Parece que eso de que en Europa puedes ir hablando por el móvil por la calle sin miedo a que te lo roben se va a terminar.
Ojo cuidao que los marrónidos en UK ya van a saco y aquí empezarán pronto los latinitos.
www.theguardian.com
Jenny Tian, 29, a comedian from Australia, had been in London for two weeks when she saw a group of guys in ski masks on a street in east London. “I thought to myself: ‘They’re probably on their way to rob a home, they’re not going to bother me.’” It was 5pm, still broad daylight, and she had her phone out, trying to find a venue on Google Maps. “You know when you’re turning yourself into a human compass, pivoting around, trying to work out where it’s sending you? I looked very lost, I guess.” The next thing she heard was the sound of running, then a whoosh of air, and her phone was gone.
This was not OK. London’s first independent victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, stressed in a statement that she definitely gets it. “Our lives are on our phones – our contacts, family photos, social media accounts, contactless payments, travelcards, emails. They are a form of safety and comfort for people but taking someone’s device robs them of that security.” For Tian, there was weeks of work on her phone – notes for her standup, edited videos for her Instagram feed, all her contacts with bookers, all her connections to home, her Apple Pay, her banking details, her diary, never mind she didn’t know where she was.
Vaneet Mehta, 32, a software engineer, works from home, and has to log in through a VPN, which she cannot do without her authenticator app. So when her phone got lifted, at some traffic lights in north-west London, the first thing she had to do was call work to take the day off. Except she couldn’t, because she didn’t have a phone.
We used to joke about screen time, that as a species we had managed to invent a device containing the whole of human knowledge, and then we expect each other not to look at it. But knowledge isn’t the half of it; our phones have become the repository of all our practical interactions with the world. Numerous people described suddenly losing their phone as like being struck blind.
theft is so memorable that people tell more vivid stories about it.
So, how do you protect yourself against it? “Be aware of your surroundings,” Hussain says. “Look up, look out. Use your pin services better. Keep phones and watches and cash out of sight.” Mehta now only ever checks her phone with her back against a wall and two hands on it. Another former victim says they now instinctively put an index finger over the top of their phone when they’re out, making it harder to whisk it out of their hand. “Plan your route home,” Hussain says. “Put a tracker app on your phone – Find My iPhone isn’t that specific metre-by-metre.” It is still useful, though, as you can mark your device as stolen remotely and render it unusable.
A spokesperson from O2 recommends the ***owing, before it’s stolen: make a note of the IMEI number, your handset’s unique reference, then the police can get it back to you if they find it; make sure your banking apps, particularly, have a different passcode to the phone itself, as some thieves do “shoulder-hanging”, where they watch you unlock the phone and then snatch it; if you go into settings, you can put a pin on your sim card, so if a thief tries to put the sim in a different handset, it’ll be protected; turn off message preview, so that authentication passcodes won’t be visible without unlocking.
After the phone is stolen, report it as soon as possible, since networks will cap your losses – say, if a thief racks up a lot of international calls – but only if you’ve notified them within 24 hours. All UK providers have an agreement to “brick” a phone – which means it can’t access any network – but where it gets tricky is if the phone ends up in China, as they frequently do. Also, bear in mind that 80% of snatches are of iPhones.
Daniel, who got his phone back, went back to Wallasey with his view of crime unchanged, “overall, rationally. You just realise crime is real.” Slim held on to her second phone and still has it. Elysia says: “It’s less that it changed my opinion of London, it was more that it confirmed what I didn’t like about it already.” Mehta says: “The nerves have mostly worn off,” but she has changed her settings so that the phone can’t be turned off unless it’s unlocked.
As for Tian, after hollering and chasing her phone thief, “pedestrians started cornering him, and eventually he ran out of places to hide. He sheepishly handed it back to me, then he joined his group of boys again, with the ski masks. Then the people who helped me out walked me to the bar I was trying to get to. I was basically like Snow White; a bad thing happened but everyone seemed to help me out. They were very kind. My impression of London is that everyone is so nice. Even the guy who stole my phone handed it back to me.” As heartwarming as it is, this is a rare exception and, emphatically, not the advice of the police. It’s dangerous. It might miccionan everything to you, containing as it does your entire world, but it’s only a phone.
Ojo cuidao que los marrónidos en UK ya van a saco y aquí empezarán pronto los latinitos.
‘They rob you visibly, with no repercussions’ – the unstoppable rise of phone theft
Snatch thefts of mobile phones soared by 150% in the last year, with victims left unable to work, use their bank, travel or use their diaries. Why are police finding it so hard to stop?
www.theguardian.com
Jenny Tian, 29, a comedian from Australia, had been in London for two weeks when she saw a group of guys in ski masks on a street in east London. “I thought to myself: ‘They’re probably on their way to rob a home, they’re not going to bother me.’” It was 5pm, still broad daylight, and she had her phone out, trying to find a venue on Google Maps. “You know when you’re turning yourself into a human compass, pivoting around, trying to work out where it’s sending you? I looked very lost, I guess.” The next thing she heard was the sound of running, then a whoosh of air, and her phone was gone.
This was not OK. London’s first independent victims’ commissioner, Claire Waxman, stressed in a statement that she definitely gets it. “Our lives are on our phones – our contacts, family photos, social media accounts, contactless payments, travelcards, emails. They are a form of safety and comfort for people but taking someone’s device robs them of that security.” For Tian, there was weeks of work on her phone – notes for her standup, edited videos for her Instagram feed, all her contacts with bookers, all her connections to home, her Apple Pay, her banking details, her diary, never mind she didn’t know where she was.
Vaneet Mehta, 32, a software engineer, works from home, and has to log in through a VPN, which she cannot do without her authenticator app. So when her phone got lifted, at some traffic lights in north-west London, the first thing she had to do was call work to take the day off. Except she couldn’t, because she didn’t have a phone.
We used to joke about screen time, that as a species we had managed to invent a device containing the whole of human knowledge, and then we expect each other not to look at it. But knowledge isn’t the half of it; our phones have become the repository of all our practical interactions with the world. Numerous people described suddenly losing their phone as like being struck blind.
theft is so memorable that people tell more vivid stories about it.
So, how do you protect yourself against it? “Be aware of your surroundings,” Hussain says. “Look up, look out. Use your pin services better. Keep phones and watches and cash out of sight.” Mehta now only ever checks her phone with her back against a wall and two hands on it. Another former victim says they now instinctively put an index finger over the top of their phone when they’re out, making it harder to whisk it out of their hand. “Plan your route home,” Hussain says. “Put a tracker app on your phone – Find My iPhone isn’t that specific metre-by-metre.” It is still useful, though, as you can mark your device as stolen remotely and render it unusable.
A spokesperson from O2 recommends the ***owing, before it’s stolen: make a note of the IMEI number, your handset’s unique reference, then the police can get it back to you if they find it; make sure your banking apps, particularly, have a different passcode to the phone itself, as some thieves do “shoulder-hanging”, where they watch you unlock the phone and then snatch it; if you go into settings, you can put a pin on your sim card, so if a thief tries to put the sim in a different handset, it’ll be protected; turn off message preview, so that authentication passcodes won’t be visible without unlocking.
After the phone is stolen, report it as soon as possible, since networks will cap your losses – say, if a thief racks up a lot of international calls – but only if you’ve notified them within 24 hours. All UK providers have an agreement to “brick” a phone – which means it can’t access any network – but where it gets tricky is if the phone ends up in China, as they frequently do. Also, bear in mind that 80% of snatches are of iPhones.
Daniel, who got his phone back, went back to Wallasey with his view of crime unchanged, “overall, rationally. You just realise crime is real.” Slim held on to her second phone and still has it. Elysia says: “It’s less that it changed my opinion of London, it was more that it confirmed what I didn’t like about it already.” Mehta says: “The nerves have mostly worn off,” but she has changed her settings so that the phone can’t be turned off unless it’s unlocked.
As for Tian, after hollering and chasing her phone thief, “pedestrians started cornering him, and eventually he ran out of places to hide. He sheepishly handed it back to me, then he joined his group of boys again, with the ski masks. Then the people who helped me out walked me to the bar I was trying to get to. I was basically like Snow White; a bad thing happened but everyone seemed to help me out. They were very kind. My impression of London is that everyone is so nice. Even the guy who stole my phone handed it back to me.” As heartwarming as it is, this is a rare exception and, emphatically, not the advice of the police. It’s dangerous. It might miccionan everything to you, containing as it does your entire world, but it’s only a phone.
