| ▲ | Waterluvian 2 hours ago |
| Is "snatching a phone and running off" a common enough problem in some regions that this is worth having? Or is this a feature chasing after fears of the bogeyman, leading to concrete inconveniences like this? |
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| ▲ | hbn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| > Is "snatching a phone and running off" a common enough problem in some regions that this is worth having? Yes absolutely https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/phone-london-snatch-9.7204104 |
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| ▲ | Waterluvian 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Thanks! Given this was CBC, my jaw hit the floor when I saw London. I live 20 mins from London, Ontario and 70k thefts in a year would be _insane_. Then I realized it was about London, U.K. and my jaw only hit the table. 70k is still insane, though. | | |
| ▲ | clort 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Is it really insane? That is less than 200 per day, in a city of 15 million people.. a single gang of 20 thieves could likely manage that! The real question is, how does this compare to other cities of this size and demographics? | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere an hour ago | parent [-] | | Why compare demographics? | | |
| ▲ | pavel_lishin 31 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I would expect a city that's mostly retirement communities to have less snatch-and-run thefts than a city where tourists make up a large part of the population at any given time. | | |
| ▲ | iamnothere 16 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Interestingly, Tokyo has a much larger population than London with a very low crime rate. I can’t find specific numbers on stolen phones (only lost phone statistics are published) but robberies/muggings are 0.04 per 1,000 yearly versus London’s 2.83 per 1,000. Seoul has a similar rate to Tokyo, 0.4 to 0.5. | |
| ▲ | aliclark 18 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Retired people a probably quite easy targets in this scenario. |
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| ▲ | frereubu an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The number is too high, but dropping: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx4762znr6o | |
| ▲ | skobes 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even the CBC thinks of London, England before London, Ontario. | | |
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| ▲ | throwaway27448 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why bother stealing iPhones? Is it just for the scrap/recycle->repair value? | | |
| ▲ | mapmeld 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There's also a scam where they contact the owner from abroad, offering to return it, claiming they're an innocent trying to activate a used phone they spent their last dollar on, or threatening the original user into unlocking it. They will say that they're hackers, connected to criminals in your home city, using your name and recent photos to say that they're going to expose your text messages. Anything to get an unlock. | |
| ▲ | hparadiz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They send them to countries where they aren't locked or break it down for parts. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway27448 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > They send them to countries where they aren't locked iphones will remain locked regardless of what country they're in. I presume you're talking about states who are seemingly unwilling to pursue/prosecute claims of theft? | | |
| ▲ | kotaKat 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | there's still a fairly lucrative parts stripping market and there are extreme efforts that are used to "unlock" locked devices - it has been known in the Chinese marketplace that you could get paired chips to do SMD rework with a "clean" set of identifiers. they'll swap the SOC, the flash, and the wireless all for a few bucks. older iOS devices as well are also vulnerable to having their syscfg rewritten via exploits, so you can "clean" a locked device that way as well with a good set of serials. Apple Watches are a hot one for this. | | |
| ▲ | hparadiz 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | On top of that a sizable percentage of theft victims don't even bother to report it stolen. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway27448 an hour ago | parent [-] | | You can't activate the hardware with a different ID regardless. It requires the owner to relinquish ownership. I'm sure this is different with different components of course depending on how granularly apple tracks their hardware—but the whole package certainly can't be activated. |
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| ▲ | bigyabai 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can send them to Chinese chop-shops and still turn a decent buck. |
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| ▲ | bombcar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Ever since phones became pretty immune to reselling-theft (steal phone, reset it, sell it) people have been snatching phones and trying to empty crypto, banks, etc before it locks. Some apps don't reauthenticate. |
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| ▲ | gleenn 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Bonus security on iPhone - if you long-press on any app, you can click "Require Face ID" and it will make thieves need your face again to open bank or sensitive apps. I did this for all my financial apps amd also email so they can't reset passwords. It isna minor inconvenience but would hopefully prevent an unlocked phone from being stolen and having bank accounts emptied. | | | |
| ▲ | Waterluvian 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Interesting point. The article linked in a sibling comment (about 2025 thefts) suggests that they are being resold. Which makes sense if it's a $2000 product that's so stealable. But I do recall there being a lot of difficulty resetting a phone that isn't yours. Do you feel the is article wrong? Are there ways around it? Is "pretty immune to reselling-theft" a newer feature than 2025? | | |
| ▲ | kotaKat an hour ago | parent [-] | | Activation Lock now extends to the serials of the parts inside every iPhone since Apple knows the S/N of everything. If you pull the battery off an Activation Locked phone and put it in another phone it's going to freak out and complain the part is pairing-locked and won't pair to your device but it'll be baseline usable. You'll just keep getting nasty nags in the Settings letting you know you're using stolen parts. https://support.apple.com/guide/security/activation-lock-sec... As of iOS 27 beta, there's now an additional "partner finance lock" status that will also be an available parts-lock status (to prevent a 'leased' device from being parted out). https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/21/ios-27-code-suggests-apple-co... |
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| ▲ | dhosek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In Mexico, apparently, the scheme is to grab a phone from an inattentive pedestrian from a motorcycle or scooter. |
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| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
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| ▲ | datakan 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, its why those long crossbody lanyards are now so popular. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mggh4ll/a/crossbody-strap... |
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| ▲ | mattlondon an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Massive in London. |
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| ▲ | warkdarrior 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It's a big enough problem in Brazil that the government has an official app to report incidents of phone theft: https://www.gov.br/pt-br/apps/celular-seguro-br https://www.gov.br/pt-br/servicos/comunicar-roubo-furto-de-a... |
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| ▲ | why_at 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >an official app to report incidents of phone theft I can't be the only person to see the irony here. Do they also have a drive-thru to report car theft? | | |
| ▲ | evandrofisico an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | After you install it you cana "safe contact" or do the reporting on a website which will blocklist the phone's IMEI on all phone companies, block any banking app sessions and remotely wipe the phone. It also functions as a public searchable database of stolen phones, allowing a prospective buyer of a second hand device to check it. | |
| ▲ | warkdarrior 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | RTFM |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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