> He called police, who got a search warrant
Kind of sad, that I was surprised they did that. It's definitely a local thing. I'd expect the police to shrug, and say it's too bad, just file a report to use for insurance.
I remember people saying "so what if you have tags, police won't do anything and you shouldn't be confronting thieves anyway".
Apple, on the other hand, is also explicit about tags not to be used as an anti-theft device. The word "theft" doesn't appear even once on https://www.apple.com/airtag. It would be interesting if they still released a puff piece as a response: "Oh look, a carpenter `found` his tools in the next state, in a warehouse along with other tools. We don't know how they ended up there, but isn't that great?"
That is a huge inventory. How do stolen tools get fenced? Sent abroad? Craigslist and FB marketplace? I've bought some used tools from online classifieds, but it always seems to be a homeowner or business owner selling one or two things.
Off topic, but reminds me of the lost hunting dog whose tracking collar was found in a big gator, along with a lot of other collars.
Solved a long running ‘lost hunting dog’ mystery.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/29/dogs-tracked-d...
I had my Apple Pro Display XDR stolen from the office in Lisbon, Portugal.
They also stole my AirPods Max which has Find My technology built in.
It happened over the weekend and when I found out about the burglary about 2 days later I checked the Find My app. I saw my AirPods Max was in a small town about 3 hours away from my office.
I informed the police and they said there’s nothing they could do about it due to privacy concerns. Ugh.
I considered going there myself, but it being in a foreign country, not knowing the language, having no transportation, and not knowing what or who I’d find when I arrive, I ultimately decided to not risk it and never ended up going.
A few days later the signal went offline. Months after that it showed up on the map again. It was in Moldova at a shopping mall known for selling electronic parts.
I don’t know what happened to my Apple Pro Display XDR, but if you ever see one for sale in Portugal please send me a message :D
BTW, interesting side story: They didn’t just steal my display and headphones, but also many computers from other offices. Multiple floors except one. I guess they didn’t have time for that one. A week later they came back to rob that other floor as well.
To everyone talking about anti-tracking features.
https://github.com/positive-security/find-you
"A modified version of OpenHaystack to showcase the possibility of building a stealth AirTag clone that bypasses all of Apple's tracking protection features."
Other projects from them, like https://github.com/positive-security/send-my , also seem interesting.
The article states…
Though none of the prolific thieves has been arrested yet, Der said, “we are investigating several suspects for their roles in this massive theft scheme and expect charges soon.”
I wonder who owns and/or rents that warehouse…
"But AirTags aren't for finding stolen things!", someone asserts every time someone mentions wanting to use AirTags for finding stolen things.
It required the victim to take matters into his own hands and invest inyo buying multiple AirTags in order to sort out the burglary. I wonder how many of these burglary cases just sat there gathering dust and for how long.
A good Hollywood caper story would end with this being ultimately engineered by the tool vendors themselves in order to stimulate more demand for their goods.
Did the carpenter alter the tags?! Afaik they beep sounds around other unpaired iphones, additionally, using apps like AirGuard can alarm you about such ones.
The thieves would've gotten away with it if they had iPhones. They would receive notification saying an airtag was traveling with them.
The carpenters at the top end, those that have receipts, and serial numbers, may see a few tools, but for the vast majority of day workers, they will see nothing, not even a notification that the police will auction everything off, and will have to buy everything again, for maybe the third or fifth time.
> Though none of the prolific thieves has been arrested yet,
why would they announce this without someone in custody?
The logistics of this is kind of interesting to me. Even if each of the victims reported them to the police, the value of the items from each theft wouldn't add up to much in the grand scheme of things. Construction equipment might raise more of an eyebrow, but the hand tools would even be noticed. Unless...someone was collecting all of those reports and analyzing them bigData style, o wait, we're talking about the police here.
Of course it was a civilian victim tired of the cops being unable to do anything. I say unable vs unwilling even though I'd also suggest unwilling, but I digress. It's the kind of theft ring that would just not motivate anyone to look at anything. I wouldn't be surprised to see that this has been going on for a really long time. It's kind of genius
The cops get to keep all the stolen goods and auction them off. Ofcourse they are happy for this huge haul. Most of these tools will never find their original owner.
I don't get it - how could you be this well organized about your criminal business and yet not have process to find and remove tags before leaving at your storage for all your other crimes. Sloppy.
Wow! That is a lot of tools.
What was the point? The thieves stole the tools, put them in storage lockers, and then...did nothing? Didn't fence them, sell them on E-Bay, what was the point? They had storage lockers all over the place filled with tools...what was the point of the thefts??
There’s obviously a use case referencing something like this article. It would be nice to see some kind of officiating this particular use case of protecting your property, perhaps you could register your tag, pay a fee and deposit / signing a waiver to prevent the stalking use case. It would also be nice to see police go after missing items which have been officially tagged. But I’m also not a huge fan of big brother in general. So maybe forget about it
Lol on hacker news i was blasted for suggesting the primary use of air tags was recovering stolen goods. Ah last laugh feels good once in awhile.
In the video that shows the stolen tools in the warehouse, there are hardly any Ryobi tools (HomeDepot's cheap tool brand). This is in stark contrast to many of the recent woodworking videos on Youtube that feature craftspeople using Ryobi tools (without explicitly mentioning an HD sponsorship). The thieves know a good tool, and HD is trying to fool the rest of us that their Ryobi tools are any good.
https://archive.ph/ec54N