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Thieves steal $10,000 of gear from an Apple Store
Thieves broke into an Apple Store in Palo Alto, California, and within two minutes had nabbed $10,000 worth of gear, including six laptops (gotta be MacBook Pros, right?) and two iPhones. And apparently they trucked right over to Los Gatos, and did the same thing about an hour later. There's no dollar figure from the second robbery, but more laptops and iPhones were stolen.It's actually surprising this kind of thing doesn't happen more often, though I'm also surprised the thieves were able to duck in and out of the store in two minutes -- I've been to many Apple Stores, and I don't think I could carry out $10,000 worth of stuff and be gone in just two minutes.But I guess as long as there's something expensive around, someone will try to steal it. Cops have a car description on these guys, and having gotten away with two robberies already, it's probably a good guess they'll try again. Only a matter of time before they're caught.[via Techmeme]
Video: Cops take a dude's Xbox 360
Embedded video from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/video">CNN Video</a>Those Orange County cops, notorious gamers and are always trying to get their hands on the coolest gaming goods. So it should come as no surprise that after a routine traffic stop, an Orange County police officer took a man's Xbox 360 that was sitting in the car's back seat. Took everything, because he figured the Xbox was stolen and wanted receipt proof. In the end, it wasn't stolen (the dude has a receipt to prove it) and the Xbox has "magically" disappeared.Our Orange County officer probably just needed his gaming fix, but he should know that you DO NOT mess with another man's Xbox ... ever.[Thanks, to everyone who sent this in]
4,000 copies of Age of Conan stolen in biggest, most pointless MMO heist ever
Thieves in the United Kingdom city of Bradford stole 4,000 retail copies of Age of Conan from the back of a truck late at night on Tuesday the 28th of October. The original source, Telegraph & Argus, claims that it was an Xbox 360 version of the game, but we're going to keep our sanity caps on and presume that was an error. Police are trying to track down the thieves, but we're thinking it ought to be pretty easy to find them if they actually try to play the game themselves, seeing as how they'll need to register with a credit card number and other personal information to do so. We're guessing the thieves didn't realize that when they stole the boxes, eh? No good can come of this for anyone![Via CVG] Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
Larcenists get a cheap Blu-ray player (the illegal way)
Can't wait for Black Friday? Neither could two suspects in Virginia Beach. Reportedly, a crafty duo entered a local Walmart late last week, with one placing a Samsung Blu-ray player in her cart while the other placed a DVD / VCR combo unit in his cart. Once that was complete, the two met in the pet section, swapped the unwanted DVD / VCR unit out for a Blu-ray deck and proceeded to checkout. The cute couple paid for dog food and a rather inexpensive DVD / VCR player, yet arrived home with dog food and an improperly boxed Blu-ray player. Moral of the story? Blu-ray adoption would clearly soar if manufacturers would just price the players right. (We kid, we kid.)[Via CDFreaks]
Burglars break into restaurant, steal HDTV, leave money / food behind
Not that we'd have any expert knowledge in the wide world of theft, but this just doesn't seem like the best way to go about snagging a new HDTV. At any rate, an undisclosed amount of thieves reportedly drove a truck (or large SUV... it was dark outside, okay?) into the front door of Los Tres Amigos restaurant in a small Pennsylvania town, broke the glass, ganked a 47-inch Insignia HDTV and "fled the scene." For starters, you'd risk prison for an Insignia? Really? Second, with LCD prices tanking like never before, don't you think you could've waited until Black Friday to get yourself a steal? Sigh.[Image courtesy of Hotel Interactive]
600,000 in PS3 games taken in UK heist (twice!)
Here's a strange story: a truck full of PS3 games was stolen twice, the second time from the cops themselves. The Sun reports that "the lorry" carrying £600,000 ($1.08 million) in games was originally stolen while the driver was resting. After it was recovered by the cops, it was then stolen a few hours later from a "tightly-controlled" police compound. The truck was later found completely empty.The police claim that arrests have already been made, but it isn't clear if they're in relation to the first or second theft. The authorities also say they're keeping an eye on eBay. How efficiently can one fence seven pallets (tens of thousands) of games?[Via GI.biz]
Stolen PS3 tracked through PSN
Dustin Waller is a lucky man: his fiancee bought him a PS3 at a Cleveland games retailer. Sure, it was used, but she had known that Waller wanted a PS3 for so long. Too bad the used system she purchased turned out to be stolen.Police appeared on Waller's door after the purchase, and they inquired as to how he had come across the system. According to the Salisbury Post, the police were able to track the system whenever Waller turned on his system. The original owner of the PS3's PSN ID was still stored on the system, and it was set to auto-login when the system turned on. By tracking Waller's IP address, they were able to find him.Waller is of course innocent in the whole debacle, but police confiscated his system nonetheless. While the police look for the person who sold the stolen system to the games shop, Waller was given compensation from the store he didn't want: an Xbox 360. "Waller is appreciative of the offer from the store but notes the Xbox isn't nearly as expensive or sophisticated as the PlayStation."[Thanks, jimb!]
Sick boy gets PSP stolen, but caring cops save the day
Why are so many PSPs being stolen? It seems commonplace to read stories of PSP systems being stolen from hapless individuals. This time, a sick child waiting for a heart transplant had his PSP stolen. Dominic Villanueba (pictured, right) is accused of stealing Juan Martinez's PSP by tricking the boy into handing over the PSP to him by asking how the game worked. Thankfully, the culprit was caught.Although by the time Villanueba was caught, the system had been displaced. Thankfully, the story has a cheerful end: the sheriffs of Adams County pooled some money together and bought the child a replacement system. "He's just a little kid. I don't like bullies," Robbins said. "That's what it seemed like to me, one older kid picking on a little kid ... We couldn't let the bad guys win."[Thanks, Rodrigo H.!]
Study says more than 10,000 laptops go missing at US airports each week
As we've seen, laptops have a tendency of getting stolen from even the most unsuspecting places, but a new study has now found one not entirely surprising place where your laptop is particularly unsafe: the airport. According to the Ponemon Institute, more than 10,000 laptops are reported lost at the 36 largest airports in the US each week and, of those, 65 percent are not reclaimed. They also reported a further 2,000 laptops lost at medium-sized airports, with 69 percent of those not reclaimed. According to the institute, folks also aren't very confident that they'll ever see their laptop again once it goes missing, with 77 percent of the people surveyed saying they had "no hope" of ever recovering a laptop lost at the airport, and 16 percent saying they wouldn't even do anything to attempt to recover it. Of course, there's no shortage of suggestions out there for preventing your laptop from getting lost or stolen, and Network World's Richard Stiennon has a couple of good ones at the link below.[Via Network World]
USB drive goes missing with Japan-US troop deployment maps
Before you start having a complete panic attack, let us inform you that this whole fiasco actually took place last year, but as these things have a way of going, it's just now coming to light. Reportedly, a 33-year-old captain in the Ground Self-Defense Force ganked a USB flash drive (along with ¥2,000 [$19] and a ¥10,000 [$94] airline coupon) and proceeded to "dump it." Aside from the laughably small amount of cash and prizes this guy accepted, the unfortunate part of all this is what resided on the flash drive: troop deployment maps used in Japan-US military exercises. Worse still, we get the idea that said USB key is still out there somewhere undiscovered (or unrevealed), so if you happen upon one with all sorts of undecipherable schematics on there, now you know what's up.[Via The Register, image courtesy of University of Texas]
Make a Wish Foundation PS3 stolen from disabled boy
Back in March we reported on an extremely unfortunate incident of a boy stricken with cancer who had his PSP stolen. Now we have a story to rival that, but with a PS3. Zak Touilii, an 14-year old Australian boy confined to a wheelchair by the life-threatening illness duchenne muscular dystrophy, had his PS3 stolen when thieves burglarized his home. Worse yet, the PS3 and games Touilii owned were granted to him by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. But that's not even all, as Touilii was also scheduled this week to meet his favorite rugby team, the Melbourne Storm. Instead, he had to stay home because of a broken wheelchair. Let's hope these thieves have a heart and return Touilii's PS3, especially if after they read about this. And let's all hope Zak has a much, much better next week.
Thief steals Eye-Fi-equipped camera, proceeds to give himself away
It was inevitable, really. We've seen quick-footed thieves swipe GPS units that eventually led to their arrest, a bank robber who didn't even bother to close his clamshell while holding up the joint and now, we've seen the Eye-Fi card really pay off. According to the outfit's PR firm Red Consultancy, one particular vacationer had her entire stash of camera gear (over $1,000 worth) stolen while taking a load off in Florida. Upon returning home and checking things out, she noticed that all of the snapshots taken prior to the theft were uploaded, and upon closer inspection, she even noticed a clear shot of the remarkably idiotic crook. After syncing up with the boys in blue, all of the gal's equipment was eventually returned, and some semblance of normalcy was finally returned. How's that for a feel good story, huh?[Image courtesy of Al]
Back to My Mac saves a stolen laptop
A clever Mac user helped police recover a stolen laptop using Back to My Mac's screen-sharing feature. After her apartment was burglarized, the victim received a call from a friend while she was at work (conveniently enough, at the Apple Store in Westchester, NY). The friend noticed her stolen computer was online. The victim then quickly used another Mac to connect to the stolen laptop. The article doesn't mention the technical details, but I reckon she activated screen sharing, and started Photo Booth (or another app that activates the laptop's built-in iSight camera). After a while, the perps showed up, and the victim's roommate recognized one of them as an acquaintance who had attended a party at their apartment some weeks before. Armed with names and photos of the alleged thieves, police quickly arrested two men, who were in possession of most of the property stolen in the burglary. If that isn't worth her year's subscription to .Mac, I don't know what is. (Update: The New York Times has a story with some more details. She used Photo Booth, too. Who called it, baby?) Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Account thieves make mainstream news
Some determined hackers have gone to great lengths to steal MMO accounts. So much so that they've managed to get noticed by the mainstream news outlets. We guess that's what happens when you hack over 10,000 websites just to get your hands on somebody else's MMO account.Essentially, these guys hacked into thousands of websites and added a small amount of code that redirects users into an invisible attack from some China-based servers. Apparently if you've got your antivirus program of choice up-to-date you shouldn't worry. Although the article points out that some of these attacks are directed at ActiveX controls, so update that as well if you haven't recently.We all know how terrible it would be to have our accounts hacked into and stolen. Many of us spend hundreds of hours in our favorite worlds, which many of us also pay for through our credit cards. Strangely enough, Lord of the Rings Online is mentioned as one of the games targeted by the hackers.[via TenTonHammer]
Cancer patient has PSP stolen en route to chemotherapy treatment
There's depressing gaming stories, and then there are outright travesties. Unfortunately, this case falls squarely into the latter category, as a 7-year old cancer patient had his beloved PlayStation Portable swiped -- right along with his medical records, a backpack full of medication, his games and even his homework -- while en route to a chemotherapy treatment for a tumor in his brain. Apparently the boy's family had stopped at a restaurant while traveling from Oklahoma to Texas, and while inside, thieves had their way with what was left inside the vehicle. Thankfully, authorities from the Dallas police department came to the rescue by purchasing a brand new PSP and raising over $1,000 to repurchase the goods that were lost, and as for the crooks, we'll just trust karma to handle the rest.[Via PSPFanboy, image courtesy of Flickr]
Duo steals hundreds of iPhones, sells them all to one person
Apple's no stranger to having its wares ganked (a lot), but this one really has us scratching our noggins some kind of fierce. Apparently a couple of meddlesome 20-somethings working at a Salem, New Hampshire Apple store managed to scoot away with somewhere between 330 and 700 iPhones. After somehow stuffing that many handsets into a panel van / pickup truck / privately owned C-130, they seemingly sweet talked a single high-roller into snatching up their entire stash for upwards of $138,000 -- which could be a bargain (or not) depending on the actual quantity included in the deal, internal capacity, etc. Minutiae aside, both individuals are currently residing under the strong arm of the law (surveillance cameras are hard to dodge), but curiously, nothing is mentioned about the buyer who didn't find spending over a hundred large with a couple of average joes (who just happened to have an inordinately large amount of iPhones for sale) the least bit odd.[Thanks, Scott]
Xbox thief thwarted by community & Live idiocy
This story is proof that karma and technology go together like chocolate syrup and vanilla ice-cream. Jesse McPherson, a 26 year-old engineer from Philadelphia, was shocked to find his Halo 3 edition Xbox 360, big-screen television and Apple G4 Powerbook stolen from his home upon returning from the recent SXSW event. After dealing with local authorities, who seemed more interested in taste-testing donuts than helping, Jesse took the matter into his own hands to solve the crime.After booting up a new Xbox 360 Jesse was shocked to find threatening messages from Xbox Live user I iRandom I claiming to be one of the perpetrators of the crime and demanded cash for the safe return of the Xbox console (coupled with ignorant NSFW language, of course!). After submitting his story to digg, which included an image of the second suspect in the theft that was taken from a local pawn shop's security monitor, Jesse was shocked to find over 7000 users had launched the event to the top of digg's main page.After a barrage of threatening messages to the admitted thief's account from random Xbox Live users and dialog with the brave thief's own mother (His mommy got involved? Ultimate bad-ass!), Jesse's Xbox 360 console was returned in working condition (the Powerbook was also returned on a separate occasion). What, you may ask, were the officers of Jesse's local precinct doing in the time he solved the crime? Who knows, but hopefully it was updating their resumes to include sloth as a major skill. [via The Age]
Former LG employee leaks $1b in top secret plasma info to Chinese manufacturer
We've seen some pretty shady dealings from disgruntled ex-employees in the past, but this one may have skyrocketed into the upper echelon of tales of corporate deceit. As the story goes, a 49-year old man known only as Jeong felt the need to copy over some 1,182 top secret plasma display technology-related files onto his personal drive before waltzing out of LG's doors for the final time in July of 2005. A few months later, Chinese manufacturer Changhong-Orion PDP-Chaihong welcomed him with open arms and paid him a fat salary of roughly $300,000 a year (not to mention a few perks: free apartment, vehicle etc.), while casually accepting both the aforementioned files and continued insider leaks at LG -- information supposedly valued at over a billion dollars. But despite Jeong's arrest upon his last return home to Korea, Changhong is still apparently on schedule to produce plasma panels based on LG's technology come this December. Can you say: hot water over international trade-secret law? [Via The Raw Feed, image courtesy of RPG Classics]
Is the iPod responsible for national crime wave?
Website MassLive.com is suggesting that there's a positive correlation between the increase in crime that occurred in the US during 2005 and 2006 and the popularity of the iPod (this isn't the first time we've seen such a suggestion).Washington's Urban Institute noted that the 1990's saw a reduction in the incidents of violent crime, while 2005 and 2006 saw a spike. At the same time, iPod sales were soaring. In 2005 Apple sold 42 million iPod, and almost 90 million in 2006.Now, we all know that iPods are stolen frequently. They're easy to grab, users are frequently "in their own world" while absorbed in their music and they sell well. It's not difficult (unless the thieves are idiots) but that doesn't mean that a single factor - iPod popularity - is responsible for the national violent crime rate. Use common sense when walking around with your iPod. Pay attention to your surroundings, keep it inside your clothing if possible (a jacket pocket) or even in your hand and, most importantly, ditch the tell-tale white ear buds. Or just encase it in machined aluminum.Thanks, Edsel!
iPhone, Sidekick make popular heist targets
In what might be irrationally described as a wave, rash, flood, or deluge, two separate cases of utter and complete phone theft have cropped up this week. The first concerns $8.2-million worth of T-Mobile handsets which apparently have disappeared from one of the company's warehouses. According to an internal email sent to dealers, someone made off with 36,000 phones (most of which were Sidekicks), and the telco is now in the process of tracking the devices via IMEIs in hopes of getting back the lost goods. In other thievery news, two potential Darwin Award World Stupidity Award recipients plotted to steal 300 iPhones destined for Hong Kong right off of the truck that they were delivering them on. Following the heist, the men quit their delivery jobs, purchased diamond-studded Yankee earrings and matching cars, and then were promptly apprehended when the hastily-wrapped reams of paper they sent instead of the phones were spotted in Cathay. Gold-plated hats off to you, gentlemen.[Thanks, Paul B]Read - T-Mobile gets jacked, around $8.2M in phones vanished like a David Copperfield actRead - Two Baldwin men arrested in stolen iPhone caper