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Met Police vid: HIDE your mobes. Pavement BIKER cutpurses on the loose
Snatch 'n' grabs shown on camera... strangely mostly by two-wheeled culprits
Video The Metropolitan Police have put out a video showing just how easy it is to steal a mobile telephone, as long as one has a scooter and a mate to go pillion.
The video demonstrates three grabs, caught on CCTV cameras and shared with the public to help them see just how easy it is to lose a mobile phone, at least until the thieves understand the limited value of a nicked phone and the manufacturers make it so.
Modern smartphones have remote tracking enabled by default, so log onto one's cloudy service and the location will pop up on a map along with the opportunity to wipe the data before the miscreants get the chance to break the key/pattern/face lock.
Even if the thief gets their loot straight into a Faraday bag, the phone's International Mobile Equipment Identifier (IMEI) should end up on the blocked list, if the owner (or the owner's operator) has taken the time to register with Immobilise (which you should do right now, if you haven't already).
The global list of stolen devices is maintained by the GSMA, and the majority of operators around the world have been bullied by their governments into signing up, so our thief now has to reprogram the IMEI (not trivial, but not impossible) or ship the handset to one of the few countries not signed up.
Few London cutpurses are sufficiently well-connected, or technically educated, to manage either of those, which means registered, stolen, phones with key lock are valueless, which is probably why tablet computers now top the list of desirables for London's tap gangs.
As more of us register, and more of them learn, they'll move back to the steadfast opportunities offered by jewellery and bicycles. ®
Biting the hand that feeds IT
