A day of theft in Oakland

[garote]

I woke up just in time to wrangle a presentable face for my morning video meeting. The minute it ended I waved goodbye to my workmates and crawled back into bed, seeking the additional hours that would get my brain awake enough to write code later in the day.

About an hour later my phone rang. It was the alarm guy in Walnut Creek, saying my van would be ready in a couple of hours. I told him I'd pick it up late in the day, then tried for more sleep but failed. While I was laying there, I heard the delivery man drop off my lunch at the top of the driveway.

I decided to be decadent and nasty, so I put on my bathrobe and fetched the lunch, then ate the chicken sandwich while standing in the shower. The sandwich got a little damp but that just made it easier to eat. The cat plopped down outside the shower stall and made noise, as is her custom, so I splashed water all over her. She sat there and licked most if it off and then wandered outside.

I decked out the bike with my work stuff - laptop, wires, spare batteries - and rode up towards College Avenue, playing an old mixtape from my phone. At the usual cafe I bought a mocha and a cookie, then kept going towards the campus. Along the way I spotted a dollar bill laying crumpled in the bike lane, so I leaned over and scooped it up. Maybe I could give it to some needy person.

With 15 minutes to go before my next video meeting, I kickstanded the bike near the usual peeing spot: Some shadowy bushes next to the Chiet Hall building. I walked into the bushes and turned my back, and 20 seconds later as I was finishing my pee I heard someone hitting the duck-shaped rubber air horn on my handlebars. I turned and saw a cyclist taking off - a black man wearing a red coat on a low-slung BMX-style bike - followed closely by another cyclist who was rolling past - a white man in shorts and a helmet, on a street bike.

I walked back to my bike and watched them depart, and honked the duck horn at them for good measure. Did they just find the horn amusing, and hit it as they passed? Okay, whatever.

Then the music playing in my headphones went dead.

That would only happen if my phone was out of range. I'd left it right here on my handlebars. Now it was gone. One of those bicyclists had ripped off my phone while I was peeing.

The first thing I did was lift the mocha from the cup holder and set it in the street. If I tried to take off and chase the thieves, that would instantly splatter all over everything.

Heart pounding, I boarded my bike and took off after them but there was no sign of either one. The streets branched in too many directions and I didn't even know which one of them to pursue. What could I do next? Would location tracking work?

50 yards away at the edge of campus was a coffee shop. I pedaled there and yanked my laptop out of my saddlebag. Ugh, it needed several minutes to boot up. I joined the coffee shop wifi, then did a "Find My" search. The phone was last seen a few minutes ago, already about two miles down the hill. The thief had switched off, but I set it to enter "Lost Mode" as soon as it was turned on again. Then I sent a message to my workmate, saying I was going to miss my meeting.

I packed up the laptop and rode quickly down to my house, past the spot where the phone had last been seen. I couldn't chase the thief on a bike laden with other gear just as valuable. I would sail right into trouble.

I pushed the bike into the garage and locked the door, then got my iPad. Could it be enabled with cell service? No, it didn't have a cellular module. I used my home wifi to check the location again, and this time the phone was several blocks farther down the hill. That wasn't much change. Had the thief stopped somewhere?

"Locked Mode" indicated that it was now set, but the emergency contact phone number and message were blank. I put in the contact number for my eldest nephew, and set the message to "Stolen phone. Call number for reward."

Then I grabbed the iPad and my wallet and keys, and drove the Honda Civic up to the street corner where the marker was last seen. Nobody was around. The iPad couldn't see any open wireless networks, so it was useless. I couldn't even receive messages from other people who might track the device for me, since that would also require internet.

Figuring the phone was most likely either destroyed or deprived of its SIM card, making it impossible to track, I decided to drive directly to the Apple store and begin the process of buying a new phone. The old phone would still be connected to my account and there was a chance I could still track it later, maybe when it was wiped and sold to someone else.

I drove to the Emeryville mall and entered the parking garage. Carrying my mask, wallet, and iPad, I walked over to the Apple store. I didn't have an appointment so I hung out by the new iPhone 12 Minis, using my iPad on the Apple Store wifi.

My stolen phone had been turned on again, briefly. This time on the freeway in West Oakland. Bart didn't run through there, even underground, and the bubble for the accuracy of the location was very small. So this person had a vehicle? Where were they driving to? And why would they turn the phone back on while driving? That implied more than one person was involved in the theft now.

I looked up Lost Mode. Apparently there were software tools that could hack and disable it, except for iOS 14 on a recent iPhone. So in my case, Lost Mode was bulletproof and my data was safe. That was the largest risk for me. The device could be replaced, but the data - including 20 gigabytes of scans of all my financial paperwork and a cascade of OneNote documents synchronized from my employer, documenting our entire IT infrastructure - that was a massive problem. Apparently all that data was secured by the phone entering "Lost" mode. It would only receive calls, make calls to the number I specified (my nephew), and ask for my six-digit passcode. After ten attempts at the passcode it would erase itself. The thief would need thousands of dollars to throw at a forensics company, who would then disassemble the secure enclave chips and X-ray them to read the encryption keys - or some magical crap like that - and I was pretty sure that this wasn't some targeted espionage theft, just a vagrant jumping on the chance to get something that might be worth money.

If I got a new SIM and transferred my phone number, then the stolen phone would no longer connect to cell networks and report location through that, and I would lose a major way of tracking it. That would suck.

I read about the Find My network, and how it could be enabled on modern iPhones so that they worked just like AirTag devices, and could transmit their location even without wifi access and without a SIM. Had I enabled it on my phone? I think it was automatic when I enabled those AirTags, but I wasn't sure.

I talked it over with the attendant, who came by after I'd been waiting for nearly an hour. By that point the location had updated to show a park in the middle of West Oakland, then gone offline again. Why did they keep turning the phone on and off?

While I was talking to the attendant about my situation, our voices were drowned out by a bunch of piercing alarms that began to blare all at once, at a table just behind us. I turned to see a tall black man in designer jeans walking casually away from the table and towards the doors, very visibly stuffing four phones into his pockets.

The attendant with me pointed this out to the guard by the door, and the guard called after the man as he left, but didn't attempt to apprehend him. The other employees behind me silenced the alarms. I asked why the guard didn't even try to chase the thief.

The response: "He's just a guard. He's employed by us. If he got hurt, or hurt the thief, Apple would be liable. Usually we have police standing outside all the time just for stuff like this, but they've been away since COVID started. What I don't understand is, why did the guy take them? They're demo phones. They brick as soon as they're away from the building. You can't use them for anything. Maybe the guy could try and sell them for parts, but..." He shrugged.

"Man, hardware's just walking out all over the place today," I said.

We moved the subject back to my phone. The attendant said I should report the theft to the police.

"Yeah, what are they gonna do about it though?" I said. "Even if I know exactly where it is? Are they gonna have the patience to ride along with me while I go point my new phone at a building and say, 'I know the thief is somewhere in there,' and then go knocking on doors? No way. They're way too busy for that."

He shrugged. "Yeah, it's not very likely I guess. Your old phone is probably just gone."

"I think so. Either it's a really clever thief and he's gonna sell it to some other guy who will try and tear it down for parts - which is really unlikely - or it's the usual thief and he's gonna realize he's being tracked with an item he can't fence, and he'll throw it into the road or even smash it just to get me off his tail. At this point I probably need a new phone."

We began the procedure for that. I tried to transfer my old phone number to the new phone but the attendant needed a PIN of some kind from my Verizon account. I fetched the Verizon password using my iPad, then installed the Verizon app and logged into that. There was no PIN visible anywhere. I tried generating a "transfer PIN" on their site but that was for something else, and when the attendant entered it he got a message that my Verizon account was now locked.

The only thing I could do now was finish the purchase and then schlep across Emeryville to the Verizon store and have them do the transfer with their own equipment.

At the Verizon store I joined their guest wifi and kept using the iPad. The battery had plummeted due to all the wardriving but I had about an hour left. I used that to announce to friends and family that the phone was stolen. Some of my nephews called my phone number and left snide messages for the thief, just in case he was able to hear them.

Then my eldest nephew contacted me: Someone had called him claiming to have my phone. It was a woman named Georgette and she left a number. I got the number and tried to send her a message, but she wasn't using an iPhone, and the SMS wouldn't go through because my own iPhone was in Lost Mode so the iPad wouldn't pipe SMS through it.

I waited almost another hour, and the attendant at the Verizon store finally got things sorted out and I tore open the packaging on the new phone and got it activated. I immediately got three voicemails. They were the snide messages from my nephews.

My favorite one: "Yo, yo, why you be stealin phones? Hey I'm doing laundry right now, and the laundry in this basket? Yo, it looks better than you. Quit. Just quit. Just quit, man. Don't be stealing phones."

My first step was to call up the guy in Walnut Creek who was working on installing a car alarm in my van and tell him I might be late. Next I called Georgette's number and she didn't pick up, so I left a voice message in as upbeat a tone I could, to encourage her to get back to me:

"Hello! My nephew tells me you found my phone! That's amazing; I thought it was long gone! I got a replacement so this number works for me now, so call me back and maybe we can set up a time and a place to meet, so I can get my phone and you can get something for your trouble. How does the Starbucks by the Home Depot sound?"

I drove back to the house and got out the folding bike, crammed the new phone into my sweatpants along with my wallet and iPod, and rode to Bart. While waiting there I got a call from Georgette. Yes, she could meet me when I got back into town in a few hours, some place in Emeryville. We'd hash out the details when I returned. Sounds good. I texted my family about the plan. "Don't get jumped by this lady!" they said. Yeah, that would suck.

I rode Bart to Walnut Creek, eating a cookie and listening to DJ Shadow. From there I rode to the car alarm store, which only took a minute or two on the bike. Way better than walking the previous day. I got a tour of all the features of the alarm, plus some documentation, then threw the bike into the van and drove to Oakland, blaring DJ Shadow out of the van speakers.

I parked near the Emeryville Home Depot and called Georgette again. She said she was by the fountain in front of the Starbucks near the Trader Joe's, just a mile away, and I couldn't miss her because she had lime green hair. I drove there and parked the van, then took everything out of my pockets except the van keys and 140 dollars, and walked across the lot.

While I was there I saw a couple sitting on a bench. The woman had green colored hair. I introduced myself and asked if they had my phone. They both looked at me in total confusion.

Eventually we realized that I was looking for someone else, and they'd seen a woman with green hair getting into a car just a few moments ago. They pointed the car out to me. "Hah!" I said, and laughed. "What a day. I need to find the OTHER woman with the green hair."

As I walked over there, Georgette got out to greet me.

Georgette lived in her brown van with her two dogs. She looked somewhere between 35 and 60 -- probably closer to 35 combined with a dozen years of sleeping rough and eating bad. She claimed that she made a living pulling recyclables from garbage cans, and found my phone in a bag with a couple of gross sandwiches. I figured her story was totally bogus, but I knew it didn't matter.

She handed me a phone that was off and had no case. I turned it over and saw my Trollface sticker. Then I switched on the phone and it displayed the "lost" message I'd programmed in. It was my phone indeed.

I thanked her, and said "this device is very valuable to me, so here's something to compensate you. It's enough to get you two or three good meals." Then I handed her the $140 from my pocket. Her face lit up and she thanked me profusely, and had the grace to avoid counting it out in front of me to see how much it was. I said goodbye to her.

I suspect Georgette is a friend of the guy who stole it -- probably living in or near the same encampment. The guy must have seen it enter “lost” mode displaying a reward, and decided that going for the reward was a better plan that trying to sell it to anyone or fence it for parts. I could have confronted Georgette about this but she would have simply lied to me again. But, she handed me the phone well before I handed her any money, giving me the option of just walking away with it. She could have held it close and demanded a ransom. On the other hand, that would have risked turning me into an instant enemy -- one who knew what she and her van looked like, and would have been fully justified in summoning the police to arrest her. I was definitely more resourceful than her, and if I decided to bear a grudge I could hurt her in all kinds of ways.

Neither of us wanted to walk down that path. So I just bought her story and wished her luck. The cash I gave her was significant, but not compared to the well over $1000 that I paid for the phone in the first place. I don’t like the idea of encouraging phone theft, but I do like the idea of encouraging reuniting phones with people.

As I walked away I thought about a news article from a few weeks ago, about kids in London who went around on mopeds. One kid would steer while the other would lean out and snatch the cellphone from the hands of some preoccupied bystander. Even if the phone couldn't be sold, it could be passed to a third party who would claim to find it, and hope for a ransom. With minimal organization and some social skills, a harmless-looking kid could split the ransom with the more rough-looking kids who snatched the phones, making a miniature theft ring. Depending on their ability to schedule, keep records to avoid repeats, and find targets, a team of two or three could probably make a thousand bucks a week, possibly a lot more if the phones could be wiped and sold.

Crime sucks. Losing a phone sucks. But it sure beats getting stabbed, beaten, shot, kidnapped, et cetera... So on balance, things are better than they used to be.

Today was a reminder for me how the local homeless population is frustrating and often weird but generally not as ruthless or violent as popular culture implies. I'm just lucky once again that this is a problem I can smooth over with cash.

Back at the house I parked the van across the street and took the folding bike inside, then sat on the driveway next to the cat, enjoying the heat trapped in the cement.

"You know, Mira, sometimes life is just one damn thing after another."

She said nothing.

I heard the ice cream truck rolling through the neighborhood, playing its weird little tune. On a whim I walked outside and stood in line, in front of a little black kid wearing a Rick And Morty t-shirt, then bought a Choco Taco from the guy inside. When he gave me my change I took everything but one dollar. "You keep that one," I said.

"Gracias," said the man inside.

That's a good use for a street dollar.

I turned around and saw the grandma who lived next door, waiting in the ice cream line with her daughter and granddaughter.

"Today is a Choco Taco kind of day," I told her.

"Yeah? Ice cream doesn't agree with me. I've never tried one."

"Me neither. It's alright."

The granddaughter reached up and received an ice cream bar from the man in the truck. "Say thank you!" the mother said.

"'Ank you!"

We all began walking back across the street. Grandma said, "Hey! You came out here without any shoes on!"

Sure enough, the little four-year-old had come running out for the ice cream truck in her pink socks. We all had a laugh about that. I unlocked my mailbox but didn't find anything interesting, then walked back to the side of the house and hunkered down on the cement again, next to Mira the cat, and ate my Choco Taco as evening fell.

About an hour later I was inside, and the van alarm went off. I walked out to investigate and noticed that the lock on the side cargo door was a bit loose in its socket. Hopefully whatever bastard had tried to break in was long gone, having learned that this van was no longer easy prey. Even if he did break in by smashing a window, he'd have to sit there with the alarm ringing while he popped the hood and disconnected the battery, then used tools to bypass the alarm's ignition kill switch while laying upside down crammed between the seats, since the driver's side door would still be bolted shut.

Never a break in Oakland, it seems.