How I lost my backpack with passports and laptop | Hacker News Reader

How I lost my backpack with passports and laptop

psychotechnology.substack.com

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I had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports, wallet, house keys, etc. - stolen from a pub in Euston a couple of years ago. All that remained in my pockets was my phone & power bank, and airpods. It was stolen by a guy who went into the pub we were at, sat at an adjacent table, pretended to study the menu, deposited a dummy backpack to the communal pile under our table when we were standing to greet people, then picked up the heaviest one (mine) and walked out. Unlike the author, I wasn't black-out drunk, we were just distracted and someone was able to do a sleight of hand when we weren't paying attention.

The author is very lucky to get theirs back. I had to replace it all. As they say, replacing the UK one wasn't too bad - though I hadn't been in the UK for 2 years by that point so I had to get extra guarantors to sign photos and write a declaration. The other one was a nightmare, and by pure luck the embassy could look up my last application and pull the birth certificate reference number for me. Again, 2 guarantors and I was very lucky to have a friend from that country visiting.

I reported it as stolen, hoping that they'd steal the laptop and wallet and then ditch the rest. Unfortunately, either nobody found it or nobody turned it in. Of course, the CCTV that was in the pub was 'too blurry' to be of any use. CCTV has a funny tendency of being useless in that regard.

In my case, I crashed at a friend's place that evening, and then went down to my local makerspace for lack of wanting to pay a locksmith £fuckloads to unlock my door on a Sunday. By pure luck, there was a lockpicking nerd there and they came and slipped my door for me. Thankfully, that was enough to help offset a lot of the negativity of the whole affair. I felt like I got off lucky a bit, and didn't dwell so much on it as a result.

20 years ago I had a somewhat similar experience - a pub off The Strand in central London.

My bag/briefcase was under a (high) table, and in that case the pub was able to view CCTV and work out the guy who sat nearby and hooked his leg to grab my bag - while I was distracted.

Luckily for me, while it contained laptop and passport, I got a call 20 mins later from my wife, who had been contacted by someone 100m away in a different pub. The thief had taken my bag with laptop, not realised there was also a passport in there, gone to another pub, stolen another bag, switched my laptop into said bag, and gone off. The owner of other lost laptop had found my (empty) bag/passport, rang my wife, and we met and at least I got bag (and passport) back...

Net result, lost laptop, but not lost passport. Much less hassle, although still a wake up call...

As an aside, a friend in Tokyo only a couple of years ago suddenly realised he had lost his passport. A couple of hours of searching bags later, panic when he realised it was mid afternoon Friday, consulate was going to close soon, and not reopen until Monday - with his flight scheduled Monday early!

Rang the consulate to ask advice: "oh yes, police station XXX rang us to report they had had your passport handed in - please go and pick it up!". So we did!

Lovely country Japan in many ways! It had just dropped out of his bag onto pavement, been found and handed in...

A smallish city in Pennsylvania. Dropped my wallet/id and work badge rushing to catch the bus to work. Someone picked it up, googled me, found an article from the local newspaper announcing my wedding, all with my home address, dropped the items in my mailbox and called my office to let me know. That was when I knew that my local paper still publishes marriages, divorces and bankruptcies, complete with all personal details. That was scary.

Names, addresses, and phone numbers use to be published and distributed for free. It was called a "phone book".

Wasn't the whole point of blanketing the country with CCTV to catch criminals? If it's too low res to even work out someone's face to the point where you can identify him, then what are all those cameras achieving?

For the pub, probably a discount on insurance.

Yep, they’re probably more interested in deterring burglars.

At least in London it's usually a condition of the licence these days that they have CCTV.

Anarcho-tyranny. It's not so much to catch the career criminals as it is to make sure that no political organizing can happen on any scale major enough to disrupt the machine. The criminals are encouraged in order to terrorize the public so that they beg for bigger government, higher taxes, and more centralized control structures. The elite running the show don't actually care about "little people." Any care that actually takes place is incidental, more up to the local constabulary or local officials who aren't completely on board with the bigger picture.

> had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports, wallet, house keys, etc. - stolen

I’ve made a similar experience a while back. Since then I’ve completely reduced the number of important items I carry around simultaneously in the same bag/location.

Lived in London for over 40 years. Never let your stuff out of sight for a minute. My foot always goes through a loop on my bag. Had at least two attempts to grab it which was stopped dead by this. I use a knackered looking Osprey daylite plus bag which has straps around the zips that stops people casually having a go at it as well. Mostly no issues in the last 10 years but I know people who are careless and have been done a few times.

My general travel experience, outside the UK, is that if you dress down, use a knackered looking bag and a shitty no brand knackered phone case and people will leave you alone. Passport goes on you in a zipped inner pocket anywhere on the planet. Same with wallet, keys, anything. Never wear anything that indicates you have an iPhone worth nicking. Apple Watch / Airpods make you a target.

Many people aren't travel savvy. It scares me.

One thing that really struck me in Dubai: I watched a group of girls leave their designer purses and phones unattended on a table. They just left the coffee shop and came back over 10 minutes later.

I was encouraged to leave my wallet and phone on the table of time out, while we went and got food. My friends rationale was: there are CCTVs everywhere and thieves are dealt with very harshly. So eff it

Even in Singapore, I recall the protocol being to leave a napkin or whatever at a Hawker Center to indicate the chair/table was taken. Been a few years though.

In Dubai the punishment I'd expect to be much worse if you do end up getting caught stealing.

From your and other comments in the thread, it sounds like the main deterrence then is 1) that it's likely you'll be caught and 2) that if caught, the punishment will be quite harsh.

I wonder if the UK and other cities are struggling more with the first or second

I've travelled to a majority of countries across the globe (exploration geophysics, mostly in the air or deep backcountry, rarely in major cities) and Dubai is another city within a city location; two state; the rich are rich and have no need to steal, or are brazen about it, while the poor are segregated, curfewed and routinely castigated.

These are not places were you want to fall the wrong side of the invisible barrier.

This dynamic exists in many expensive locations around the world, but Dubai stands out for its remarkably low crime rate. Take San Francisco, for instance. More expensive to live and greater wealth inequality, yet riddled with crime.

It isn't the expense; it is the segregation. The poor just aren't allowed to exist or mingle with the rich in Dubai. If you are poor, you are only near the rich while you are at work, performing a job.

What do you mean by that? It's the same kind of segregation that exists in San Francisco: expensive areas are out of reach to those without money. There aren't actual laws enforcing segregation. In fact, it's almost the opposite - it's pretty easy to come and live in Dubai.

Indeed, just look at the slavery and indentured servitude that goes on there.

Theft is punished very severely there. Not worth the risk.

I can safely walk around the streets at 2 am in a "bad" neighbourhood in Dubai or Singapore. Can't do the same in most Western cities.

I'd gladly trade a little bit of freedom (the freedom to criticize a government that isn't even mine) in exchange for this massive improvement in security. Apparently a lot of Western entrepreneurs are feeling the same way lately.

On a side note, a friend who used to work in the Dubai Police told me that even they're getting swamped with the rapid increase in population, and even they're getting subjected to budget cuts of late. There used to be a time when part of the police force was even foreign, but those positions were eliminated in favor of a UAE-nationals-only force.

That would happen in Germany too. Or Japan. Or Austria. Or most parts of Italy

Maybe in less touristy areas it's safer, but from what I've seen in many European cities, even what's in your pockets isn't safe.

I had a similar experience in Korea recently. Going for lunch in a shopping mall, many people were routinely placing their phones on tables to "reserve" them while they walked off (out of sight of their phones/tables) to collect their food. I couldn't quite believe it!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who always has the loop around their foot! Minimal inconvenience for the potential loss.

Just a heads up - there seems to be an issue with your HN account. Nearly all of your comments are showing up as dead.

Yeah I’m pretty sure I got limited because I said multiple stupid things, appreciate the heads up but I’ll take my punishment :)

You can’t leave your comments out of your sight for a second around here!

Wow, I have to say it's a bit crazy that you have to go through all this effort in what I think of as quite a safe city. I was recently in London for a week of meetings and someone said be careful about having your phone out in case someone snatches it but I thought they were being hyperbolic.

Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.

Because the police don't care, and these crimes are generally impossible to solve.

There are stories of people finding their stolen bicycles, motorbikes or cars, and when informing the police they're told to 'steal it back'.

The phones thieves are generally youths riding around the city on electric bikes, fully balaclava'd up. There's little chance of catching them. Even if they were caught nothing would happen to them.

London has apparently gone to shit since I lived there 5 years ago.

> Because the police don't care, and these crimes are generally impossible to solve.

Because they don't care is correct. These crimes are actually trivial to solve. The devices are tracked, there is a clear money trail, people are doing this routinely as a business.

As you said people routinely track their stolen property and nothing is done about it.

They don't care because it's "petty" crime. And they will "get to it after they solve all the murders."

Yes. The police have the ability to find and arrest the perpetrators pretty quickly, if they prioritise it. There was a phone theft which (unusually) turned into a stabbing/slashing a couple of years ago when the victim fought back. Perpetrators escaped on bikes before police arrived, but were arrested only 3 or 4 days later.

https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/news/city-of-london/news/...

> Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime?

Many reasons.

1. UK prisons are already overflowing. Even violent criminals like rapists and murderers are only serving half of their sentences. When there were riots recently the government had to let many criminals go early just to make room for rioters. There is basically no room for petty criminals. The police know this which is why they don't even bother arresting petty criminals since they will just be let go free anyway.

2. U.K. police has been underfunded for decades at this point. There were severe cuts under the earlier Tory regime and now under the Labour regime it continues to be underfunded with the police chief suggesting to cut the number of police forces from 43 to 12. At this point the police basically do not care about any property crime since they prioritize violent crimes (rightly in my opinion).

3. British legal system and British society in general has trends that favor increase in crime e.g. loosening of social controls (loss of social stigmas etc) increased movement, freedom of movement (people move around more freely instead of staying in the same village their entire lifetime) lack of tracking, lack of interest in tracking (e.g. London has about same number of CCTV cameras as China yet Chinese government is able to use its camera to track criminals much more effectively than the British).

Could also talk about changes in society (loss of social capital aka Bowling Alone), increased immigration, changes in parenting (single parents etc) but those are topics of discussion for different time.

The problem of overflowing British prisons is hundreds of years old. One solution was to ship convicts off to places like Australia.

> it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity

Charles Dickens was writing about pickpocketing in London in 1837 - it's not "creeping" but something close to a tradition.

> Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime?

When have crackdowns ever worked in an area where the have-nots get to interact with the haves daily?

If I had to choose a way to lose my belongings, a pickpocket is a safer bet compared to getting robbed at knife- or gun-point

They routinely get away with it, it's a cottage industry of sorts. See [1].

> Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at first but deters important activity (tourism, business relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.

Because no one cares about long term.

[1]. https://www.timesnownews.com/technology-science/how-your-sto...

Out of curiosity, how would you compare London to NYC?

Haven’t been to NYC for about 1 10 years but basically about the same. I don’t know NYC as well so felt a little uneasy which was my own bias.

Being somewhat familiar with both, there are probably areas of both cities that are more and less safe. Without looking at numbers, there are probably areas of NYC that I'd be less inclined to wander into than areas of London. Though, as you say, bias. There are areas of London that were sketchy a few decades back that are pretty gentrified today, especially in East London.

> CCTV has a funny tendency of being useless in that regard

I don't think it's safe to depend on this by default.

I know a few business owners who have video (and audio) recording set ups in their business where 100+ customers come and go daily.

There might be 6 motion activated cameras saving everything to a local box in the store. That box might have let's say 1TB of disk space. Even with motion activated cameras it could fill up in ~3 weeks to where it's no longer recording.

Once it gets filled up, it gets permanently deleted with no backups. This could be a manual and adhoc process, it depends on the owner.

I never had any say in how they operate, just repeating what I've heard and seen.

This idea of trusting that companies record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd trust for anything important.

> This idea of trusting that companies record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd trust for anything important.

In many jurisdictions, it is against the law to record and save all interactions and calls indefinitely.

Often, law says you can only make video recordings for a given, legal, purpose. If the goal is to deter crime and help solve crimes, keeping recordings around for a few weeks is allowed, but keeping them forever typically isn’t.

> Even with motion activated cameras it could fill up in ~3 weeks to where it's no longer recording.

What are the legal aspects to it? In Switzerland e.g. the recommended duration to store recordings are "up to 72h, or as long as required to fulfil their job" (afaik, the law isn't very exactly defined) . I could see it difficult to argue "as long as the disk is not fill" as a valid duration.

I'm not sure, they are in NY. I did a quick Googling and it says there's no specific legal mandate on the storage period for a restaurant. For any recording in NY, there is a legal requirement to post a sign that there's a camera recording both video and audio (which they have). I do see that all over the place in general. The sign needs to be in clear view.

I witnessed almost the exact same thing on an adjacent table; someone crouching down pretending to do their shoelaces for a suspiciously long time. Unfortunately I didn’t click what was going on until after they’d left.

heh someone broke into a house i was staying at in Costa Rica and stole my backpack while i was working in the next room! I go back to get something and there's footprints in/out of a sliding glass door and no backpack. Fortunately, the only thing they got was my ADHD medicine. Sorta sucked for my employer for those 3 weeks I was without but it could have been much worse.

Interestingly, i did my best to follow the footsteps which led to a trail that went up through the jungle. Maybe 100 yards up a hill there was a little spot that definitely looked well used by humans overlooking the house and straight through a large window. I suspect whoever it was had been watching us for a while and when my wife/kids left, leaving me alone, just walked in, grabbed the backpack and left. (wife was not pleased as you could imagine)

> Fortunately, the only thing they got was my ADHD medicine

Good time to start binging Costa Rican specialty coffee. A liter a day keeps the ADHD at bay ;)

(somewhat joking, milage may vary, real meds help, but coffee's good in high quantities in a pinch)

Why did you miss your meds? It would have been trivial to consult any generalist / psychiatrist and walk out with your prescription. Doctors charge $50 - $100

People in Costa Rica tend to be nice and helpful, and smart.

Once the meds are gone, things don't get done.

Like solving the problem and doing the intended work.

I have a similar story, one that also took place in London. I had my bag stolen from under a chair outside a pub near UCL. It contained various important things including my passport, a journal with about six month’s of writing in it, critical notes for a project I was working on, etc. I was devastated.

A week later I had mostly made my peace with losing all my stuff and was about to apply, for a new passport, when I received a very posh letter in the post with an imposing coat of arms atop it; it was from the Duke of Bedford’s estate, which owns most of the land all around Bloomsbury. They told me they had found my bag in the locked garden in the middle of Bedford Square. The thieves must have thrown it over the railings, and fortunately there was a letter addressed to me inside it that gave away my address. I went to their very grand estate office to collect it and, amazingly, everything was still there, including the passport which the thieves apparently did not want.

>A couple of years ago, I would have panicked at this moment. I'm pretty neurotic: my mind is constantly occupied with producing negative scenarios that "need" to be considered and anticipated. I eat myself from inside out with endless "what ifs", calculating worst-case scenarios and failures — all that sort of thing.

I can relate strongly to this. ADHD and OCD tendencies made leaving for even a vacation frustrating. I think part of that was growing up in a situation where losing something important like a phone or laptop was a financial hardship that meant real, lasting pain.

Now, as I am older and more financially stable, I only really worry that I have my phone and wallet. And really I only need one of them. All of my IDs are scanned and backed up online. I just need a device and internet connection and I can recover enough of my life to get home, where I can get back on track and order new items. When going over our final leave-list, my partner and I typically just end with “and we have a credit card, so it doesn’t matter if we’ve forgotten something”.

When traveling to more remote places with less of a chance of being able to replace a phone at short notice, I do bring an old phone as backup.

> I just need a device and internet connection and I can recover enough of my life to get home

How do you deal with 2FA? Do you memorize a few of your backup codes?

I use 1Password as my 2FA app. They have a recovery kit you can print out and store in safe places, or if you have a device that you've previously set up, you can authenticate to your vault.

https://support.1password.com/emergency-kit/

Not GP, but my solution is to just not use 2FA if I can at all avoid it. After all, 2FA is 99% security theater anyway (if you have a randomly generated unguessable password in a decent password manager).

Very true. I would love to get an YubiKey. But if I set up everything with this and I lose it abroad, then I am f... Could get two and have one FedExed to me if SHTF, but I think I pass.

Even if you have unguessable passwords, the services typically have a way to reset that password. So if the attacker gain access to your email they could do a lot of damage.

1st How do they get access to my email?

2nd If they get access to my 2fa I am also hosed.

3rd Typically most services will allow you to reset your 2fa if you have access to your email or phone or whatever. Because you know people lose their 2fa.

> 2FA is 99% security theater anyway

Never thought I would see anti-2FA posts on HN.

Even texted codes are not 99% theater, imo...

You didn't expect a forum full of obsessive technology nerds to see through the nonsense cargo cult that is 2FA?

tl;dr: You only need a strong, well-kept password or 2FA. Doing both has extremely marginal security benefits.

Remember that 2FA happened like this:

- everybody's password is hunter2

- people's accounts get hacked left and right

- people contact support, this costs the company lots of money

- so company tries "strong password" rules

- people forget their strong passwords

- people contact support, this costs the company lots of money

- company enforces 2FA

- fewer people contact support

- less support work, company saves money

Now, none of these problems apply to people who always use random strong passwords and store them in a decent password manager. I'm not saying 2FA makes no sense from a business perspective, it totally does. Moves the hassles from the business to the user (and locks out poor people without phones trying to log in from a library computer, but they were never going to be generating a lot of revenue anyway so who cares right?).

But if you're not using "hunter2" and not forgetting your password, the extra security 2FA gives you is against nation-state level hackery only. An attacker would have to either MITM your https traffic or hack into your password manager vault. But if they can MITM your https traffic, they can capture your 2FA OTP as well when you fill it in, so you're already screwed.

This leaves someone hacking my password manager. But 2FA has recovery keys, for when you lose your phone/authenticator. If an attacker have this key, they don't need the second factor. So then it all boils down to:

- do I dare print out my recovery keys, put them in a drawer, not lose them in a move or a fire, not urgently need them while away from home?

- or would I rather put the recovery keys right there in the password manager, meaning I can access them when needed but when someone hacks my password manager, they can hack my life?

If you're in camp 2, like I am, 2FA adds no value. If you're in camp 1, 2FA can protect you against people hacking your password manager (but against nothing else).

I don't believe anybody, barring the extremely paranoid (for good or bad reasons), actually prints out their recovery keys. Ergo everybody's in camp 2 or worse (eg put the recovery keys in your dropbox). Ergo, if you use a password manager with strong passwords, 2FA is 99% theater. The 1% is for the printer+drawer people.

I use the technique of taping a microsd card with copies of my passport, credit cards, 2fa backup codes, etc, encrypted; along with a $100 to the bottom of my insole inside my shoe. Put them in a little "crack sized" ziplock, add lots of gaffers tape (so if you take the insole out it's not obvious, plus makes it a bit waterproof) and if I ever get mugged, I have enough cash to get a cab (or depending on where I am, pay a bribe) and then find a computer I can use to get my info and figure out next steps.

Normally carry a yubikey with me (2, in fact, one on me, one in my big bag at my hostel / hotel). But if I get mugged between airport - hostel, then at least I have the shoe backup.

A 3rd level is that my parents have a yubikey and 2fa backup codes for me. They dont have my passwords, but in a pinch, I can call them to read me a code.

Very open to ideas on things to improve...

> Very open to ideas on things to improve...

Grade 316 stainless steel SD cards by Lexar come to mind[1].

[1] https://www.lexar.com/global/news/Lexar-Announces-Worlds-Fir...

Not my idea. You can have a lawyer that has access to all your passwords, and designate a list of trusted people that can access them in an emergency.

If something happens, your friend calls the lawyer. The lawyer calls the other friends and if enough concur releases your passwords.

Depending on how technical you and your inner circle is you can even have whatever secret the lawyer holds encrypted and a key preshared with your friends so that the lawyer cant use it or the secret is irrelevant if it leaks.

This is of course more relevant in a you drop of the face of the earth, or you are wrongfully or rightly arrested kind of scenario.

Keep an eye on FRAM storage devices. Currently you can buy a USB stick with 8 KB of storage, but that storage is designed to last 200 years (and should at least survive a few decades). You can even recover the data off it with a soldering iron and a steady hand if needed. Would be a neat solution for keeping a backup code in a safe long term (maybe once the price drops to be competitive with a laminated sheet of paper)

> I think part of that was growing up in a situation where losing something important like a phone or laptop was a financial hardship that meant real, lasting pain.

The brain is interesting, that's for sure. Old habits and mindsets stick around a long time.

I still write important things on paper like final destination addresses or reservation numbers because I don't trust my phone.

When I went on a solo 2 week Euro trip to Portugal and Spain last year I had ~30 printed pieces of paper of reservation details / maps in my backpack just in case something happened with my phone. I didn't carry them all with me everywhere but as time went on in the trip, I brought the specific ones with me for that day in a day bag.

I didn't plan the trip in too much detail, mainly just hotel reservations and high level bullets for things to do in the few cities I went to but having everything printed gave me peace of mind. I didn't have to use a single piece of paper in the end.

It does make me think how much easier it would be traveling with a friend or partner because having 2 phones is a massive perk for redundancy.

When i was single I used to pack a spare (smaller, older) phone on bigger trips, one would stay off in my daybag/backpack to be used in case something happened and my regular was in my pocket. Now, yeah, it's silly to pack it as my partner's is the backup.

I have airtags in my backpack, briefcase, wallet, luggage and keys now. One of the best qol improvements I've done. I'm careless and forget stuff a lot and even just saving the few minutes it regularly took me to find stuff misplaced at home is great. It also let me recover my bag when I forgot it on a train (I watched it go to a holding station overnight and travel all over the country the next day, and could then anticipate where it would be and go take it back)

I also have a similar experience to that described in the article (nearly 10 years ago, pre airtags) of having my wallet drop out my pocket while cycling in the Netherlands. A German couple found it and took it back to Germany with them as they weren't sure what to do. They found me on Facebook, asked if it was ok to take some cash from the wallet, and put it in the post back to me in NL.

Coming from South Africa which probably has similarities to Russia in terms of return rates for lost valuable belongings it was quite a defining moment of "Europe" for me.

Story of a recovered passport - no alcohol and 21 years back.

Was visiting Toronto labor day weekend 2004 with a freshly minted green card and India's passport with family (wife+2kids). Was in Eaton center, we were trying to take a train/metro to somewhere, kept my waist pouch (that I used those days) on top of the stroller's canopy to pay at the ticket counter and when I was done, of course the pouch was not there.

The realization of theft was immediate. I could not have dropped it earlier since I just took the money out. It disappeared in the last one minute. BTW, not just the pouch, even the wallet was gone as I had taken only the cash and put everything on top of the stroller's canopy. Wallet, Passports, Green Card - all gone.

Talked to the Mall security, they did not do much except write a report and make me call credit card companies to cancel the cards. Then went to police, but police said they can not do anything without an ID and asked me to get an ID (temporary or whatever from my embassy). Of course it is a Sunday and the embassy is closed. Could go back to hotel, still had access to rental car (that we decided not to use for this trip), but that was it. Tried to think through this but nope - this was so unchartered I did not know what to do. What will happen to work, how will I get passport, how will we get green card reprocessed, how will we pay the hotel (since the cards were canceled) - complete (but not visible) panic.

Thankfully my company had offices in Toronto, so found some connections and trying to talk to them on what will happen if I got stranded in Toronto like this. They started looking into this.

Also talked to my landlord back in US and ask him to be prepared to go to our apartment and pull out the green card files. Told him I will call back if I need help.

By now it is 2+ hours. We are walking back to Hotel, and I get a call (thanks cellphones) from someone saying they found my pouch with passports. It appears my checkbook was also in the pouch and that had my phone number. They are not nearby - "oh I found it on the train as I was leaving" and now you will need to come here, about 45 minutes west from there. I say sure I will be there as soon as I can. I call my company's contact and they provide me an escort since it was an unknown area to me (and them). I get the car, my wife does not want me to go alone so it is all of us, we pick up my "colleague" from his home, and land up at the place we were asked to.

Thankfully a person comes down from a tall building and hands me the bag. The bag had 300-400 when I lost it, but now it is just 20 bucks. He says that's how it was. And then he asks me for a finders fee - I give the 20 bucks to him, and move on.

Except the money, got back everything else. Phew.

[ Edit - Trying to remember the scenario more since I came back here to respond to a question. My wallet was definitely gone. How did the mall security get me to cancel the cards? As I recall, we called 2 credit card companies ... and canceled those cards based on the social, but at that point I was sure the mall security was not going to help, so I said those were all the cards I had and left from there. ]

police said they can not do anything without an ID and asked me to get an ID (temporary or whatever from my embassy)

that makes no sense. in order to get a new passport/ID, even a temporary one from the embassy of my country i need to have a police report and my birth certificate (which could take time to get). in other words, police needs to act first. sounds like that cop had no clue.

I hear you but 1) this is decades back and my best memory - we did walk out of their building without results (or a report), 2) how does a cop verify the veracity of someone random claiming to have lost all forms of identifications. I think I should still be able to get a report "random joe says he lost his passport. This is report #987654321", but it did not happen then.

how does a cop verify the veracity of someone random claiming to have lost all forms of identifications

they don't. but if the police is not willing to help you get your stuff back then whats the point? but even if they can't do anything, one point is to create a paper trail. i mean, even if you lost your passports, or, say they got accidentally destroyed, you would still file a police report just to document that fact. i am not trying to pick on your memory, but that they didn't let you file a report is highly unusual, and it can't be your fault.

It used to be somebody would slip you a Rohypnol and roll you. Now you slip yourself a Phenibut and get rolled.

I wouldn't characterize Phenibut as a "nootropic" as it's arguable that such a thing (nootropic) exists. I'd say it is "Русский for Valium".

When I was in college there were forums like "alt.drugs" where people shared stories like "I smoked weed and had a lot of fun" and Erowid was like that for a while but pretty soon it was full of stories that the Partnership for a Drug Free America couldn't have made up, often people who took way too many downers and got into trouble.

> sleeping on phenibut is very restful

Is this just you subjective experience or is it backed by some data or research? For me personally, sleeping after phenibut doesn't feel healthy at all -- in fact I often end up sleeping for 12+ hours unless I have something important to do in the morning, and it's extremely hard to get out of bed every time.

I don't know if it compares to Ambien at all, but my wife takes that and every once in a while I take one to help get to sleep. It gets me to sleep and I stay knocked out, but a long 8 hour sleep with Ambien never seems as good as a "real" 5 hour sleep without it.

Ambien drastically reduces the restorative deep sleep and REM phases of sleep, so you are correct in your assessment. Your brain needs those phases. Long-term use can cause cognitive issues and cancer.

My late friend Hugh Daniel used to refer to his Bihn's backpack [1] as his "LSD", for "Life Support Device". Like when we were leaving the house he'd shout in his boisterous voice so all the neighbors could hear, "Oh no, I forgot my LSD! I'll be right back!" then run back in and fetch his backpack.

But now my smartphone is my LSD.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13687369

Except it's really not if you're traveling internationally.

>Except it's really not if you're traveling internationally.

What do you mean?

Not having a passport is a big issue that will take a lot of hassle to deal with. Probably a generational thing but losing my passport feels like a much bigger deal than my phone if I've taken reasonable precautions. In fact, my iPhone broke 4 or 5 years ago on a trip and I was fine.

I think he's saying you don't want to go shouting "I've got my LSD with me" in an airport.

Jesus Mouse once told me about how he'd smuggled LSD into Europe by cutting blotter paper up into little colored pieces of paper and gluing them all over his scepter as decoration, and nobody in customs or airport security was remotely suspicious about it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34405486

I'd rather be stuck in an international country with only a phone than only a passport. Hell even when I've been in war zones if it's a choice between a working phone (sat phone for example) and a flak jacket, I'd go for the former.

Good luck getting home with just your phone.

Phone back or family, get emergency funds. Phone embassy, get emergency travel documentation.

Good luck getting home with just your passport.

You probably overestimate how easy it is to "just" get a replacement passport in a random location and get money wired to you.

As I wrote, I have personally had a broken phone and it was annoying--mostly because of the replacement cost--but had no problem getting home. I didn't just have my passport but didn't have a phone.

But with no money, no phone, no contacts how are you going to even get to where you need to be where a passport is useful?

Memorize one phone number or email.

And/or ask the hotel. And if you're just casually backpacking, that probably means you know people (or are traveling with someone).

Frankly, probably reflects my computer background, but it sort of annoys me that my passport is more or less the one thing when traveling internationally that there is just no backup for beyond going to the embassy or consulate.

Domestically, you can have multiple forms of acceptable ID. One time I skipped that step on a last minute quick trip, I almost wasn't able to check into a hotel.

Should have called it a BOMB - Backpack Of My Belongings. Great for airports!

This is a dream I have a few times a year. The panic! The horror! Everything gone. Just the feeling of personal loss and devastation every time I have the dream.

I've never heard of phenibut before. It sounds interesting.

I think it may cause cognitive decline. I mean longterm.

It was rightly banned in Australia. Fuckwits had a tendency of buying it online and then taking huge doses without a break (sensitisation) and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.

A nice reminder to libertarians that, yes you may be smart and careful with risk taking but there are many fuckwits who aren’t and shouldn’t have to suffer because of it unnecessarily.

Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use it responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be punished if they choose to use it regardless of legality?

Surely there's some sensible ground between ruining the lives of addicts and putting heroin into elementary school vending machines.

Libertarianism as an ideology does not have the tools to deal with the harms of the latter.

Libertarianism is stupid, but I also think GP is using it as an easy straw-man to justify prohibition.

> Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use it responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be punished if they choose to use it regardless of legality?

Because we don't live in isolated universes of individuality. When they cause massive damage to their bodies and minds, that cost is not only borne by themselves but by their close circle and society at large. You can argue that prohibition is not the right approach to preventing these problems, but doing the non-optimal thing is better than doing nothing at all.

This is precisely why my enthusiasm for libertarianism has waned over the years--a lot of things just don't scale and I think benevolent anarchy is one of those things. It just becomes pure anarchy with all the Mad Max horrors.

There are many 'everyday' activities, foods, and substances that can be shown to be harmful to the individual in the long term, and thus have a negative effect on their close circle, the healthcare system, and potentially society, but which are socially acceptable and so remain.

e.g.

Alcohol is worse than no alcohol, for many reasons.

Smoking cigarettes, obvs.

Eating meat is worse that not eating meat.

Doing woodwork without breathing protection may damage your lungs.

Cleaning with spray cleaning products regularly may damage your lungs.

Sun exposure increases your skin cancer risk.

Running is more likely to cause arthritis than cycling or swimming.

Loud environments may damage your hearing.

Insufficiently frequent ejaculation may increase your risk of prostate cancer.

Yes, I'm being deliberately absurd to make the point, but still: where, and how, to draw the line?

It's legal in many US states to ride motorcycles without a helmet. Skydiving is legal. All kinds of legal, risky activity. I can go out and have unprotected sex with anyone willing, as long as no money is involved, and catch and spread numerous diseases. I don't see substance use as any different than other risky behaviors that people lawfully engage in daily.

I don't think you have to be libertarian to think that there are responsible and better models for drug regulation in between the two extremes of being able to order it in huge quantities online and outright prohibiting it. As a recreational and responsible drug user, I think the current model is a violation of my right to call the shots on my own body and mind.

I was outraged when it was banned as well to be honest but I found out about it from the imminst--which was a place with a lot of educated people who were very cautious with it.

It was like an insult. Like I couldn't rationally decide on the risk of using it.

Then I saw the reddit posts and I got it. I couldn't previously conceptualise that there were actually people like that out there. And these aren't people who intentionally want to hurt themselves either. They just saw the drug online, bought it and thought: "What the heck? It's available so it must be ok." Those people are morons but they still need to be protected from themselves. And nannied.

Some peoole beat their wives when they drink, so the state has decided that it is in everyone's best interest for alcohol to become illegal.

Some people become unproductive and hurt themselves when on drugs, so the state has decided to enact a war on drugs.

Some people injure themselves trying to procure abortions, so the state has decided no more abortions.

Some protesters cause war recruiting efforts to struggle during Vietnam, which hurts soldiers already deployed, so the state has decided no more anti-war protests.

Some people misuse privacy to commit crimes, so the state has decided that every citizen must be fingerprinted and put into a police database preemptively to prevent crime.

Some people aren't productive enough and others are forced to pick up the slack, so the state has decided to humanely euthanize the disabled to protect workers.

Trust the state, relinquish your freedoms, the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!

> Some peoole beat their wives when they drink, so the state has decided that it is in everyone's best interest for alcohol to become illegal.

If anyone is curious about the history in the US, Ken Burns' doc (based on a book) is really good:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries)

This is just half a dozen examples of the slippery slope fallacy. You could make identically generic arguments for every good law that we all agree on. The specifics of the law in question are a required component of the conversation.

> the state knows best and the state never makes mistakes!

Nobody believes this. Everyone is comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to rights and laws they believe should be enforced.

No, it's half a dozen examples that already happened in real life (5 quite literally, 1 with digital fingerprinting of network traffic instead of physical fingerprints).

This isn't parody or satire, it's history.

I am not comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to my rights. It's fine to have an opinion, but don't think you speak for everyone.

> I am not comfortable with the risks of the state when it comes to my rights

Without the state none of your rights are protected.

The state is the only entity that infringes on my rights.

Private parties have never tried to strip me of my right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to bear arms, my right to privacy, my right to private property / the fruits of my labor, etc.

You're literally quoting rights defined by a government charter. Without the state, those rights cease to exist.

No, those are natural rights that governments wisely choose to recognize. I hold those rights, along with the right to life, liberty, and the peaceful pursuit of happiness. Whether or not one or more governments recognizes those rights has no bearing on whether I hold them.

"Natural rights" are a philosophical ideal, they don't exist in and of themselves. Without a state nobody needs to respect them.

You don't stab and rob people daily, do you?

Are you saying you would if there were no federal government?

Nobody needs to respect your rights with government existing either, government just offers the possibility of consequences for people who violate the non-aggression principle.

> Are you saying you would if there were no federal government?

Maybe? The hypothetical represents a world so alien to the one we live in that it's hard to predict how I would act. What is absolutely assured however is that the biggest assholes in the region are definitely going to do a lot of killing, robbing and raping.

Government or no government, people who go around raping are gonna get killed, people who go around murdering are going to get killed, and people who go around robbing are going to get killed. Crime is a self-solving problem in an armed society.

>and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.

There are very few things, concepts, or sensations more annoying than a junkie telling everyone about what it's like to be a junkie.

Listening to a fork-tongued megachurch preacher telling you you're going to hell while begging for money is less of a chore than some pothead wondering aloud if people see colors differently.

Do you mean you would prefer an intentionally harmful but pretending to be coherent speech to a less coherent but generally harmless one?

It's basically a legal benzo like Xanax. Witness the horrors over here: http://old.reddit.com/r/quittingphenibut

Thanks. The extollation of it in the article definitely felt too good to be true.

Side effects seem so crazy. Phew, pure horror.

It's not a benzo, but it is a GABAergic drug. The ironclad law to avoid brutal dependency and addiction is to never take it more than once every 7 days, preferably less frequently than that. No redosing on the same day either. This means it will take a couple weeks to slowly find an effective dose.

https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Phenibut

What's the effect? Did you ever try it yourself?

It really is a social anxiety off switch for me (once it fully kicks in after 5+ hours, lasting for about 24 hours before things slowly return to baseline). Alcohol in troubling quantities has that effect to a lesser extent, but of course it's sloppy as hell too and I hate the hangover. Not so with phenibut.

That makes it tempting to use before 7 days have passed just for this one social occasion. Although committing to not do that has flipped the dynamic: Even after enough time has passed I'm reconsidering, is today actually worth using it and being "blocked" for another week during which something more interesting might come up? Trying to make my occasional visit to normie vibe space count, it's kind of nice there.

Thanks. Seems like I'd benefit from this. How do you order it online, any good source you trust?

It sounds too good to be true... article mentioned none of the side effects that other commenters had rightly pointed out. Otherwise I would actually be tempted, but there are no free lunches (especially when messing with your biology).

The title of the post is misleading, because it is not revealed in the story how the backpack was actually lost. The short summary: ``I don't remember how I lost my backpack, because I was heavily intoxicated during those hours when I lost it.''

Alcohol makes my stomach very upset, perhaps because I can't burp.

Stories like this make me thankful that it is very painful for me to drink more than 2 beers, even though I very much enjoy beer.

You can't burp?

"Abelchia" is the charming medical term.

Interestingly, there is a relatively new treatment for it that involves injecting botox into the cricopharyngeus muscle. While the botox wears off relatively quickly, in many cases the cure is permanent.

It's like the muscles needs to learn how to relax and once they have, they retain that capability.

Yeah, I found out about that recently after a very painful plane ride. I periodically see an ENT, so I'm going to ask about it the next time I go.

BTW, my current trick is to basically (almost) trigger myself to vomit. The burps come out but everything else stays in.

  > A man named Simon wrote: he had found my backpack and wanted to return it. He’d spotted the bag in Camden and at first thought of walking past, but someone had recently returned his lost phone, so he decided to do the right thing.

pay it forward ftw.

that is so cool; i hope society does this kind of thing more and more, i think its desperately needed (especially in the crazy timeline we are in)

Honestly. When I was a kid 20 years ago backpacking around i was worried about this. Now I'm also worried about it but honestly there aren't very many issues. I've had temporary passports issued, cancelled cards, new phones setup on "new sims". One thing I did carry back then was keys. I don't anymore. The rest is just so easy to replace these days. My laptop is insured and so is my work one.

See given this is hackernews. I was hoping for software bug shipped it to Saint Kitts or something, but was disappointed.

Super entertaining read, in exactly the way that LLM-generated pablum isn't.

Deserved to loose everything.

Don't do drugs kids.

There, I just saved you from having to read the long ramblings of a drug addict who did too many drugs ... and lost his backpack.

That’s a bit harsh. Dude did one thing that’s legal where he lives plus alcohol and besides this one occurrence hasn’t had anything negative impact on his life. I’d hardly call that an “addict.”

i'm trying to figure out if the laptop and passport were still in the backback when found? I think so?!

Based on this:

> Simon gave my backpack back to me intact.

I'd say yes.

That reading skill you have is really impressive.

I can't even imagine a world in which everybody could do it!

(sarcasm intended for the grand-poster, not you)

OK, perhaps there are regional differences in language, or perhaps I'm just a moron, to me the "backpack being intact" does not obviously say anything about the contents of the backpack, to me it's a synonym for "undamaged", and neither are phrases I would use to describe the original contents of the backpack all still being present.

Either it's an American English thing, or if other Americans did not share my confusion then I guess it's just a me thing, and the appropriate response is for you to make fun of me and tell me I don't know how to read, so nice work.

Fun story

Couldn't finish. This is less about losing a laptop and more about comparing oneself to eccentric billionaires in the valley.

For every jobs dying of vanity remember there's probably a thousand multi-millionaires living very happily making rational decisions.

tl/dr how it was lost:

> The last thing I remembered was leaving a party at my friend's café, very drunk.

and how it was found:

> I received a letter to my mailbox address in London. A man named Simon wrote: he had found my backpack and wanted to return it.

For London that's a shock. Source lived their, had friends that lived there and had friends who studied there... And by there I mean 4 of 6 nominal zones connected by the tin can on rails known as the tube.

London is like three (or more) cities stitched together haphazardly.

Lose your bag in Lewisham? Good luck.

Lose your bag in the touristy districts (Westminster, Leicester Square)? It's possible, but I doubt it.

Lose your bag in Clapham North or Kensington? You're probably fine.

TLDR; He got blackout drunk and left it.

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