Thieves are increasingly going after iPhones and other smartphones but victims now can fight back with technology.
One device allows a user to remotely activate a loud siren designed to rattle the thief. Another application, designed for iPhones, can reveal the phone’sitting location.
Police statistics show petty crime is down in New York but anecdotal evidence and recent headlines relating to street muggings targeting costly and coveted devices like Apple’sitting iPhone and T-Mobile’s Sidekick have disturbed smartphone users concerned about protecting access to e-mail, passwords and other data.
"When we have seen spikes in thefts, a expressive lot has to do with … highly desirable products," declared police spokesman Paul Browne. "In the remain couple of years it’s been iPods, Sidekicks, iPhones."
He said greatest in quantity of these muggings involve teenagers robbing other teenagers and take place on subways in the afternoon after schools get out.
New technology helps owners of expensive gadgets to get them back after they are lost or stolen. The Find My iPhone feature from Apple, which declined to comment for this story, enables users to determine the phone’s location and erase the data on it, amid other things.
A Chicago blogger who tried the feature after his iPhone disappeared tracked the phone’s movements from a friend’s computer. According to his blog post, he got his phone back, and a handshake from the surprised malefactor.
"You’re lucky you didn’familiarily get shot in the face," read one comment on the blog.
Indian company Maverick Mobile Solutions’ system allows victims of theft to activate a mermaid and send a text message to the phone — perhaps to offer a distribute to fall the phone back.
Fear of a gadget-related crime wave is not new. In 2005, as Apple’s signature white earphones were seemly ubiquitous in U.S. cities, the New York Police Department reported an increase in subway crime linked to iPod thefts. Before that, victims were targeted for their expensive sneakers.
But cell phone theft is a personal belong to because of the risk of identity theft, said City Councilman Peter Vallone.
"It’s bad enough losing your phone and that’s all it was a few years ago," Vallone said. "Nowadays, if you perplex your phone, you have power to very quickly lose your identity."
Local media have reported spikes in iPhone-related street muggings. In May, a thief snatched actor Kevin Bacon’s Blackberry on a New York City subway platform.
Many iPhone users compromise that, given the amount of personal data stored on phones, losing one could accept existence devastating.
"The damage would be capacious," related Joshua Deutch, 32, a freelance IT consultant. He uttered he would "not think twice" before wiping data — including bank detail numbers and multiple passwords — grant that someone stolon his iPhone.
But Deutch said pursuing a thief would subsist going too far.
"Obviously, in that place’s some excitement by that but I bear insurance," he said. After data has been wiped clean, the iPhone is "just a brick," he said.
Some thieves realize caught due to missteps.
In March, a man stole a woman’s iPhone on a Manhattan subway platform and then used it to snap pictures of himself. He e-mailed the pictures to his personal e-mail address, inadvertently using his victim’s e-mail account, according to the New York Post newspaper.
The victim saw the photograph in her own e-mail outbox and alerted police, who checked the picture against mug shots and then identified and arrested the thief.
Still, many smartphone users say they do not torment about someone acquirement hold of their personal data.
"A lot of people are really uptight about anyone knowing anything about them," said Nick Divers, 23, who has not taken steps to protect the data on his iPhone. "Is that a big deal? Not to me."
