stealing
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Thieves swipe over 1 million smartphones in the US each year
If you suspected that smartphone theft was becoming an epidemic in the US... well, you're right. The FCC has published findings which show that Americans report well over 1 million smartphone thefts to the police each year. That's not as high as unofficial estimates (Consumer Reports pegged 2013 thefts at 3.1 million), but it still means that "at least" a tenth of all known robberies in the US involve a phone. Also, that figure may be conservative -- many people don't report stolen phones in the first place.
EVE Evolved: The Siphon Unit in Rubicon
EVE Online will soon let players steal valuable resources from each other, and not everyone is happy with it. The upcoming Rubicon expansion will add a new Siphon Unit structure that can literally siphon off materials from a starbase's moon harvesters and simple reactors. Preliminary details on the structure were released in a new devblog this week, sparking debate over whether the new item will be a useful tool for disrupting entrenched nullsec alliances. Many expected the siphon to be a minor annoyance to starbase owners, with the presence of a siphon being easily discovered and a limit of one siphon per starbase established. In reality, one siphon unit can rob a starbase of 60% of the output from a moon harvester or 12.5% from a simple reactor, and there's no limit to how many can be stacked on an individual starbase. It'll take only two of these to completely shut down a single moon-mining operation, and the owner will get no warning whatsoever that it's happening. In this week's EVE Evolved, I look at how the Siphon Unit will work, its stats, various ways to protect your starbase from it, and what the long-term implications may be for EVE.
EVE Evolved: Everything we know about Rubicon
Back in April, EVE Online Senior Producer Andie Nordgren delivered an incredible long-term vision for the game's future that included deep space colonisation, player-built stargates, and players controlling practically everything that's currently run by NPC empires. This vision sets the tone and direction for development over the next ten expansions, each of which will introduce a small component of the overall goal. In a live interview session earlier this week, CCP revealed the first steps it will take toward space colonisation in its upcoming winter expansion. Named Rubicon, the expansion will be in players' hands on November 19th and promises to give individuals and small groups unprecedented control over the sandbox. It will let players fight over planetary customs offices in high security space, significantly buff the ability of small ships to participate in hit-and-run style warfare, and even introduce a new set of personal deployable structures that can be hidden anywhere in space. All this comes alongside two new Sisters of EVE ships, twitch livestream integration, and significant balance changes to Marauders, Interceptors, Interdictors, and Electronic Attack Frigates. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down all of the new features and changes announced so far for EVE Online's Rubicon expansion.
Darkfall gains two new warships and a new class today
Bug fixing updates are all well and good (not to mention necessary), but you can't help but love a patch that adds more content as well! And today's Darkfall Unholy Wars patch does both. Besides some HUD and general fixes, Aventurine has added two new ships and a new class to the sandbox. The Junk and Barque are both fairly slow warships, lined with cannons -- 12 side and one rear on the former and nine side and two on each the front and rear on the latter. To craft either, a player needs a shipbuilding mastery of 50. The new class is the Slayer, a melee warrior with skills like Battle Rage and Vampiric Strike. Changes were also made to the village capturing and stealing mechanics to help the villages fall more in line with their envisioned purpose of being PvP hotspots. Full details on these and the other changes can be found in the patch notes. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
The Summoner's Guidebook: Team leaders roam League of Legends' jungle
Leader. Shot caller. Playmaker. The jungler is the heart of a League of Legends team. On both Summoner's Rift and Twisted Treeline, the jungler is the leader of the pack. More than any other role, the jungler is called upon and expected to swing the game in his favor. He's expected to be everywhere at once. If a laning player dies to an enemy jungle gank, it is her jungler's fault for not being there. If a laning player fails to make a kill happen, it's also her jungler's fault. It is any jungler's personal experience that if lost game is not lost in the laning phase or blame cannot be pinned on a specific person, the jungler is always to blame. With this responsibility comes great power, however. The jungler has the ability to influence a match in numerous covert and overt ways. He can steal enemy creeps to disrupt the opposing jungler or even influence lanes by stealing the enemy blue buff. He can make his presence known via ganks and directly impact the outcome of lane confrontations. Perhaps most notably, the jungler can place wards to warn his teammates of enemy incursions and/or allow them to make better strategic decisions. While the support can be a team leader as well, the role defaults to the man in the jungle. When he comes from the cover of the trees to strike at his foes, they quake in terror.
Chinese man steals iPhone from bicyclist using chopsticks
A talented thief is making headlines in China after he pickpocketed an iPhone from an unsuspecting bicyclist. What makes the theft newsworthy is his method of stealing -- some careful moves and a single pair of chopsticks. Photos of the theft hit the Internet in China and show a man in a suit coat and jeans running alongside a group of bikes. The "suit man" then reaches out with a pair of chopsticks and lifts a phone delicately out of a cyclist's pocket. A final photo shows him walking away with his prize, which appears to be an iPhone or an iPhone clone. Pressured by the circulating news reports, the thief, surnamed Wang, contacted a local journalist, who recorded his story and accompanied him when he turned himself into police. According to the report in the ShanghaiIst, Wang turned to stealing because he was struggling to raise his 12-year-old child alone. [Via Kotaku]
EVE Evolved: Top ten ganks, scams, heists and events
It's been called "boring," "confusing," and "the world's biggest spreadsheet," but every now and then a story emerges from sci-fi MMO EVE Online and grabs the gaming world's attention. Tales of massive thefts, colossal battles, high-value kills, record-breaking scams, political dirty deals, and controversial player-run events never fail to grip us. Perhaps it's the fact that these events have such huge impacts in the EVE sandbox that captures our imaginations, or maybe we just want to watch with morbid curiosity as a virtual society self-destructs. Whether it's innocent interest in quirky stories or a secret sense of schadenfreude that keeps us glued to EVE's most illicit events, the game continues to deliver them with startling regularity. Most scams, thefts, and high-profile battles will never make the news, instead becoming another forgotten part of EVE's history or just a story for a few friends to reminisce about. But those stories that do reach the news always draw in a huge audience that wouldn't play EVE in a million years but can't get enough of its engrossing stories. In this week's EVE Evolved, I run down a list of ten incredible EVE kills, scams, heists, and sandbox events that have made it into the news over the years.
Samsung asks for South Korean injunction against LG for allegedly stealing OLED tech
LG and Samsung have had to live with each other as cornerstones of the South Korean economy, but that uncomfortable balance might just have been knocked off-kilter through an escalating legal battle. Samsung has filed for an injunction against LG for supposedly coercing 11 Samsung researchers (already indicted in July) into leaking the secrets behind its OLED screens, including 18 pieces of technology and 21 related documents. The accuser wants 1 billion won (about $879,771) in compensation for every piece of technology that might have slipped out. Suffice it to say that LG isn't happy with being labeled as a thief -- it notes that LG screens use white OLEDs instead of Samsung's RGB technique, reducing its incentive to swipe anything Samsung makes. LG even contends that Samsung is just trying to hide its embarrassment at losing OLED TV demo units that were headed to IFA 2012. Without a clear resolution in sight, there's every indication the legal dispute could become very ugly.
Find my iPad saves Christmas
Here's a nice story thanks to Apple's Find my iPad feature. A family in California had their Christmas gifts stolen last week, along with several other items in the home. Seemingly unrelatedly, another man had his iPad stolen soon after, and he called the police to report the theft. He was able to track his iPad via Apple's Find My iPad service, and when the cops went to the home where it was being tracked from, they not only found the stolen iPad and the thief, but the family's Christmas presents as well. According to the police report, the family had already purchased replacement presents, but that didn't make them any less happy to hear that the original gifts had been found. The iPad was also returned to its owner, making for a happy ending for everybody. Everybody except the thief, that is. He's currently in jail on a $20,000 bond and will presumably face trial for the theft. Serves him right.
Drama Mamas: The case of the guild bank thief
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm. I'd like to give the "friend" of this week's letter writer a talking to, but he's not the one who wrote in. Hullo Drama Mamas, I am asking for some help regarding a RL friend and WoW problem. I am in my teens and wear a permanent back brace as a result of complications in my spine, so WoW and WoW Insider have been a great source of enjoyment throughout my mostly stationary life. With the new patch and reductions in game prices, a RL friend (who introduced me to the game in the first place) recently got back into WoW. I am in a fun, casual, high leveled guild, and he asked if I could give him some cheap item enhancements--"+1 Stam" and such -- to restart his army of alts and twinks, suggesting that I take some from the guild bank. I like helping people, but I was hesitant to do so in this case, because I felt it was effectively stealing. However, I later decided to do so anyways because of other small favors he had done for me in the past and the low leveled items had been sitting in the guild bank for quite a while -- now there would be more room for higher leveled enchants.
Tennessee bill broadens scope of 'theft,' wide enough to include web-based subscription services?
This week, Tennessee signed a bill that made waves across the web, with many sites claiming that sharing your log-in credentials for services such as Netflix could soon land you in the slammer. The actual story isn't that simple. The bill essentially adds onto laws pertaining to the theft of 'services' in the legal sense by covering more things that can be defined under the title. For instance, the original list included cable services, to keep folks from jacking free HBO -- now, stealing "entertainment subscription services" can make you a felon as well. Tennessee has always been a hotspot for the recording industry, so there's almost no question about what this bill was meant to fight; during a senate hearing for the bill, the RIAA itself explained that online music services could be pirated via password sharing. It also added, though, that users who share passwords "en-masse" are the focus, rather than individual cases like it had pursued in the past. However, this bill covers more than online services and could even extend to physical media such as magazines, another example vulnerable to this type of theft. Furthermore, while sharing passwords to these "entertainment services" may be illegal after its enactment on July 1st, that's not what this legislation is technically about; the RIAA would still need to prove that password sharing equates to theft in a court of law. You can check the links down below for more details.
Hacker nets two years in jail after pilfering £7 million in virtual poker chips
Crime, it just doesn't pay. Well, actually it does, to the tune of £53,612, but then you get caught and you have to work off that salary with two years at Her Majesty's pleasure. One Ashley Mitchell, an enterprising 29-year old from Devon, England, managed to break into Farmville maker Zynga's mainframe, hijack the identities of two of its staffers, and procure for himself a cool £7 million ($11.4m) in virtual poker chips. He then proceeded to sell about a third of them for the above sum, while consuming a big chunk of the rest in satisfying his own gambling habit. Ashley already had a history of digital malfeasance, having previously hacked into the systems of Torbay Council, his former employer, and is now on the receiving end of a two-year prison term for his current crime plus the activation of a 30-week suspended sentence. There's a warning in this tale of woe for us all, however -- Monsieur Mitchell piggybacked on his neighbors' unsecured WiFi networks in order to do his dastardly deeds. Slap a password on that router, won't you?
ArenaNet interview gives new details on the Guild Wars 2 Thief
ArenaNet unveiled new information on the Guild Wars 2 Thief early this morning via an interview and skill video on Kotaku, giving eager fans more insight into the demo videos released last week at GDC. The interview with Eric Flannum, Jon Peters, and Isaiah Cartwright builds on much of what we already know: dual pistols, stealth skills, stealing, and so on. The skill video reinforces much of what the developers have to say as well, but what's new? Follow along after the jump for the latest scoop on the Thief!
The world's first shipped RED EPIC gets stolen in home break-in (update: $100k reward now offered!)
Remember just earlier this month when OffHollywood studio head Mark Pederson became the first man to own a RED EPIC? Well, now his $58,000 über camera is gone. According to REDUSER forums, the EPIC was heisted last night along with some cash from Pederson's chalet in France while he and his family were sleeping. Pederson shares on the forum that "there was a forced entry through the front door. The thieves actually entered the master bedroom while my in-laws were sleeping, and standing a foot from their bed - emptied wallet and purse. There were 6 children and 8 adults sleeping in the house." That's a scary caper worthy of a Hollywood script for sure, but thankfully no one was hurt. Here's hoping the movie-like storyline continues now with law enforcement gumshoes actually cracking the case. In the meantime, maybe Peter Jackson can lend Pederson one of his 30 RED EPICs until his own baby returns. Update: We just got word that RED honcho Jim Jannard is offering $100,000 to anyone who can provide information leading to the recovery of the device and a conviction of the thieves. In his words (from the RED forums): "We are now offering $100,000 for the safe return of EPIC #00006 and the rest of the system including the media with Mark's files... and the arrest and conviction of those that broke into Mark's chalet in France. We will ONLY pay this amount if there is an arrest and conviction of the parties as we are not interested to be ransomed by thieves." Now that is seriously putting your money where your mouth is! [Thanks, Derek and Cory]
Stealing in Fallout: New Vegas -- the bucket method
Who wants to save up hundreds of thousands of bottlecaps for the right to buy all those tasty, expensive Energy Cells in Fallout: New Vegas? Sure, we could play Craps or Roulette, but wouldn't this handy dandy ghost bucket be, like, way easier? Sure would!
The Mog Log: We all live in a community submarine
This week, like the week before, has seen an explosion of controversy about Final Fantasy XIV. I have not really taken part, as I have been far too busy playing Final Fantasy XIV to care one way or the other. But after a month of people's impressions, it seems like the perfect time to dive back into the meat of the community topics -- much like we did last month around the same time, as a matter of fact. Sadly, Final Fantasy XI has been fairly quiet, both due to the anger generation systems its successor features and due to a general sense of community burnout. After all, we're about two months away from another version update, and thus far we've heard nothing about what's due for December. Still, jump on past the cut for discussions about Final Fantasy XI as well as FFXIV, with the usual dosage of commentary to accompany each.
In Sweden, laptop thieves return your data on a USB stick
Thieves, as it turns out, can be very considerate people indeed. A Swedish professor, who has understandably asked to remain anonymous, informed his local newspaper recently of a tale informing his laptop bag, a trip to the laundry room, and one very gentlemanly law breaker. As the story goes, the scholar in question hid his backpack under a stairwell while taking care of some chores, only to find it vanished a few minutes later. After reporting the incident to the police, however, our professor returned to the scene of the crime to find his goods had returned, sans his laptop. Content with at least having his precious calendar and papers back, he carried on with his undoubtedly thrilling academic life, but there was one more twist to his tale -- the thief mailed him a USB memory stick with all his data on it. Ironically enough, the USB key was one the prof had lying around inside his bag already, and the thief did what the owner never bothered to: back up all data on a separate drive. It's a surreal (and potentially fictitious) tale, but it made us smile to read it all the same.
Guildwatch: We're over applications, too
The image above is a little tough to read, but you can probably get the gist: someone posts on the forums that secretly, he's been taking things from the guild bank and selling them off on the AH to make money for himself. He posts on his alt, supposedly, but whoops: he leaves his forum signature up. And the very next post is someone from the guild saying he's been caught red-handed, with a gkick imminent. Moral? Steal if you want, we guess, but never, ever tell. Or at least don't use your forum sig when posting on your alt. Much more drama, downed, and recruiting news in this week's Guildwatch, which starts right after the break. We are super low in the buffer for tips, so please be sure to let us know about your guild's action in Icecrown, any recruiting you're doing, or any drama you see on the forums by sending us a quick email at guildwatch@wow.com. Thanks! Enjoy this week's column.
$10,000 worth of iPhones stolen from Lancaster, PA Apple Store
Apple Stores continue to be sizable targets for theft, it seems -- the local paper in Lancaster, PA reports that four young men stole 17 iPhones from the displays at an Apple Store recently, resulting in almost $10,000 worth of losses. The robbery took place during the day; at around 1:30pm, the young men just started grabbing, and walked out of the store with as many iPhones as they could carry. Not that it'll probably do anything but get them in trouble. All of the phones are already entered in a crime database, and they were removed from the store without SIM cards, so any attempt to officially activate them will probably raise flags somewhere. Of course, from my time in retail I know that most retailers just usually write losses like this off, as it's just cheaper to eat the loss than deal with going after whoever stole the units. But you never know -- the police apparently have video and everything, so if the kids are caught, maybe they will face the music. Moral of the story: don't leave your iPhone lying around an Apple Store? On the other hand, the warehouses aren't safe either, at least not in Belgium... [ via @esposimi]
Maplock chains GPS unit to steering wheel, dares thieves to interfere
Remember The Club? Sure you do. We can't say that Who-Rae's Maplock is destined to become just as goofy in the pop culture scene, but it's certainly one of the more absurd peripherals that we've seen this year. Put simply, this contraption provides a locking mount for your navigation unit and a presumably snip-proof cable that locks around one's steering wheel. We suppose the point here is to easily show pondering thieves that they should probably select another vehicle to jack, but the easier solution is to figure out a mounting setup that doesn't involve suction cup residue. For those who'd rather be safe than sorry, the Maplock can be procured for right around $50 -- just be prepared for all sorts of jeering from your car club mates. Vid's after the break, vaquero.
