ABC News uses iCloud to track a stolen iPad to TSA officer's home | Hacker News Reader

ABC News uses iCloud to track a stolen iPad to TSA officer's home

appleinsider.com

54 pointsashishgandhi24 comments

One of ten. That's it. They conducted just ten sting operations before a TSA agent stole one of their target iPads.

Ten. That's their sample size.

Well, they did target places where items had been reported stolen before.

The headline gave me a slightly incorrect impression. ABC news left valuables at checkpoints as part of a sting operation. While it's still inexcusable, taking a lost item isn't quite as bad as actively stealing. I think the legal term is "theft by finding": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft_by_finding.

I guess the TSA agent didn't know that iPhones, iPads, and many other tablets and smartphones can be tracked and wiped remotely. There is a large risk to stealing them and little reward. I bet theft rates will decrease as word of these anti-theft features spreads.

Except not only is it theft by finding, it's also in their training to turn in lost goods.

It's not just the law; it's very clearly their job.

What an outrageous thing to say! This guy stole the iPad. Period.

You also seem to be implying that his "mistake" was taking something easy to track. Wow.

No. I'm saying not only was his action inexcusable, wrong, and illegal, it was also stupid.

I'm not sure why people downvoted me and replied with such stern disagreement. I used as many hedge-words as I could ("slightly incorrect", "isn't quite as bad", etc) and was describing my subjective impression. In no way did I blame ABC for the loss of their iPad, and I called the TSA agent's action inexcusable.

We're on the same side here.

Don't worry, I assumed the same thing you did about his actions, and I think it's important to make what he did clear.

What an outrageous thing to say! This guy stole the iPad. Period.

Seriously. If someone leaves their car running on the street that's a stupid thing to do, but does it give anyone permission to steal it? "Oh look ... I 'found' this car."

Finder's Keepers applies to a $5 bill you find on the sidewalk with no one around, not iPads.

> taking a lost item isn't quite as bad as actively stealing.

This isn't a thing where the TSA guy saw a pack of tissues left on a bench and pocketed them for himself.

This is a thing where travelers are forced to separate even from valuable items under stress from travel, family and time constraints. So the default assumption when you come across an expensive item like an iPad is "this must belong to someone." You know they're coming back for it, either in person or by phone.

I'm not saying that theft by finding isn't bad, just that it's not quite as bad as normal theft. It is still pretty damn bad. Consider these options:

Option 1: TSA agents steal things from your bags.

Option 2: TSA agents steal things that you forget at the checkpoint.

Both options suck, but option 2 doesn't suck quite as much. That's all I'm saying. I'm not defending the guy. It's just that the headline made me think #1 was the case, but it turned out to be #2, and #2 isn't quite as bad as #1. Of course, both are inexcusable, illegal, and wrong.

Well, here's an "Option 1" for you then ... "Pythias Brown, a former TSA officer at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey who admits he stole more than $800,000 worth of items from luggage and security checkpoints over a four-year period"

$800,000!!!

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/convicted-tsa-officer-reveals-...

This was so ridiculously easy that the only way that he got caught is that he got VERY lazy, and didn't remove the CNN stickers from a camera he stole from a CNN producer's luggage.

Others that worked with him seemed to know about it — one co-worker even warned him, "They were talking about you in the office. Be careful." But no one did anything.

Absurd.

It does, but given that its quite hard to tell the TSA guys from police (well, it was for me) as their uniforms and behavior certainly seem police-ish, it's bad. They appear like police, behave like police, but when confronted with a situation they can exploit, 10% of the time (in a crazy small sample) they will exploit you. People in positions of authority receive harsher treatment on New Zealand law if they abuse their positions. I hope it's the same in the US.

Not in the US, mostly they get a "administrative" leave and go on vacation until things die down. Small pawns however are fired, but that's about it.

Sadly this is true in most instances...

Someone is going down... hard time! You can't take photos/movies of TSA checkpoints!

At least I'm sure that's how the story will eventually be flipped.

I know you're joking, but it's actually stated TSA policy[1] to allow photography of checkpoints. Whether that policy is followed, however...

1. http://blog.tsa.gov/2009/03/can-i-take-photos-at-checkpoint-...

I was in a 'lock-down' at Newark a while back and was told that I could use my video camera, so long as I didn't point it at the 'secure area' (basically at the checkpoint).

This seems like a typical "gotcha" story. TSA has approximately 60,000 employees and to show that one stole something, or even one hundred have stolen things, doesn't raise any real red flags to me. I wish it didn't happen but I don't think this can really be used as an overarching critique of TSA. If we want to argue against TSA, let's keep arguments framed around invasive procedures, general incompetence, or the cost/benefit ratio that they seem to provide.

This is an employee that's supposed to be preventing crime. Showing that some of them are involved in crime is a reasonable thing to do.

Unattended items have some[1] risk of being bombs. I want airport employees to treat unattended items as if a customer has lost something (probably the case) or as if they're bombs (so at least those continued loops telling me not to leave anything unattended don't go to waste).

[1] Has any unattended item even been a bomb?

As much as I hate the TSA, this sort of reads like entrapment.

Do you know how many things are left behind at checkpoints? On a flight I was on once the lady next to me realized she had left her laptop at the checkpoint. It happens all the time.

If TSA agents can't overcome the desire to take what is not theirs, they have no business doing that job.

True. But TSA turnover must be huge, and screening for honest people is no easier today that it has ever been.

I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.

Totally. You're basically hiring people for a job that no one who is actually qualified for wants. It's the security equivalent of an IT help desk.

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