iPod: this season's must-have for muggers

The Register ^ | 30 March 2003 | Lester Haines

[anonymous_user]

a great opportunity for CCW owners to get a little target practice.

40GB iPod: $499
Digital rights for 5,000 tunes: $3,500

Reaching in your pocket to hand a mugger your cool, white-plastic iPod, but actually reaching for your cool, black-plastic Glock...

Priceless.

[Grit]

Great way to troll for muggers by undercover police, or a great opportunity for CCW owners to get a little target practice.

Except this is from the UK so the muggers know all of the victims are unarmed.

[anonymous_user]

wonder if these iPod crooks, or the people that they fence the stolen goods to, have any clue that they will need to own a computer in order to correctly USE the iPod??

(Sung to the tune of "That's Amore")

Sell an iPod
Make a nice wad
Better than a job
It's on Eee-baa-a-a-a-aayyy

The life of a crook
Sell a lot of loot
Buy an used iBook
It's on Eee-bay-a-a-a-aayyy

I listen to way too many commercials.

[anonymous_user]

One guy gets mugged, so everyone is supposed to hide their iPods?

...And if someone flashes their high-beam car lights at you, don't do the same back, cause it's a gang initiation and they'll shoot you!

[antiRepublicrat]

Well, of course the solution is iPod registration.

That might be a cool option, to do it like how stolen cellphones are handled (at least in Germany). Every iPod gets a hardware-coded ID number, and on an iTunes synch the number is matched against a database of reported stolen iPods at Apple. If it matches, iTunes won't synch. Or even more severe the iPod is toast until Apple sends an unlock code through another iTunes synch. Nah, better, superimpose someone saying "You are listening to a stolen iPod" over all music played.

I'm sure this could eventually be hacked, but the common mugger will find an iPod useless after a while.

[Kozak]

Except this is from the UK so the muggers know all of the victims are unarmed.

Ditto some cities and states in US. NOT a wise assumption in places like Texas and Florida. Not wise at all....

[bikewench]

"I always pick out the iPod people when I'm walking down the street. I know who all the cool people are."

Yeah. Muggers just want to be cool too.