Smartphones driving violent crime across US - webbtrus1947
On Feb. 27th in the middle of the afternoon, a 16-class-senior young lady was walking through San Francisco's Deputation district when she was ordered at heavy weapon point to hand over her cellphone. The robbery was one of 10 serious crimes in the city that day, and they each tortuous cellphones. Ternary were taken at gun point, three at tongue steer and four through brute force.
Incidents of cellphone thievery have been rising for various eld and are fast becoming an pestilent. IDG News Service collected information on serious crimes in San Francisco from November to April and recorded 579 thefts of cellphones or tablets, accounting for 41 pct of altogether sedate crime. On individual days, same Feb. 27, the only critical crimes reportable in the day by day police log were cellphone thefts.
In just over fractional the incidents, victims were punched, kicked or otherwise physically intimidated for their phones, and in a quarter of robberies, users were threatened with guns surgery knives.
(An interactive map showing six months of cellphone and tablet thefts in San Francisco can be viewed here)
This isn't sporty happing in tech-loving San Francisco, either. The fancy is similar across the United States.
In Washington, D.C., cellphone thefts account for 40 percentage of robberies, while in New York they make up to a higher degree half of all street crime. There are no hard numbers on which phones are nigh nonclassical, just those most coveted aside thieves come along to be those most in demand by users: iPhones.
It's easy to assure why the thefts are indeed rampant. Criminals can quickly crook stolen phones into several hundred dollars in cash, and phone users are often easy targets as they walk down the street engrossed in the screen and oblivious to their surroundings.
It shouldn't be this way. With built-in satellite positioning and reliance on a network connection, it should be easier to cart track them consume. So wherefore is theft still such a job?
A biggish reason is that, until recently, there had been little to stop soul using a taken cell. Carriers cursorily freeze phone lines to avoid thieves running up high charges, simply the handset itself could be resold and reused. IT's ready-made easier by modern smartphones that accept SIM cards, which were introduced to provide legitimate users to switch phones easily.
Reacting to pressure from law enforcement and regulators, the U.S.'s largest cell carriers in agreement early lowest year to establish a database of stolen cellphones. The database blocks the IMEI (international rangy equipment identity) number, a unique ID in the cell akin to a gondola's VIN (vehicle identification number). The number is inherited to the cellular network when the phone connects and corpse with the phone no matter what SIM card is inserted.
On paper, once added to the list, a phone cannot be activated on any U.S. carrier network. Only the system is not perfect. For it to work, earpiece users must advise their carrier of the theft and in some cases provide the IMEI themselves. There are also limitations to its telescope.
"The blacklist is good, but one of the easiest things we can do to make it more potent is more worldwide information communion," same Kevin Mahaffey, CTO of mobile security measures keep company Picke. "There is some joint in different parts of the world, but non all operators contribution their lists."
In the U.S., that's beginning to come about, said Chris Guttman-McCabe, V.P. of regulatory personal business at the CTIA. AT&T and T-Mobile, which share a common network technology, have a common database and each U.S. carriers plan to have a single database raised and running by November that covers phones supported along the new LTE cellular technology.
U.S. carriers have also begun supplying information to an international database that covers 43 countries, and the U.S. FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has been talking to Canada, Mexico and some South American countries about getting on board, said Guttman-McCabe.
So now, the main drive is to develop users roughly the existence of the block list and get them to firm their phones with a password, screen lock and software that can remotely track or wipe a purloined handset. Smartphone makers pledged to include this information with modern handsets sold from the beginning of this yr.
Even if universal, a global blocklist still would have shortcomings. Patc technically difficult, it's possible in some phones to rewrite the IMEI number, providing them with a new identity and bypassing the electronic network lockout.
In an attempt to combat this, Senator Charles Stuart Schumer, a Democrat from Empire State, introduced a bill into the U.S. Congress last year (S.3186) that sought a five-year jail sentence for anyone who rewrites an IMEI number. The bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee but died when the congressional academic session came to a close.
"To me, while well-planned, that's not necessarily where the solution is," said George V Gascón, San Francisco's district attorney, in an question. "We already rich person way too many people in prison, we have enough laws on the books, and the parting affair we want to coif is continue to take young people and put option them in prison house for long periods of clip."
"What we need to do is remove the marketability of these items," atomic number 2 said.
Gascón, who has become one of the well-nig plainspoken members of the law enforcement community on the result, is proposing the physical science equivalent of a self-destruct compel.
"What we need is a technological result, we need a kill switch over that when a phone gets according stolen the manufacturer or the attack aircraft carrier or a combination of both are going to supply that phone inoperable anywhere," atomic number 2 said.
To workplace, it would have to rewrite the phone's basic computer software so the device becomes completely useless and cannot be restored, even if IT was later recovered.
Gascón says his content has not been received well by the carriers.
"I started fourth-year year away meeting with matchless of the carriers," he said. "They seemed to live genuinely concerned and wanted to set up a follow-high meeting."
The second merging, between Gascón, representatives of the four major carriers, and the CTIA, a Washington-based lobbying grouping for the telecommunications industry, didn't get ALIR.
"Information technology became rattling free to me from the beginning, as the lobbying group took the lead-in happening this, that they felt they had through with totally they were sledding to do," He said.
The CTIA disagrees with his assertion.
"I rattling think it's important for people to know that we recognize this is important for law enforcement," aforesaid Guttman-McCabe. Only he doesn't support the theme of an electronic vote out switch.
"Suppose of all the times people lose their phone and past find information technology, and imagine how consumer-unfriendly it would live if the carrier striking a kill swap," he same. "All at once, you have a high-end smartphone that's useless and you have got to buy an unsubsidized sound."
For now, the CTIA is sticking to its stolen phone database plan and isn't looking at other possible solutions.
The pour down switch wanted by Gascón would probably non be gross, but it could help, said Lookout's Mahaffey.
"It would be very difficult to build anything that is impossible to lift off a device," He said. "You can make up it and so tall that all just the virtually sophisticated thieves can get around it. As we've seen with jailbreaking, no matter how so much exploit Malus pumila put in, there will always Be a way around it."
For now, the best thing call users can do is try to avoid having their phones snatched in the first put on.
"If you need to verbalise on your phone, we ask that you clean step to the broadside of a building, put down your back against the building, make your telephone call or make your text, but then also be aware of what's going on around you. That makes a Brobdingnagian difference," said Officer Dennis Toomer of the San Francisco Police Department. He same most thefts occur because people are texting or talking along phones piece walking and not paying attention to their surroundings.
"Day or night, you should always be aware of what's going happening around you," he said.
In Washington, D.C., a series of crime-prevention posters exhibit photographs of citizenry exploitation cellphones in public. In the pictures, the cellphones are overlayed with an image of a hundred-dollar sign bill and the punch line "This is how thieves see you on the street."
Phone users are also encouraged to install trailing software in their handsets. Apple has the Find My iPhone feature, and a number of applications exist for other phones that allow users to remotely give chase a phone's position and delete information stored on the device. They require the phone to be switched along and connected to a net, merely oftentimes thieves don't immediately switch hit stolen phones.
If a telephone set is promptly reported stolen, police can sometimes situate the twist and the thieves using such applications.
"As with any security, in that location is no silver bullet, there's no one thing you can set," said Mahaffey. "Just that doesn't mean we shouldn't serve IT, we should stay to find meliorate ways to solve these problems."
Martyn Williams covers raiseable telecoms, Silicon Valley and ecumenical engineering science breaking news for The IDG News Divine service. Abide by Martyn happening Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-chain mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/451800/smartphones-driving-violent-crime-across-us.html
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