The hole was conveniently cut directly above the crates of iPhones.

An unknown amount of burglars managed to walk away with roughly 2 million euros worth of iPhones. And while they're almost sure to make a decent buck off the black market sale, carrier Mobsistar has revealed that they have a list of all serial numbers from the caper and will be deactivating the phones accordingly.

In other words, don't buy an iPhone in a back alley of Belgium. [De Standaard via AppleInsider]

Reginald Johnson, a mail processing clerk in Germantown, Philadelphia, apparently stole every GameFly envelope that came his way, selling them back to GameStop for quick cash. The Post Service began to get suspicious when, we imagine, nobody in the greater Philadelphia area received GameFly rentals for six whole months, and an investigation led them to Johnson. Johnson, in turn, led the police on a chase, until he crashed his SUV, at which point he made a break for it, carrying 81 stolen games in a duffel bag. Johnson is likely to receive 12-18 months jail time for his crimes.

He didn't break the record 3200 Netflix DVDs stolen earlier this year, but remember: Games are worth more. So Reginald Johnson can feel like a winner, in jail, where he'll be for the next year or two. [Philly.com]

Let me reiterate: Card skimmers are not cute hacks or experiments. They're illegal devices used to steal money from innocent people, and anyone who makes, uses, buys or encourages the use of them belongs in jail. Tellingly, the first related video on YouTube is called "Pin Pad Thief Sentencing." I realize that by writing about these dorks I'm giving them publicity, but I'm hoping that publicity only results in something very, very bad happening to them. [YouTube]

After two weeks, the thief made the mistake of connecting to the internet, and GadgetTrak collected tons of info. It triangulated his longitude and latitude via WiFi (and provided a link to the location on Google Maps!), his IP address, WiFi networks in range, and the username, and even took a photo of him with the iMac's built-in webcam. The iMac and two other stolen laptops were traced to a tattoo parlor in Brooklyn and recovered.

Of course, the system only works if the thief neglects to reformat the hard drive and connects to the internet, but we'd be willing to bet that that's not as uncommon as you'd think. It's a pretty great system, as long as thieves don't figure out how to work around it. [GadgetTrak]

The piece goes more in depth about the security risks in having a cellphone confiscated by anonymous theater cops, and Doctorow seems upset that nobody would tell him exactly what happens to these phones during the movie. I'm less concerned; I think the reason nobody knows what happens is that nobody cares, and there's probably never been an instance of data theft in that situation. But it is definitely a bad sign for the film industry that anybody anywhere thinks that's where leaks come from.

As any diligent pirate knows, there are levels of illegally-obtained films that vary wildly in quality, and at any reputable Bittorrent site, they're clearly labeled (or at least noted in the comments). The first type that usually appears is the camcorder version, which is almost always a complete waste of time. "Cams," as they're called, are often shot from corners of the theater to avoid detection, and sound quality is praised if dialogue even the least bit understandable. Most pirates will skip this garbage and wait for a more legit copy, so it's not worth getting worked up about people with camcorders. Next up, the last thing to leak before the actual DVD release of the movie, is the one that's actually worth stealing: The screener.

Screeners are preview DVDs sent out to critics and others in the industry, and that's where nearly all of the leaks happen. I repeat: Leaks come from inside the industry. So maybe the MPAA should stop whining and figure out a more secure DRM system, some kind of watermark, or just a way of tracking which copy gets leaked instead of taking silly action like confiscating cellphones. [The Guardian]

Reports HuffPo:

Employees at a Telefonica Movistar cell-phone store in Morelia, Mexico say they arrived Tuesday morning to find that the store had been broken into. An examination of the shop revealed the only items missing were hollow replica phones for display that are completely useless for making calls.

Employees say the clueless thieves overlooked real cell phones and cash in another part of the shop.

Even though the hot goods are nearly worthless, detectives are still on the case, meaning these nimrods could eventually serve some jail time for their hollow plastic haul.

Updated: Reader Evan makes a good point. These empty phones could very well be "drug mules" for border crossings. Here's hoping we're just dealing with some dumb thugs. [Huffington Post - Thanks, Scotland]

When the USPS and local police tracked him down and raided his place, they found they found 66 cameras, 31 laptops, jewelry, camera lenses, GPS devices and more. So yeah, how does a TSA screener systematically walk out of the airport with more gadgets than Best Buy—hell, with some gear you can't even buy there—without a single agent ever noticing? I guess if you ever check anything actually valuable, you might want avoid Newark (not that there aren't a million more reasons to avoid Newark). [Gadling via BoingBoing Photo: Flickr/Joel Franusic ]

Apparently Papagno was stealing in such volume he had to stash lots of it in the homes of his neighbors, because his own house was quickly stuffed full. The game was up when, after a domestic violence arrest (surprise!), Mrs. Papagno called up Victor's employer, saying she wanted all of his work gear out of the house. "Um, what work gear?" was the response. The rest is history.

Our recommendation is to avoid attempting such a large-scale heist if your employer is the US Navy—apparently no secrets or strategically sensitive information was ever taken, or else Victor would be facing a lot more jail time than the two years proposed currently. [WTOP via Network World via /.]

This plan first launched into action when a co-worker of the nameless woman at the Apple Store noticed her computer online and notified the woman. She was then able to log into her computer and the rest is history. So the moral of the story is this: If you steal a MacBook, please be sure to cover the iSight with some tape. Otherwise, you could also be charged with a second degree felony. [Iohud via TUAW]

The boys in blue made a beeline for 19 businesses situated on the Blackstock Road, a crime hotspot that, coincidentally or not, is just round the corner from the mosque where extremist preacher Abu Hamza used to preach from. Premises raided included a butcher's shop, internet cafe and greengrocer's.

The raid was not just about cellphones, however—although T-Mobile claims that 40 percent of its stolen phones go on to be used in the Blackstock Road area. Some of the other charges leveled against the suspects include drug dealing, money laundering and selling fake documents.

And the reason for 600 woodentops? Well, a bit like the Kaiser Chiefs, officers predicted a riot, so they sent an entire regiment of men down there. Seventy men were arrested, 300 stolen mobiles recovered, as well as (deep breath) 120 laptops, 110 cameras, 32 iPods and 20 satnavs. Oh, and 47 forged passports and driving licenses. I heart London. [Daily Mail]

So what can be done about the problem?

According to Montana: "There is no easy way around this, and it is a real issue. Hey, these bulbs are popular!"

If only the allure of low energy illumination devices weren't so close to the cockles of Man's heart, maybe we could hope to find a moment of order in this crazy world we live in. [Montana via ecogeek]

By utilizing the accelerometers built into devices such as the iPhone or MacBook, this new feature can look for certain movements that are characteristic of theft. In the event of your iPhone or MacBook being stolen, it could either turn on an alarm, lock itself up or even a combination of the two.

What we want to know is what exactly these characteristics are that differentiate thievery and just irrational movements caused by the user? We can just see the alarm triggering in the middle of a call, because an angry bee was chasing us.

Patent interface drawings after the jump.

– Ben Longo

Apple Patents Anti-Theft Phone [Loop Rumors via Apple Insider]

Using the freeware app iAlertU that works as an alarm system for your MacBook, along with a Mac FTP app called Transmit, Adam shows you how to set up a script that will use the MacBook's bulit-in iSight camera to automatically take a picture of anyone who moves your laptop. Then it'll FTP that shot to a site of your choosing. Take a look at the post for full instructions.

If you can use a script to automatically FTP shots, it stands to reason that you might be able to do a similar routine to trigger an alarm to auto-upload with Photo Booth, too. Cool stuff either way. – Charlie White

Hack Attack: Turn your MacBook's iSight into a FTP backed up security camera [lifehacker]

Plus, with their Accidental Damage plan, they'll fix all the wear-and-tear incurred when your laptop was stolen as well. Sounds like a good plan if you're always out and about, flaunting your laptop like some kind of hussy. – Jason Chen

Press Release [Dell]

Police say they discovered that the "robbery report was bogus", and that there may have been more people involved. The four PS3s still haven't been recovered, but you can bet these two kids are busy stashing the consoles where the cops can't find them. That, and hoping they don't have to go to PMITA prison. – Jason Chen

Holdup was fake, cops say [SacBee via Joystiq]

Thieves raid Apple employee store for third time [AppleInsider]

Thanks Edward!

"[Robbery increases have] a lot to do with the products that are available to be stolen these days. The mobile phone explosion is continuing. The iPod explosion is continuing. All of these gadgets that people carry around with them are very attractive to robbers, so that puts the opportunities up. We've obviously got to respond to that in a very positive way."

You know what that means, time for a poll!– Mark Wilson

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

News Story [policeoracle]
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