A Pickpocket's Tale | Hacker News Reader

A Pickpocket's Tale

newyorker.com

528 pointsdanso68 comments

Apollo is a friend of mine - and he's without a doubt one of the most talented, intelligent performers working today. He has a frighteningly sharp understanding of misdirection, and how to control where you are looking and when.

While a magician of sorts, Apollo's talent is unique from magic in that the secret is just as entertaining as the effect. Our company [http://theory11.com] is a collective of artists in the magic industry, but Apollo's expertise extends much further, to applications in law enforcement and military intelligence.

Apollo practices not only pickpocketing, but also putpocketing, where he plants an object on the spectator (in their pocket, etc). Their reaction, upon reaching into their pocket to discover a random, rubber shrimp, is pretty funny.

Interesting to note is that when Apollo is doing a stage performance, the audience often KNOWS he is a pickpocket. The participant on stage KNOWS he is going to try to steal something. But the more they consciously try to prevent it, the easier he can divert their attention right where he wants.

Most impressive about Apollo isn't what he does, though - it's how he does it, and how deep his understanding is of why it works. If you're interested in that sort of thing, definitely check out the book Sleights of Mind (featuring Apollo's insight on the neuroscience of magic) and the television special Brain Games, with Apollo and David Copperfield. Both are fascinating.

- jonathan bayme

I'll definitely look up Apollo. I've been interested in mentalism and magic for a long time but only learned one sleight of hand trick which I'm not very good at. Looks like Derren Brown, who is currently my favorite magician, might have some competition.

Our team produces instructional videos and downloads that teach sleight of hand (and a wide spectrum of magic effects). Some take a little bit of practice to perfect, but the result is well worth the effort!

"Brain Games"

Thanks for that. Here's a link for anyone else interested that I just found:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/brain-games/ep...

If you're craving more videos of this topic like I am, I found a bunch of TED Talks on magic, like this one:

http://www.ted.com/talks/keith_barry_does_brain_magic.html

Fun to see theory11 on Hacker News. Great company, I'm a fan.

I wonder how many HN users are magicians. I've always felt a strong connection between hacking and magic - both involve trying to "hack" a problem in a way that ordinary minds will never think of.

In fact, I credit magic with teaching me the roots of skepticism and rationality - once you know how to explain seemingly unexplainable things, you realize that things that you can't explain mean a lack of knowledge on your part, not a lack of explanation on the universe's part. And when you have smart people around you arguing that it simply can't be done, when you know the secret, you realize even smart people get fooled into thinking that what they can't explain must be supernaturaly.

Magic tricks are hacking! You are hacking someone's mind, particularly their assumptions and attention. The exploits to human psychology and attention are just as sure as the exploits to crack or unlock a smartphone and many other software exploits. The difference is that software can be patched but the evolved behaviors that are the root of the exploits used by magicians are very hard to "patch". For example, if I say the word "ball", if you have understood this word then you have no choice but to have a certain mental state that is predictable to a magician. You do not have conscious access to the low level machinery for understanding speech and if there is some magic trick involving, say, implanting an idea in your mind using words, then you often CAN NOT avoid being fooled. Moreover, a good magician will prevent you from stopping to think about what he is doing by merely talking and distracting/leading your attention to the next ruse he wishes to perpetrate. Unless you know the tricks or have exceptional mental control, e.g., from years of meditation practice, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed and check-mated by a good magician.

What's amazing about magic tricks is how strong the effects can be. For some tricks, if you didn't know that it was a trick, there is simply no other explanation than that it is magic. A good magician doing closeup magic can follow your gaze and know what you're looking at in order to adjust his strategy in real time. The evidence that might clue you in to the trick is fleeting and if you miss it, due to distraction and showmanship, then the magician has caught you and has succeeded in pickpocketing you, making you think an object has disappeared or that he has read your mind.

EDIT: And your point about magic and skepticism is particularly apt. A lot of supernatural belief is based on unexplained things in people's everyday life. These are kind of like "natural" magic tricks. People might encounter unexplained events in their everyday life and jump to the conclusion that it is supernatural because they don't know where to look to find the natural causes. And if the natural antecedents are forgotten or fade away then all that is left is unexplained event that seems supernatural. For example, one time I was sitting at my desk and I noticed that a Styrofoam cup on an adjacent desk just started moving. It was as if the Invisible Man decided to slide the cup about 5 inches. If I didn't investigate what was going on then I would have no choice but to conclude that it was magic because there was no visible natural cause to it. As I tentatively approached the cup, I realized that the desk it was sitting on was at a slight incline. Moreover, there was a small puddle of water on the desk from the air-conditioner above it that had been leaking. The puddle of water had slowly, due to gravity, seeped beneath the cup and eventually the cup overcame friction to slide down the thin slick film.

Now, if I had not checked for physical causes immediately, then the water may have dried up and the true cause for the seemingly supernatural event would have been lost to time. Magic helps skepticism because it makes you cognizant of the fact that things can appear to be supernatural if you are not ready at all times to check for natural explanations.

Nice. Putpocketing. I'd say that's easily just as if not more so valuable than pickpocketing. I'll leave the reasons up to your imagination.

Blackmail?

I have a friend who used to be very into sleight-of-hand. He described some of his time at a magic camp once, apparently it was a mark of superiority if you managed to putpocket another magician, so they would spend some effort on doing it to each other. I think it's a great mental image -- some poor magician emptying aces out of his pockets in the evening, "damn it, damn it."

Thanks, great article! Pickpockets fascinate me.

A recent hobby of mine has been to steal people's straws in drinks at parties (a way to practice without being arrested when you fail :-) )- it's a fascinating thing to do: you have to observe how people behave, how they react when you talk to them, when you point at something with one finger, etc. I recommend trying it.

What a bizarre thing to do at a party...

If you were an alien anthropologist, would that strike you as the most bizarre thing going on at parties?

What a bizarre thing to ask!

"Alien anthropologist" is the bizarre thing I often do at parties. Its very enlightening.

Excitement lagging at party? Grab a friend and start "observing the humans". Its endless fun.

Not entirely related, but a fun psychological party trick. When someone is telling a story and you're standing next to them, start handing them random things to hold. You'll be surprised how many people will just start holding whatever you hand them; and by the end of their conversation they're normally confused, wondering why they're holding a bunch of random stuff, and you'll get a good laugh.

I love to do that, and also the opposite trick: when people are telling a story, try holding one of their fingers between your thumb and index. They'll stop talking immediately, wondering what the hell you're doing :)

what the hell are you doing?

its a psychological trick to make them shut up?

It's a psychological trick to make them think you are a jerk.

You can't deny its performance.

Saying "shut up you're boring me" is equally effective and frankly would make you seem less weird.

Have you considered that quite a few notice what you did but just don't want to confront you, rather put you in "that weirdo" category and make a mental note not to associate with you anymore.

I would certainly not follow you, point a finger and yell "you stole my straw, give it back" but I would certainly think you are strange and just steer away from you in the future.

Who is going to let a little klepto sabotage friendship?

I'd ask, figuring it was some party trick.

Have you considered that you might be the strange one? You see somebody do something "weird", immediately categorize them, cut communication, and move on... That's a pretty small and boring world to live in.

If I saw OP do his thing, I'd laugh and say "give me my straw back you weirdo", he'd explain and that would be that.

We all do that unconsciously. If you're like most people, you aren't strange.

You're going to parties with too many people if you're marking people as do-not-communicate at a second's notice. It's not like you're in public with hundreds around.

If I meet 10 new people at a party and I see one of them taking my straw I will just immediately categorize them and probably choose to associate with the other 9.

> If I saw OP do his thing, I'd laugh and say "give me my straw back you weirdo", he'd explain and that would be that.

I would do that but depends on the context and how he acts. If he is nervous and acting weird I would probably refuse to say anything and just go and talk with someone else. If he was already interesting and funny I might assume he is just joking. If he is already a friend and is known to do this then I wouldn't care probably.So it really depends on the context.

You should check out http://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/

It's a blog by Bob Arno, a once stage pickpocket, who now wanders around the world looking for thieves of various sorts (and then interviews them)

God, I'm so glad people are pointing out that this is weird. You really shouldn't do this at parties, dude.

You don't know how protective someone is of their drink. Just because you might not mind if someone stole your straw does NOT mean that most people feel the same way. For many people, there is something very private about the drink they are holding.

Not only that, but the connotations of people who surreptitiously put their hand anywhere close to a drink at a party are NOT good connotations. I don't think these connotations need to be explained.

I don't mean to offend you, man. I rarely even comment on Hacker News. I'm just trying to help you understand why many people (I would say the majority) are extremely off put by this behavior. That said, I don't know what context you do this in. Friends are unlikely to hold a negative perception of this, but people you just met in a bar or party situation could hold dangerously negative perceptions of it.

p.s. I notice that you are French. I have no idea how my advice applies to French culture, so this may be a cultural difference. But in American culture, at least that of college age and older, I think most people will agree with this comment.

There are some nice Apollo Robbins videos floating around on youtube. Like this one: [1]

Also well worth watching is the work of Bob Arno.[2][3]

[1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pIU1uZlH-o

[2] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_BpNAeeX0

[3] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hboPd9GzJxg

The first link is great, with a few rewinds you can see most of his misdirection and trickery even though it slips by the first few times (at least for me, in my post celebratory state of mind).

Loved that second link! It's almost hard to believe that they didn't feel anything, though I don't doubt for a minute that it's legit

Fascinating article!

The one thing I've learned about pickpockets is not to let people get so close to you so that you are confused by all the "noisy" touches. That's how pickpockets work, either by getting large groups of kids to surround you and they start putting their hands in all your pockets (like what almost happened to me in Rome), or in crowded places like subways or tourist areas (like the Eiffel Tower). I've conditioned myself to put all my things in my front pockets, like my wallet, keys, etc, and whenever anyone gets close, my instinct is to put my hands on my pockets.

"whenever anyone gets close, my instinct is to put my hands on my pockets."

Pickpockets love it when people do this, because it shows them which pockets your valuables are in. They also love the "WATCH FOR PICKPOCKETS" signs in tourist areas for the same reason: upon seeing those signs, people instinctively pat or check the pockets in which they store their valuables.

That's an interesting point, but it's also pretty obvious that my valuables are going to be in my pockets.

Not necessarily if you're going into a pickpocket dense area like Rome

What did you do? My cash was in a hollow belt, my compact camera tied to my trousers and the pocket it was in was safety pinned closed. Everyone we met had been stolen from, we were tested 3x that we know of (all in crowds, 2 of them on trains) with nothing taken. Naples was just as ad, but with an undertone of violence, and Lima was downright frightening.

Quite right; I've heard that same warning before, and nowadays if I feel the urge to check my pockets, I check all of them in no particular order.

I've traveled extensively and never had my pocket picked -- a little planning goes a long way.

I don't flash valuables or any large amount of cash, I keep money separated into "using in the next few hours" in an accessible-but-somewhat-safe location (like deep in a front jeans pocket) vs. "needs to last until we find another ATM" someplace that's hard to access even for me, but I can still keep an eye on (e.g., not a backpack on my back: I imagine someone just slipping a blade down the side of a backpack, then just watching to see what falls out...).

Related: choose traveling companions who keep their wits about them, and who will keep an eye out for you (as you watch out for them).

It also probably helps that I'm tall and athletic -- I suspect many pickpockets would generally avoid people who might successfully chase them down after a bungled attempt.

> I've conditioned myself to put all my things in my front pockets,

My friend got his wallet stolen from his front pocket on his shirt. The pocket was buttoned down and he was also wearing a winter jacket on top of it as well.

It happened in a crowded city bus. That is really just a goldmine for pickpockets. Well usually. It hasn't worked out for that particular group really as we managed to catch one of them (crowded city bus only stops at certain stops and because it is crowded it is a little hard to run). We brought him to a police station, where the cops promptly escorted him to a room and proceeded to torture him. I can still hear his disturbing and desperate cries. It felt like we won at the time but in looking back, I feel sorry for the kid.

In which country did this happen?

Eastern Europe, I'll leave it at that.

Why? Are you afraid of causing a PR nightmare for the country's tourism office? :-P

Do you think he went back to being a pick pocket?

I had my cell phone stolen from my pocket as I was boarding a bus. I did notice, but it was great timing by the pickpocket - I had an elderly lady behind me so I couldn't run after him, not that I would have caught him had I done so.

It's a really odd feeling of disbelief of having been robbed. The worst thing was, I hadn't finished paying the cell phone off :(

I am traveling a lot to places where pickpocketing is a regular occurrence (many parts of Africa, most of the time, but also South America and some parts of eastern Europe) and never had anything stolen from me. I attribute that to the (perceived?) fact that I am generally watchful and look at people alot. I never put anything valuable at easy to reach pockets and I am very watchful of my personal distance. My theory is that when dealing with professional thieves, you only have to be a harder target than anyone else on the same place. Still, I would expect any decent pickpocket to be able to steal from me - so I never carry anything which I cannot replace easily.

Then again, I never had the opportunity to actually validate that way of thinking.

Yes you have. What have you lost? With the time you have spent traveling I bet you have been told a host of I-just-had-my-xxx-stolen stories. Low profile, care and humour seem to keep trouble at bay in a huge way. I remember a particularly ugly moment when my wife realised that we were being eyed up by a group of pickpockets who were crowding around. It was either going to be pickpocketed or mugged. Knowing we had nothing on us, we kept joking with the guy who was supposedly distracting us, while we were subtly patted down. We left in a hurry as soon as the collectivo (dodgy van) stopped, exchanging goodbyes. I wouldn't have know I was being patted down except my wife observed it - I'm pretty sure that if we had made a fuss the result would have been very bad. Edit: spelling

This interesting story reminds me of an anecdote from boarding school. As I was preparing to leave a lecture hall one day, a classmate asked me if I enjoyed reading. I was a little confused by his question because I'd never seen or met the guy before. Then, with a smile, he systematically removed all my papers and textbooks from his bag. To be fair, I might've been complacent as a teenager and therefore an easy target, but it was still an impressive trick. I can understand why many of the folks in this article think pickpocketing can be an exhilarating artform.

Once again illustrating that if you practice anything whatsoever for long enough you will acquire eerie-seeming superpowers.

Like vim?

the article shares a title with a pretty good book about crime and punishment in late 19th century new york. I recommend reading it, it's a pretty good example of how some things have not changed in the last 100 years (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393329895/)

There's a show on NATGEO called "Brain Games"[1] which featured Robbins on an episode. Normally I don't watch anything on the so-called "educational" channels because they're rarely that and often just thinly-veiled reality shows. However, I actually really enjoyed this show. It made me realize how unaware and easily manipulated we are, even when we know we're being tested or tricked.

1 - http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/brain-games/

I have noticed that the people who tell me they have been pick pocketed are generally the people I would target if I was pickpocketing. Old wealthy couples who don't speak the local language and have lots of expensive stuff with them, young people with flash cameras and computers hung over a shoulder (not across chest or around neck). Combined with a generally touristy attitude (noisy, visiting tourist sights, obvious cameras, maps, backpacks). We also noticed in Italy, France, Chile and Peru (have been other places, but didn't encounter pickpocketing) that the majority of those targeted were US American. This was out of proportion to their numbers. We kind of exploited this and stayed near loud groups of obviously wealthy Americans so that we would be less likely to have issues, and found a few others doing the same (Australian and New Zealand travelers both times, antipodeans seem to think a similar way).

I've been reading this book about the neuroscience of magic - http://www.sleightsofmind.com/. The authors worked with magicians like Teller to understand the neuroscience behind their tricks.

The authors also worked with Robbins - there are two paragraphs about this towards the end of the article.

I enjoyed reading Sleights of Mind, but never got round to watching the videos on their site, http://www.sleightsofmind.com/media/

I'll do that today. Happy New Year!

Strange the article is dated January 7, 2013. Did I miss something?

You never noticed that some magazines become available before the date on the cover?

They're printed in advance to allow for distribution. Also, usually the date is 'the week of'.

But "distribution" has already happened. In milliseconds.

Yes, but explaining to you that periodicals that have been in print for 88 years have a certain way of working, that people like getting copies in the mail, and that people expect consistency between the printed copy and the electronic copy will probably exceed your ten millisecond attention span, so it probably isn't worth it for me to bother.

When you weren't looking, someone lifted about 7 days off of you.

The date on a magazine is when it's supposed to come off the shelves, not when it's published.

a whole article on one page to scroll down instead of clicking next next next next next next next? WOW

Charly Borra (26s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...

Bruce Schneier in 2011 about pickpocketting becoming less and less a problem in the U.S.: (one the guy in TFA is mentioned in Schneier's entry too)

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/03/pickpockets_ar...

An interesting comment explain that pickpockets typically do not have their certification to hold weapons and prefer not to: when they get caught or pointed at (which happens all the time), they don't want to police to find out they have a gun. I take it it makes sense: they are there for pickpocketting, like rats. Not to enter in duels with men with balls big enough to actually pull out a gun (not that I think it's a good or bad thing, it's just a fact that there are places where people do carry guns).

Long story short: pickpockets are more likely to steal in places where they're less likely to get shot or beaten should they get caught in the act.

This doesn't seem especially plausible, or supported by the data on that page (eg a CCW permit holder observing that he considers his firearm virtually useless in that situation).

A more realistic explanation for not holding weapons is that there are significant additional penalties for any criminal arrested while carrying a firearm. Instead of a few months or a year in prison for simple theft, a person could be facing 5, 10, or even life.

>Long story short: pickpockets are more likely to steal in places where they're less likely to get shot or beaten should they get caught in the act.

If you really think it's guns, you could look by state; I mean, here in California, you get in pretty deep shit for shooting someone unless there is a very clear and immediate threat. Most places it's pretty important that you keep your gun completely concealed. You'd probably get in trouble for simply drawing your gun after you noticed you'd been pickpocketed. But in Texas? the definition of threat is, well, a whole lot broader.

But I doubt that's it. The way pick-pocketing works, from what I understand, the victim would pretty much have to shoot you in the back in a public place, and that's going to be trouble pretty much everywhere. And hell, even so, I'd rather run away from an untrained civilian with a gun than from an American cop; especially if the cop was going to put me in jail for any period of time if I was caught.

I'd argue that it probably has more to do with the socioeconomic situation. Europeans have racism codified into laws in ways that only the most fringe right-wing Americans would suggest. Many countries in Europe (I'm looking at you, France.) don't have 'by right of the soil' citizenship; to become French, you pretty much have to have French ancestry. (I mean, just like America, there are processes whereby lucky or well-off people can gain citizenship... but here in America? if you were born here, you are American. that's not true in France, or in much of Europe.)

It could also be enforcement, as Schneier suggested.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com