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I was mugged in Chicago last summer and my phone was stolen. The phone and the people who mugged me were in police custody ten minutes later because of cell tower phone tracking. The police asked questions about what tracking the phone did; I have no doubt they'd have used that information too.

(Of course, this is a case in which I obviously would have consented to them tracking my phone).

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Today I learned to remove the battery from any wireless device _immediately_ after stealing it :P

It took ten minutes for you to call the police, track your phone, give the tracking information to police, and for the police to find and apprehend the suspects? That seems astonishingly fast -- how did that all go down?

I am being hyperbolic about the timing by about 2 minutes. I timed it from the call to the police to pulling up in a squad car next to the fast food place where the police detained the muggers and had me ID them.

It was crazy. I told my neighbors: the muggers asked for my bag, I said no, so they settled for $12 and a device that tracked them from space.

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