Gadget Makers Can Find Thief, but Don’t Ask | Hacker News Reader

Gadget Makers Can Find Thief, but Don’t Ask

nytimes.com

40 pointspg18 comments

Ownership laws in cases of stolen goods are ridiculously complicated.

In some cases in some juristictions, a bona fide purchaser can become the legal owner of stolen property (if they did not know it was stolen). The original owner can seek repayment from anyone involved in selling the item--even if they did not know it was stolen, or sold it after buying it--but sometimes they cannot take the item from the person who currently holds it.

For example, if the victim has their kindle stolen by a thief, and the thief sells it to an electronics store that buys items, and the store sells it to a customer, then (depending on jurisdictions, ect..) the customer is the legal owner of the item. The victim can go after the thief for the market value of the item. Or they can go after the store if they can prove that it sold their item, even if the store didn't know that it was stolen. In this case, the victim no longer has legal claim to the kindle, and has no legal authority to authorize Amazon to do anything to it.

With these complexities, and especially with items moving across jurisdictions, no manufacturer can ever be sure that the original owner is still the legal owner, and able to authorize bricking a device. The only option they have is to do nothing unless ordered by a court.

Apple's phone home is different because it is performing an action that was initiated by the owner while they were the legal owner. It would be a different story if they actively took action against a device after it left the possession of the victim.

How about just a black list? As the current legally connected owner of the phone you should be allowed to put your phone on a do not connect list BEFORE a new user connects it.

With such a list in place the new owner, be it legal or illegal, can do nothing with the phone. If some jurisdiction allows the new owner to keep it then so be it but it'll just be a brick.

In cases you state the victim won't be able to recover the phone but that's not the idea. The idea is to devalue a phone so it'll be worth far less thus making it less likely to be stolen.

Do you mean that the original owner puts it on the list when they are still in physical possession of it? If that's so, then will they still be able to connect to it?

If the person is blacklisting it only after they notice that it is missing, then it is too late. Under the aforementioned cirucmstances, it transfers ownership once it the bona fide customer buys it from someone, not once the bona fide customer tries to connect it. They could purchase it on eBay before the owner goes from thinking it is misplaced in their house to thinking it is stolen, and it becomes theirs as soon they pay, and then the victim blacklists a device that they no longer own while its still in transit. Even if the owner notices that it is gone before it is bought, they have no way of knowing if it has been sold yet, and neither does the manufacturer.

The legal issues are just too nebulous for these types of things to work.

The best that they can really do is keep track of what credit cards are used to activate phones or buy books on a Kindle, to trace it to the new legal owner, with a subpoena, who may be able to provide a lead to the thief or a reseller that the victim can go after for cash.

Not bricking stolen toys is a form of price discrimination. The fact that stolen toys are not bricked and therefore have a resale value creates an incentive to, well, steal toys. Manufacturers profit because people whose toys are stolen almost always replace them, so lots of theft means lots of additional sales. Service providers profit because cheap used devices mean more people can afford ownership, so lots of theft means lots of demand for connectivity, or electronic books, or whatever.

Very clever. But I'm not convinced: anything that increases the theft rate and thereby requires people to buy more also increases the effective cost of the product. I don't have any numbers on this, so you should be skeptical about what follows, but: introspection strongly suggests to me that when the price of a thing increases by a given factor, my probability of buying it goes down by a larger factor. (At least when we're talking phones, toys, music players, cameras, computers, etc.) Now, suppose you try to increase sales by encouraging theft: if a fraction f of devices are stolen and their owners buy replacements, then (1) the effective cost goes up by a factor of about 1+f and (2) the number of sales per "original" sale is about 1+f. If my introspection happens to describe how typical people behave, then the net result is that the vendor sells fewer devices. (And has less happy customers.)

(Actually it's 1/(1-f), not 1+f, if your second iWidget is just as likely to be stolen as your first. Something in between if you are more careful to avoid theft once you've been bitten once.)

Most people think it won't happen to them, so they're not going to accurately price their gadgets.

I think that gadget makers are underestimating the intensity of the emotions involved when a gadget is stolen. We have a strong sense of justice that's disproportionate to the actual value of the gadget.

I know that I feel better about my iPhone because of the stories where iPhone thieves have been tracked down and arrested - and I don't even have MobileMe!

There is something really basic wrong with the premise of this article.

If a person buys a stolen Iphone, Kindle or other device for a price that is reasonable they have no reason to presume it stolen. The sale might have happened in between the time the device was stolen and first reported to Amazon, apple, at&t or whichever party has 'control'.

If you then disable the device you are hitting the wrong party, according to the law that person is now the rightful owner. The thief has long passed the 'hot' item to somebody else.

If you have any proof at all that it is the thief that is using the device and the company won't shut it down that is a different matter. But the safe money on the companies' behalf bets that the new 'owner' hasn't got a clue the device has been stolen.

The best thing to do when your laptop, e-reader, digital camera or expensive phone is stolen is to keep an eye out on ebay and sites like that for similar gear offered in your region.

My business partner Joyce found her laptop back like that.

A person who unknowingly purchases stolen goods has no right to use those goods. Since the technical means exist to inform the possessor of their stolen nature, if the possessor continues to use them after that point and doesn't return them to the rightful owner, they are guilty of a crime - possession of stolen goods in some form.

...according to the law that person is now the rightful owner.

Not in most (all?) US jurisdictions. A person who unknowingly buys/receives stolen property generally isn't considered guilty of a crime, but also has no right to keep the stolen property.

So, how do you know if anything you buy was not stolen at some point in the past ?

How does it work if the insurance has paid out after the theft ?

See elsewhere in this thread, the situation is not as clear as you make it out to be.

Also, the world is a lot larger than just the US.

So, how do you know if anything you buy was not stolen at some point in the past?

For big-ticket items (cars and houses), official systems of title help. For other items, there's not certainty, as with the world in general you achieve relative confidences with the best info you have. (And, buying from reputable sources means you may have a claim against them for recovery of your payment even if the stolen property is returned to its rightful owner.)

How does it work if the insurance has paid out after the theft?

Insurance is a separate contract between the victim and a third party, the insurance company might be the legal owner, or want its claims payment returned.

See elsewhere in this thread, the situation is not as clear as you make it out to be.

I would certainly agree that it's complicated across jurisdictions and circumstances, but your statement -- "according to the law that person is now the rightful owner" -- remains generally false as you wrote it and bad advice in the USA.

Also, the world is a lot larger than just the US.

That is why I specifically said 'most' 'US' jurisdictions. What qualifiers -- jurisdictions and circumstances -- should have been included in your statement to make it true?

Uh,

You mean the manufacturer won't take steps without a call from the police?

Oh really, you mean they follow the law? and they won't let someone shut off someone else's machine just 'cause they've got some information on it???

I suppose the writer of this article also upset that it's illegal to set lethal booby traps for the purpose of 'protecting your property' too.

Come now, it's not hard to file a police report, even after the fact. The police should be the ones who have to call to get this kind of action and if they aren't calling, they are the ones at fault.

The alternative is a huge open door for social engineering...

In at least one case a police report was filed. Filing a police report is the requirement for insurance claims, and works here as well.

Users are pretty cool about devices calling home. Isn't this a reasonable degree of customer service to expect in return?

> Isn't this a reasonable degree of customer service to expect in return?

No, it's not. It is possible that the victim in no longer the owner of the item, as odd as it may sound: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=810104

The CTIA spokesman is completely wrong. Mobile phones are subsidized in the UK in pretty much the same way as in the US.

Just because the phone is subsidized it doesn't mean it doesn't have value. A $800 iPhone is still an $800 dollar iPhone even if you get it for less than that in exchange for a higher monthly phone bull.

I think it's a good thing that someone else can't call Amazon, pretending to be me, and convince their CSRs to brick my electronic devices.

On a different note, do you find it annoying when nytimes.com forces you to login to read an article?

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