why do we need 3+ agencies? Why do some of them need law enforcement capabilities? Doesn't the FBI/Marshal Service/Secret Service/etc. provide sufficient enforcement of federal r
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Hence reducing theft means Aussie telcos can spend less on buying phones from Apple or whoever.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Informative)
So if you buy a plan from a telco and your phone gets stolen after a few weeks, you can just cancel the plan immediately at no charge and buy a new plan?
Somehow this seems unlikely.
In the Netherlands you can also buy a plan with a free phone, but the plan lasts one or two years and cannot be cancelled. The telco's pay for the phone simply by hiking up the price of the plan. I think this is pretty much how "free phone" plans work all over the world.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Informative)
The plan does not come with a free phone. The plan comes with a phone that you make payments on built into the connection payments contract. After you phone is stolen you must continue to make payments and it is up to you to organise a replacement phone. http://help.telstra.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/17260 [telstra.com]. If you choose to buy a second hand replacement phone then you should go here http://www.amta.org.au/pages/amta/Check.the.Status.of.your.Handset [amta.org.au] to make sure it is not stolen. Of course you can pay extra, for premium care ie handset insurance policy and they will replace a stolen phone.
Note that is an internationally registered numbered so phones are bricked in all countries that co-operate.
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Extra sale cancelled by fence (Score:3)
Still seems like specious logic, since the extra sale generated by the theft is (arguably) cancelled by the sale lost to the person who bought the stolen phone instead. True, the who bought the stolen phone might have bought a used phone instead, but that decreases the number of used phones for sale, which is also good for the carriers. So I doubt the carriers are conspiring to not brick stolen phones. Also, Australian carriers are presumably just as greedy as American carriers, which puts another hole i
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I think djmurdoch was replying on the wrong thread. /. about copyright... it was... um... here somewhere... DAMN!
I was just reading a thread here on
Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Informative)
This has been happening for YEARS and you notice now? I think it is, plain and simply, a bug in Slashdot. It even happened to me once (posted in one thread, and comment appeared in unrelated thread)
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Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting.. but wouldn't that expose them to liability for the theft?
I mean, we're suggesting that the cell companies are deliberately refusing to take action with the intent of exposing their customers to a greater risk of theft...
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On what grounds? Receiving of stolen goods is presumably illegal in Australia the way it is in pretty much all other countries and I doubt very much that they're bricking phones that haven't been reported stolen by the owner.
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I doubt very much that they're bricking phones that haven't been reported stolen by the owner.
I doubt that very much too. I don't think anyone thinks they are be bricking stolen p
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Your challenge assumes that the liability you are questioning would be actionable even if it was there.
I'd say that corporate might would protect it from being sued regardless.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Informative)
Lots of talk about bricking. They don't brick them. They blacklist the IMEI. When a phone wih a blacklisted IMEI tries to connect to the network the service is denied. Until you realize that you can go to a basement workshop and bave the IMEI changed for 5â....
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It's a disincentive because the very same blurb you read also mentioned that it reduces violent crime since the thieves know they won't be able to sell the stolen phone. Less theft, thus.
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And that is a good thing. But in my world, whether it's broken (and then I have to pay a fee even though I have insurance on it) or stolen, I still have to pay something for a new phone. As an aside, how many thieves study their quarry to see what phone they have before robbing them. My guess is they'd rob them anyway an
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Don't forget that the parts of a phone sell for more than the phone can give, especially an Apple device. Take the front/black glass, digitizer, and iPhone case. Even if the electronics are shot, just the other stuff can easily sell for a couple hundred bucks easily. As far as I know, Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass, so there is a thriving secondary market for replacement panels, especially factory grade as opposed to Chinese knock-offs, and you can't get any more factory than stuff from a stolen device
Apple does use gorilla glass (Score:2)
Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass, so there is a thriving secondary market for replacement panels, especially factory grade as opposed to Chinese knock-offs
That's wrong in a few ways. First, they do use gorilla glass - in my experience the phones are really sturdy, unless you have the misfortune of a corner hitting something very hard. But it's not like they are going to scratch from keys in a pocket.
Second, there is no such thing as a "Chinese kickoff iPhone 4 screen". This is because the LCD is RIGHT un
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Sorry, this is incorrect, knowing from personal experience. The vast majority of the time, breaking the glass (and digitizer) does not break the LCD. The LCD is right underneath the class, but most of the time that the glass breaks, the LCD does not. The two are adhered around the edges, but not on the actual surfaces.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Informative)
The electronics are not shot. The article is misleading. They do not brick it. They blacklist the IMEI and that does not allow the phone to make calls in a given network. The phone works fine. That is done in a lot of countries - for example in mine. There are two ways around this - basement phone repair workshops that change the IMEI for a few bucks (model specific, can't be done with all phones) or exporting the stolen device. In my country the border is always less than 250km away, Australia is a bit more isolated so this might be a little more difficult there. Anyway - the phone isn't bricked, they do not have some magical killswitch, electronics are not shot.
Phone theft much easier (Score:3)
My guess is they'd rob them anyway and whatever they get that is good.... so much the better
Not really - there are lots of phone thefts because it is so easy. The victim is distracting themselves, showing you exactly what you will get, and furthermore holding it up for you to grab.
With any other theft you have no idea if the target is really worth it, what they really have... and you have to get it off them, when they may already be on guard to start with.
Be eliminating any profit from the one singularly e
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"...or stolen, I still have to pay something for a new phone."
As well as all those who would have bought a stolen phone but can't because of this.
Bricking phones for good is good for business IMO.
Re:Disincentive? (Score:4, Informative)
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It's my understanding that they don't really brick the phones, all of the networks just block the phones by IMEI number based on a common database.
and changing imei is just one click away, at least for older models
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Re:Disincentive? (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds like the carriers have an incentive to brick stolen phones, not a disincentive as the summary states. If a stolen phone results in another phone sale (to the person who's had their phone stolen) this doesn't sound like a disincentive to me.
Don't underestimate the cell phone carriers - if such a stolen phone registry were to be implemented in the USA, the carriers would make sure that all off-contract phones got put on the list automatically, eliminating the used phone market. They'd justify it with some reason like "to prevent fraud" or "old phones cost too much to support on our network" -- kind of the same reasoning they use to justify high ETF's that still cost over $100 one month before the contract ends.
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It would be easier to pay a few politicians to pass a law requiring it because drugs dealers/terrorists/pedos/whoever use them for some bad thing or other.
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Carriers (Score:2)
I have no idea about Australia, but in most countries phones are sold by phone shops - which have nothing to do with carriers. Carriers also sell phones, but a majority of phones sold have nothing to do with the carrier.
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"Theft" is the word used throughout the article, robbery was never mentioned by the interviewee, it was an off-topic and obviously clueless suggestion of the reporter in the last paragraph. I suspect the author gets punched because he is an asshole and people take his phone with the intention of shoving it up his ass rather than stealing it.
Let's examine the potential impact on violence: You mug someone. Do you let them keep their cellphone so they can dial 911, 000, 999 or whatever the local emergency re
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I left my blackberry in a Wendy's during a working lunch once. I realized I'd left it in the restaurant by the time I got to the car, but by the time I got back to my seat at the restaurant it had disappeared. Ended up getting a touchscreen smart phone. I really miss having a physical keyboard on a phone without a shit-ton of crapware installed :( This was before cyanogen was a reliable thing.
Re:Violent (Score:4, Insightful)
I've lived in two of those cities and never been mugged. I'm not saying they aren't dangerous, but it's not a part of every day life.
Re:Violent (Score:5, Interesting)
I've lived in two of those cities and never been mugged. I'm not saying they aren't dangerous, but it's not a part of every day life.
You don't have to have been mugged to have violence be a part of everyday life. There are many parts of my city that I refuse to go to at night, because it's known to be dangerous. There are other parts that I avoid even in the daytime for the same reason. There are many nice ethnic restaurants in those areas that I'd like to go to but in general, I don't because I don't want my car broken into or to be mugged myself.
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Thats just because you're a bigoted idiot :) Even the most dangerous parts of DC aren't really all that dangerous when you look at the actual numbers rather than sensationalist media reports and the odds of anything actually happening too you are slim to none ... well, unless you do something to cause someone to beat the shit out of you because they realize how you look down on them.
Re:Violent (Score:5, Insightful)
Quit watching so much TV, it's bad for you.
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couldn't of said it better myself.
most people, I find, who think like this have never lived or even been to the areas they are afraid of.
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Here's your stats - Philly has just shy of one /homicide/ per day. Mugging is definitely part of everyday life for those cities. You can that's not the same as everyday life per citizen, but that's more illuminating of what citizenship means to you.
http://www.phillypolice.com/about/crime-statistics/ [phillypolice.com]
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Re:Violent (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that muggings are violent I just wonder how much bricking stops your typical mugger from still wanting your wallet and how much it stops opportunity theft when someone sets there phone down and walks away from it for a moment.
The problem with stealing a wallet is that it might turn out to be empty (and if you flash your wallet around so others can see it's contents, you're an idiot). As soon as you see someone's phone you know what it is and roughly how much you can get for it. If it's a good phone that you can easily get some money for then you might take the risk of robbing the owner. If you know you won't get anything for it because a stolen phone will be bricked before you can sell it, you won't.
Nobody is saying it will stop all violent muggings, just that it does make a difference.
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The problem with stealing a wallet is that it might turn out to be empty
Nowadays, at least it will contain some credit cards. And maybe the mugger can coerce the owner to give up the pin...
Or observe where the owner is going to/coming from. Nobody goes with an empty wallet into a bar...
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Bingo. You just described a violent crime. Not VERY violent, but violent nonetheless.
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They subsidize when you sign a contract, in mid contract you don't get a subsidy with your new phone.
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It is not that difficult to find out. All it needs is a little math. You take the price of a phone and add 2 (or whatever) years worth of unsubsidized plan or pay-as-you go. In my coutry it is ALWAYS cheaper in the long run to buy a phone and pay as you go. The subsidy racket is just meant for people who can't do the math - "oooh, an iphone costs only $199 - i'll get that!" and they end up paying $2000 for it over the course of next two years.
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