thefts

If you happen to have your precious iPhone stolen from you in the broadness of daylight, you might wish that you might be helped in your quest for justice by something fast and airborne.

One distressed iPhone owner in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, enjoyed just such fortune after her iPhone was stolen in a hospital.

According to the Age, the alleged perpetrator, a 16-year-old, sped away with the iPhone on a bike. Which was, coincidentally, also allegedly purloined illegally from its owner.

It just so happened that the police had a helicopter flying around in the vicinity.

The Age … Read more

If you were a UPS employee, would you be tempted, just occasionally, to open packages? Perhaps, out of curiosity? Or because they didn't smell quite right? Or because they did?

This difficult question arises because of the story of Richard Lynch from Grass Valley, Calif.

Lynch told ABC News 10 that he used UPS to ship a laptop for repairs. The laptop reportedly disappeared en route, the box allegedly arriving with just sheets and soda cans inside.

Keen to prove his notion that someone at UPS has thieved his laptop, Lynch reportedly rigged another package and took it to … Read more

If you were a famous violinist who happened to carry a $1.9 million Stradivarius around with you, it would surely be hard to concentrate on anything else.

Unless, perhaps, there was an iPhone in the vicinity.

You might be familiar with the new ad campaign for Windows Phone (they've dropped the "7" in the ads, as it confused people). This would be the campaign in which people look very silly because they're staring into their iPhones (presumed) all day instead of, say, paying attention to their scantily clad lovers.

Perhaps Min-Jin Kym, being a well-traveled … Read more

Victims of identity fraud should now have some extra help in the San Francisco Bay Area with a new grassroots organization, the Identity Theft Council.

The Identity Theft Council, which launched last week, is training volunteers at banks, credit unions, schools, law enforcement groups, and other organizations to work with consumers who have had their Social Security number, financial data, or other sensitive information pilfered. Theft of such information puts people at risk of having their names used for identity fraud.

"This is a neighborhood watch for the 21st century," Neal O'Farrell, executive director of the Identity … Read more

For the first time ever, more companies are suffering from electronic theft than from physical theft, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by risk consultancy Kroll.

The firm's fourth "Annual Global Fraud Report" (PDF) found that the amount of money lost by businesses to all kinds of fraud rose over the past 12 months to $1.7 million per billion dollars of sales from $1.4 million, a gain of more than 20 percent.

And with that overall increase came a notable shift, with electronic theft just edging out physical theft. The theft of … Read more

In the more dog-eating-dog quarters of the world, Sweden is sometimes mocked for being a namby-pamby welfare state.

Sometimes, though, caring for one's fellow man is beautiful just for its own sake.

So please may we rejoice at the tale of an anonymous Swedish professor who had his laptop stolen.

How can having one's laptop stolen possibly bring us to a happy conclusion? Did someone find his laptop and return it to him? No. Did someone catch the thief and, in a fit of justice, remove all the Pirate Bay stickers from his laptop? Again, no.

However as Swedish news source The Local would have it, … Read more

I remember 1997. I always brought my Kensington cable lock with me to tie down my PowerBook at the grad school library. Honestly, I don't think I've used a laptop lock since.

I'm not alone, apparently. Kensington's new ClickSafe locking system aims to somehow make the process easier. Well, at least half of the process: the new ClickSafe lock automatically snaps onto your laptop without a key, but it still requires a key to unlock--not a surprise, since a lock that could be unlocked without a key doesn't sound very safe at all.

The Kensington … Read more

Call me your e-mail security guinea pig.

The other day I was talking to Hugh Thompson, adjunct professor of software security at Columbia University and founder of consultancy People Security, about his research related to online privacy and he mentioned how easy it can be to hijack someone's e-mail account. So, I challenged him to try to steal mine.

Over the course of an hour, I watched as he mined the Internet for information about me that could be used to reset passwords on Web-based e-mail services, plucking tidbits from a variety of search and other sites to create … Read more

Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are on their way to the Mac, the franchise's developer, Rockstar Games, confirmed Thursday.

Responding to a question about whether Rockstar Games is planning to offer its games on Macs, the company responded with a hearty "yes!" on its Facebook page.

"Look for the long-awaited release of the classic Grand Theft Auto Trilogy for Mac--most likely later this year," Rockstar wrote. "We'll have much more info and a proper announcement soon."

Unfortunately, the company didn't provide … Read more