Well, my car was broken into this morning for the third time in the last two years. The first two times the theives didn't seem to know what to make of my Empeg and actually left it on the floor of my car. This time they were careful to take it and even pull the mounting sled. Maybe it's a sign of the Rio Car's surge in popularity... (I'll be looking at upcoming eBay sales closely.)

On the positive side, they didn't pull the tuner!! =) (And no, I'm not selling it: the Empeg is definitely getting replaced.)

Are we still encouraged to report our serial numbers to Empeg's support people? Which brings up another point: is the serial number anywhere on the invoicing sent for the units? I don't think I jotted it down anywhere myself.

18GB (+30GB upgrade) Blue
2000-2002

-omf

MAN I'm sorry to hear that.

When you get your replacement Rio, go out and buy a PS1 portable game bag. They only cost $14 and they work very well. There are some extra pockets that I use to keep my Cel phone/wallet and PDA in. It's actually easier on me to carry the EMPEG around than it was to carry all these separate things...

Did I mention that it's much harder to steal when it's sitting next to you?

I'm really sorry to hear about that, but:


Well, my car was broken into this morning for the third time in the last two years

and you *still* left your empeg in it??

Good luck with your replacement search. And please don't leave it in the car. By my reckoning you're due a break-in every 8 months, and I'd hate to see you lose another empeg.

you might get lucky now on buying another one, but i tihnk if u loose it again, your toast

Hi

The serial number isn't on the invoice, but it is in our sales system. 080000547 - if anyone comes across this unit for sale, be sure to let Oscar know!

Meantime, I've added the player to the blacklist.

Rob

You've been broken into your car twice, had incredible luck twice and you still leave your empeg in you car?
Man, talk about faith !

I can't help but think that this was very careless of you, especially since you've had two serious warnings.

That aside, this does not mean that I don't believe it really sucks and I'm very sorry for your loss. I hope you'll be able to find another empeg soon.

Im sorry to hear that. It sucks to get robbed. You should definately pull the unit out or find a way to secure it in the car.

Unforuantely, they don't make these anymore

Thanks, Rob.

UGH. I've had my CD player stolen before. Now I park in a garage so I don't have to worry about it as much. If you park on street, you're asking for it to get stolen.
I feel for you . I'd be so mad! Usually, it's kids that steal such things and they live near by..so keep an eye/ear out.

A friend of mine just had her car broken into while at home. They took her cell phone, an almond joy, and some CD's. Well, she called her cell phone company and got the last # which was dialed. It just happened to be friends of the people who stole the phone. She got the address and confronted the little twerps who stole it! She got everything back, cept the Almond Joy...I'd love to see the faces on those punks.
Me, I would have scared them straight with the help of an officer and their parents and a nice trip through a jail system.

ya stealing a cell phone isnt the brightest thing in the world

Some people are just plain dumb, It like people who steal credit cards, if you use one after it is reported stolen, you are busted right there on the spot.

We've suffered a spate of 'skimmed' CC fraud @ work recently. The police are not interested - there's too much of this type of crime going on and they don't have the resources to deal with it. The CC companies aren't too bothered either since with 'cardholder not present' transactions ALL liability lies with the merchant so they are ok too. We approached the banks asking for a system whereby we are assured of payment, guess what, one doesn't exist!
The upshot of all this is while the criminals may be dumb there's not much chance of them getting nabbed here in the UK

Parking in a garage is all well and good, but now having to put extra security on the garage as the little [censored] have now started to try and pick the lock on that!
Three weeks and counting then Im out of this hell hole!

Stealing cellphones is one of the biggest street crimes in the UK now. A vast number of them are stolen, the SIMM removed, and resold. With current GSM technology the handset cannot then be identified by the network - only the original SIMM can be disabled.

The networks and manufacturers have agreed a new security measure for future models - presumably a move back to the old analogue ESN type of ID.

Rob

I thought they could identify a phone by its own serial number type thing because alot of phones are locked into particular networks. It can be very hard to unlock a phone from one network as it is not just the simm card.

One of the problems is that BT and vodafone refuse to lock out phones by the phones number where as orange and one to one will do it for stolen phones

Interesting - I also thought that until I saw a BBC News bulletin that suggested the technology to enable individual handset identification was new and wouldn't be in handsets for several months.

Rob

UK Nokia cellular phones (prob. not just UK or Nokia though) have an IMEI number in flash memory. This number is effectively the phone's serial number. Also stored in the flash are optional provider flags, these prevent (say) an Orange handset being used on another network.
I don't know about theft prevention as such but what I DO know is there are partial flash ROM images on the 'net that will get around the network provider lockouts (i.e. allow a handset to be non-network specific, innocent use?). Additionally, once you look into this further you will find you can re-write the IMEI number with something else which effectively negates any network provider theft prevention.

My take on all this is that the handset manufacturers need to burn the IMEI number into non-eraseable memory - probably not easy in mid/high volume manufacturing though.

Incidentally, Sunday markets are full of guys with laptops "unlocking" handsets for (circa) £15. While this is probably illegal (because AFAIK they don't own the copyright on the partial ROM images they burn) the worst part is they are possibly unlocking YOUR stolen handset.

Not quite, the phone has an IMEI (as others have pointed out). Some networks have now got IMEI blocking for stolen phones, so even if you put a new SIM in it, it won't work.

Problem is, lots of the phones have reprogrammable IMEIs (if you have the right tools - ie a PC, some software & the right cables). Just recently a law was proposed (passed?) that made (a) changing IMEIs or (b) selling equipment to change IMEIs was illegal.

There's no real legitimate reason to change a phone's IMEI unless it's stolen; removing the network lock is also a bit dodgy as it undermines the pricing model...

Hugo

ya stealing a cell phone isnt the brightest thing in the world

Someone hacked into the email system of a business where I had purchased an item by credit card, and got my credit card information.

The first thing this criminal genius did was to place long-distance telephone calls using that information. It didn't take long for him to be caught.

tanstaafl.

The first thing this criminal genius did was to place long-distance telephone calls using that information. It didn't take long for him to be caught.

My roommate the first semester of college thought it would be a good idea to use my calling card to call her mother, sister, and boyfriend, and if that wasn't dumb enough, she bought a bunch of [censored] on my credit card and sent it to herself. It was so much fun to see her removed from the premises in hand cuffs. And I got a double room to myself for the rest of the semester, which was good too.

The first thing this criminal genius did was to place long-distance telephone calls

But there are the not-quite-as-dumb variants. A Seattle friend had a single credit card lifted from a (locked) locker at a health club one lunchtime here, but didn't have a clue (they left everything else alone in his wallet including ~$100 cash) until the next morning when Visa called to see if he was in Las Vegas making multiple $1500 cash advances. Yup, this particular operation Fedexed credit cards to Vegas and they got the money. There may have been multiple cards in the overnight envelope, but he didn't hear any more about it except that they hadn't been caught. Cute, eh?

Jim

Yup, this particular operation Fedexed credit cards to Vegas and they got the money. There may have been multiple cards in the overnight envelope, but he didn't hear any more about it except that they hadn't been caught. Cute, eh?

Yeah, that's right up there on the cute scale with the guy who got a free Pathfinder from our Nissan dealership up the block. Amazing what you can do with some careless employees, a drivers licence, and a health insurance card (usually has your SSN). The car was probably out of the country long before identity theft was even suspected (about a month and a half later).

Someone once opened an AOL account using one of my credit cards. They even ordered a bunch of items off of the AOL store and had them delivered to their house. Needless to say, it was pretty easy to track them down. The worst part was trying to get AOL to close the account and stop bothering me!

Well, I live in a relatively small city, so I don't typically worry much about crime (though clearly it does happen...) I never thought of my car as standing out much until I got custom wheels put on it. I honestly think that made all the difference: it was at that point that my car became a target, despite the fact that these wheels or only subtly different from the factory originals. The price I pay for looking cool!

Anyway, yes, I typically park in a garage, but this one time I happened not to. *sigh*

It'll be interesting to see what the insurance company does to try and replace my Empeg. I wonder how often they have to deal with eBay...

-Oscar

Okay i have said it before but here is my tip towards keeping empeg and car secure.

Get an old wiring harness or make one out of some wire and crimps so it looks like you can plug in a stereo to it. Now attach this to a small piece of wood slightly higher than the empeg this then goes into an empty cage and locks in leaving a bunch of wire hanging out of the dash which looks like someone has already stolen your head unit.

Oh yeah and don't leave the empeg in the damn car !

The Dutch police have an interesting approach to cell phone theft.

They give the network providers lists of IMEI numbers of stolen phones. In return, they get the phone numbers that are currently used on these stolen phones.

Then they (the police) start bombarding these numbers with SMS messages like "this is a stolen phone; return it to the police". The idea is that your friends will eventually want to know who is sending you these SMS messages all day ...

I have no idea how effective this approach is, though.

That's a good one, with the only downside being that when the SIM memory is full (on phones that store unread messages on the SIM, which I think is most of them) they won't beep anymore and the messages will just queue up.

It does make it hard to sell the phone on though, I believe they were sending one SMS every 3 minutes

Hugo

I've also seen how (excuse my non tech cell lingo) cell phone scanners can pick up the serial # from cell phones when they're in use and use them to place their own calls thus making free calls on someone else's bill. The guy usually won't find out until his bill comes.

Hey Jimhogan, how do you know B. Naeve??

Hey Jimhogan, how do you know B. Naeve??

(To explain for others...) I *don't* know B. Naeve, but EDub informs me that this person also had his Visa Fedexed to Vegas. I have to guess that it is some sort of ring taking in credit cards from multiple cities.

Vegas. There is so much madness happening there, it has to be one of the few places that $1500 cash advances pass without a blink.

Jim

What about an addition to emplode that will log the serial number and host ip address the first time that combination appears at a central server. If the empeg is stolen, an owner need only request updates for the last couple of ip addresses that serial showed up at....

Greg

It sucks to lose your player.. I cannot imagine that happening to me. For starters, its sitting right next to me on my desk here at work. I have always touted that one of the best features of this toy is that fact that its removable.

Once you replace yours, I am sure that you will be using that feature more often.

There has already been a significant amount of discussion on the subject of theft prevention. Any truly secure form of theft prevention would either inconvenience the legitimate user, or place a terrible burden on the company's tech support. There aren't any plans to incorporate additional theft-prevention features into the software.

For every theft protection scheme you can dream up, I can tell you a reason why they can't implement it.

For the one you just suggested: It would require that there actually be a server set up to receive these transmissions. Someone would have to pay for the maintenance on this server. And even then, it would be illegal for the server owner to divulge private information such as the thief's address. Just because the person is a thief and a criminal doesn't mean he loses his right to privacy. He could successfully sue the server operator for releasing his private information.

Just because the person is a thief and a criminal doesn't mean he loses his right to privacy. He could successfully sue the server operator for releasing his private information.

I remember reading Rob's responses on this and I think I understand why Empeg didn't attempt to include anything like this. I also agree that any system you could invent could be defeated.

OTOH, if someone was motivated to roll their own and had some of their own facilities (like a SMTP server with a static IP) I'm not sure what privacy concerns there would be (on the admittedly limited chance that it would work). If a stolen car with Lojack is stashed in a thief's garage, how would that be different?

The concept has always been intriguing to me, but I try to work the problem on the front end - keep it from getting stolen!

Jim

You consider an ip address private information? I guess I don't ... I look at it like a license plate for your car. Wherever you go in your car, people see it. It doesn't even belong to you, it assigned from another entity.

The resources required for this are quite minimal. A server only gets hit when there is a sync. The server only does anything with that hit if it's a new combination of serial/ip. I could whip up the back end for this on linux in less than an hour, and I'm rusty.

It's not really that different than your ip address being logged when you visit a web server.

As for divulging, reveal the info to the owner of that serial number. If they don't have a database of this, again this is something that could be whipped up in no time, and it would be voluntary participation. You don't have to register your serial number and contact information unless you want this feature active.

If my T1 server wasn't disabled as it is, then I could have run the backend server functions from there without issue. As it is, I've now only got a static DSL, which may not be enough for decent bursts of traffic.

This service would provide only minimal information from the "warehouse", an ip address to the owner of that serial number. You could even automate this part really easy.

I don't think this is an invasion of privacy. Your ip address isn't private information, nor is it yours. This would be available to those who wish to participate, those who do not can continue doing what they do now when their empeg gets stolen ...

Greg

i had a dream last night that my car got stolen at the high school i used to go to. I woke up before I got the car back in my dream...then realized my empeg is in the UK being serviced.

Whether or not -YOU- think it's an invasion of privacy is irrelevant.

Whether or not -YOU- think it's an invasion of privacy is irrelevant.

[TANGENT]
There was news story this AM (local, I think) of a woman convicted of vehicular manslaughter after her young child was killed when the woman sped away from a store where she'd been shoplifting and she hit a tree. the woman is, in turn, suing the store for chasing her.
[/TANGENT]

The point of the tangent is that it ain't only the law, but the sometimes capricious implementation of the law that dictates how things turn out. So, I'd agree that it doesn't matter what I (or Greg) think, but how the relevant laws will be applied.

LoJack has been operating for years. It is an embedded process, more or less, that collects location information and sends it to a central station which then forwards that info to the police. OK, so maybe it doesn't send phone number and/or IP address, but I agree with Greg that those are not really private. No car thief has sued LoJack for invasion of privacy that I'm aware of.

Jim

...sends it to a central station which then forwards that info to the police.

Which is the key in this discussion. There's a difference between assisting law enforcement officials when a search warrant is issued by the court, and randomly giving out private information willy-nilly to private individuals who request it.

Which is the key in this discussion. There's a difference between assisting law enforcement officials when a search warrant is issued by the court, and randomly giving out private information willy-nilly to private individuals who request it.

Aaaaaaah, maybe. Again, I'm about the furthest thing from a lawyer you might hope to find, but I think that it would be possible to set up what Greg describes without running legal risk. I never had it in mind that Greg or I were going to drive over to the perp's house and break in.....

OTOH, Imagine the discussion that ensues: "Officer, I've dropped by the station to report my Empeg Car Player stolen. It is sending me secret signals from the thief's living room...."

Can Jim spell Western State Hospital?

Jim

Now Tony, don't get crazy on us here. Stay focused. This isn't willy nilly or random private individuals. This is in cases of theft, to the owners of the stolen property.

How many web access logs and statistics can you find by doing a search on google? Assuming they aren't filtering it, millions upon millions of people regularly put their access logs as publicly available. Now I agree this is a bad idea, but this isn't illegal. What we'd be doing is miniscule compared to this.

In addition, unless you're the guy who stole the empeg, you've got nothing to worry about.

If the thief chooses to steal the empeg, and chooses to sync it, then they choose to get caught.

Tony we're not asking for your home address so that I can post information on what kind of TV you have ... I'm asking for an ip address of a guy who just broke into my house, or my garage, violated MY privacy, violated my safety and the safety of my family, and stole MY property.

I'm asking for his IP address because I can give this to the police to track him down and put this criminal in jail. This information isn't something that is private. Everytime he hits a porn site, this information is available to that porn site. This ip address (that 'belongs' more to a telco than the individual) is just a means of tracking my stolen property.

I don't understand how this could be a problem for you. If it means getting someone's property returned, and putting a criminal in jail, I'll take the damned responsability of potentially getting sued by that jack-ass. Everytime I step out of my house, there's the likelihood that I'm going to get sued for someone. Everytime I shake someone's hand, in civil courts this is battery. I touched that man. If he wants to sue me for that, he's allowed to. If getting my property means I get one more tick on my "potentially sued for..." list, then so be it.

Key Facts:
1. IP address is public information, available whenever you use it.
2. IP address does not belong to an individual. It is a marker provided by the telco.
3. IP address would be that of the last location of a sync on stolen property.
4. IP address and serial number are only information available to theft victim, (maybe timestamp), and therefore police.

Greg

Okay, I'll admit that I'm not a lawyer and that I don't know the actual legality of these things. However, I would like to respond to one statement:

Everytime he hits a porn site, this information is available to that porn site.

Correct, the information is available to that site. However, if that porn site were to turn around and say "On this date/time, the following IP address accessed my site and downloaded illegal photos of minors", and they were to give that information to a private individual without a warrant, that would be (as I understand it) wrong. Even though the act of performing that download is illegal, the individual has a right to his privacy until a court deems the information necesssary in a criminal case.

I could be incorrect about the legality of this situation. Does anyone have any definitive information on this? Not just an opinion?

I disagree with this. My empeg belongs to me, unless I sell it. If someone has it in their posession, it still belongs to me. If someone steals my empeg, wipes the hard drives and sells it on ebay, it still belongs to me. If I sell or give my empeg away, then it doesn't belong to me.

Having something I own report it's location to me is not an invasion of anyones privacy. No theif has the right to hide stolen goods. I really don't see where you're coming from on this one...

I would love to have this work, and I doubt the traffic generated by it would be huge. 1,000 empegs reporting every hour would hardly tax a dsl line. The real problem is that it would be best implemented in emplod so that USB could trigger it.

Matthew

And you know what? This whole discussions is moot anyway. No one would tolerate spyware in Emplode. There's enough backlash against spyware as it is.

I disagree. Pleny of people would. Spyware is by definition spying on you. If people sign up for a service, it isn't spying to do exactly what they ask.

Matthew

And then the folks from kazaalite will release EmplodeLite with the spyware removed! Ironic on so many levels!

My empeg belongs to me, unless I sell it. If someone
has it in their posession, it still belongs to me.

Correct

If someone steals my empeg, wipes the hard drives and sells it on ebay, it still belongs to me

Wrong. If whoever bought that Empeg from the thief in good faith (and I don't see why this wouldn't be so when you buy something via Ebay), then the Empeg IS HIS property and WILL REMAIN his property, EVEN if the thief gets caught afterwards.

Best case, when the thief gets caught, you can demand that he repays you for the damages done (the value of the empeg), but you WON'T get the empeg back because at that point it has become the property of somebody else.

This is the law in Belgium anyway. Strange but true. Believe me, I know. I deal with these matters on a daily basis.

Some shmuck got my credit card information in LA and used it to purchase a cell phone in his name. What an idiot. I was able to get the guy's full information from AT&T and then when I reported it to the credit card company they didn't seem very concerned. I hope they nailed that SOB.

Calvin

Tony, if you had set your laptop's Active Desktop to point to your externally available but non-publicised personal web-server, and then someone stole it, would you consider it an invasion of the thief's privacy when their IP address showed up in your servers log files?

Would you consider someone trying to connect to your un-publicised web-server an invasion of your privacy and an un-authorised access attempt?

Would you consider using your web-server's log files to discern the IP address of somebody trying to illegally access your web-server ethical?

Would you consider giving that IP address to law enforcement officals ethical?

Well whatever we do, the guy that stole it will probably wander to this BBS and do a search on "stolen empeg" finding this thread.

...and there's the rub.

Even though the act of performing that download is illegal, the individual has a right to his privacy until a court deems the information necesssary in a criminal case.

This is not entirely true.
Over here, EVERYONE who gets notice of a crime being comitted has the obligation to report this to the authorities. So if you're an ISP and you notice that one of your subscribers is putting child porn pics on his dedicated web space on your servers, you'll have to notify the authorities about it.
What the authorities do with that information then is up to them. If they decide to press charges, good. If they don't, they have to state a good reason.
If the crime is discovered later on, and they find out that you knew about it for some time but didn't take any action to report it, they can sue YOU. (granted, the chances of this happing are practically zero, but the law does state it)

You're probably giving too much credit to the theif. They'll probably sell it to someone for $50, who will then turn around and sell it for $100 to someone who knows what it is and knows they're getting too good of a deal. But then perhaps I'm just prejudiced against theives in general. I'd actualy doubt the thing is going to hit ethernet untill it is one or two steps removed fom the thief.

Matthew

"Wrong. If whoever bought that Empeg from the thief in good faith (and I don't see why this wouldn't be so when you buy something via Ebay), then the Empeg IS HIS property and WILL REMAIN his property, EVEN if the thief gets caught afterwards.

Best case, when the thief gets caught, you can demand that he repays you for the damages done (the value of the empeg), but you WON'T get the empeg back because at that point it has become the property of somebody else."

This applies for the US as well.

Are you sure about that? I always thought you got your merchandise back and then the thief had to pay the buyer back. Besides, I think it's even illegal to have possession of stolen goods. How do you know the buyer wasn't the thief's partner?

As for violating privacy, I say if somebody stole something from you, you should have the right to bust down his door and take it back, privacy or not. That's what the police are gonna do anyway. Police aren't gods that have special rights (besides being able to speed). And you can always citizen's arrest the thief.

All this reminds me of the married with children episode where a guy breaks into Al's house and the thief sues Al for punching him, and then Al counter-sues the thief for hurting his hand when he hit his face.

At least in the US, your example would be considered possession of stolen property. Even if you are unaware that the property is previously stolen, it's still considered the property of the original owner. Failture to return it after discovery of it being stolen is theft after the fact.

Greg

Don't think so ... I'd sign up for it in a heartbeat. Hell, if there would be support in emplode for it, I'll build the back end myself, and even support it on my dsl line during testing.

Greg

As for violating privacy, I say if somebody stole something from you, you should have the right to bust down his door and take it back, privacy or not.

Be careful if you come in situation like that. After all, you also believe that people have right to shoot someone charging into their house, busting down their door... Right?

I only believe in that if it's me being the one with the gun

g

ROFL! Touché I believe!

If you know you are buying stolen goods, then yes, you are commiting a crime by doing so. However, If you obtain the goods in a good faith transaction (not out of the back of an unmarked white van), then the property becomes yours. All you can do is try to get the money out of the guy that sold it. Sorry, I cant find the relevant quote in my handy 100 dollar copy of west's business law that the bookstore wouldnt buy back.

Sean

I think this thread has lost touch with reality somewhat.

1. 99.99% of empeg thefts will result in the player NEVER getting connected to the internet. I would bet serious money that almost all stolen empegs end up in a trash can.

2. If you get a lead on someone who you think has stolen your empeg it seems almost impossible to get any action (short of visiting them yourself). I have supplied names, phone numbers and even addresses of people who I'm 99% certain have stolen players (direct from empeg in this case - card fraud) to the police in three major western countries. We were rewarded only with token interest, and as far as I know none of the information was acted upon. Maybe it would be better in the case of a theft from your vehicle, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Rob

Re. point 2 - from experience, I agree totally [see my earlier post way up this thread about CC fraud].

The UK police fell way short of my initial expectations, heck we even offered to set up a product delivery against a known bad card so they could nab the thief and they were not interested at all (it's the bank's loss, hey, wait a minute no, it's the merchant's loss, ah too bad).

I'm not trying to bash the UK police here but the whole theft/fraud thing here is totally wrong.

Good point, which shows why it might be wiser to let the police do their job, but still, I think if someone steals something from you then you have a right to take it back.

In reply to:

---

99.99% of empeg thefts will result in the player NEVER getting connected to the internet. I would bet serious money that almost all stolen empegs end up in a trash can.

---

Yeah, that's my guess as well, which only makes the whole thing that much more annoying. I'd almost prefer having someone who knew what the hell they had on their hands to steal it...

Reminds me of the time my Apple Newton was stolen. I can still picture it sitting in some trash can somewhere. *sigh*

On the bright side imagine the poor fuckwits face as he tries to feed it a CD as a couple of people have tried with mine.

Wrong. If whoever bought that Empeg from the thief in good faith (and I don't see why this wouldn't be so when you buy something via Ebay), then the Empeg IS HIS property and WILL REMAIN his property, EVEN if the thief gets caught afterwards.

IIRC, in the UK, if you unwittingly buy a stolen car, it still belongs to the original owner. The police can take it from you and give it back to the original owner, without reimbursing you for it.

I am definitely adding the word "fuckwit" to my vocabulary!

I Totally agree with your comments about the law enforcement not being interested in stolen goods, unless it's a traffic offence they just don't care!

BUT

If someone broke into my car I'd feel personally violated and if there was any way to find out who it was then believe me I'd get the boys in the back of a truck and pay them a visit!

I work hard for my posessions and someone that smashes their way into your car with no regards for what they are doing has no values and should be stopped, even if that means using extreme force!

I think that emplode/jemplode could check serial numbers and maybe offer a little hope for crime victims, even if only to block updates or trash the hard drive of the computer trying to run the stolen goods!

Personally, I take my player out of the car every night, but I know the grief I felt when someone done thousands of pounds worth of damage to my car to steal low value accessories, probably just for beer money!

IIRC, in the UK, if you unwittingly buy a stolen car, it still belongs to the original owner. The police can take it from you and give it back to the original owner, without reimbursing you for it.

Could be, I'm not up to date on UK law. But over here it's like that. Of course, I did say when the stolen goods are bought in good faith.
A car always comes with certain documents through which you can almost immediately tell if something's fishy or not. If those documents are not ok, or they are missing completely, accompanied by an offered price that is way less than the car is worth (even second hand) then the law states that that should have rung a bell.

If it didn't and you buy the car anyway, you'll loose the protection of the "in good faith" clause, and the car can be taken away from you. ('cause the law figures "nobody can the that stupid") You'll probably even get sued yourself for fencing (is that the correct term?) stolen goods (and rightfully so I say!)

Hahahaha... I can definitely picture that!

On a related note; I had a fun time explaining the empeg to my insurance agent:

"And then there's the additional laptop hard drive that was in there..."

"...laptop hard drive...???"

The fact that I still have all my original receipts and they decided to simply reimberse me for the original purchase prices made the exercise downright enjoyable.

I am definitely adding the word "fuckwit" to my vocabulary!

Make sure to use "assmonkey", too. I'd like to see that one in greater circulation.

If your goin to use assmonkey, you have to put down one of my favorites, no talent assclown

The police need permission to enter either from the owner or a judge. They can't enter any place willy nilly. Note: The police can enter any public location without permission, such as donut shop. I point this out because you don't seem to understand the difference between a private residence and a public location owned by a private indivdual. (different) :-p

Calvin

Just Cause.

I guess it's the worst half of a halfwit?

g

True police cant, but Game Wardens can, where police have to have facts to gain warrants Game Wardens work completely on suspicion and always have the final word. It would be scary if police had that power.

I'm gonna register my empeg as a pheasant, and myself as a game warden

The Police can enter a premises on reasonable suspision of illegal acts and get an entry warrant later.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Stolen property is stolen, no matter what the buyer knows or says. There is no "good faith" law - the original owner gets the property back and the buyer is screwed.

I don't know where you get this strange idea that a buyer can keep stolen goods. Please provide a reference in law.

I'm saying this is the law in Belgium. I don't know what the law is in Canada (according to your profile that's where you're from)

I'm not going to look up the exact article in my books of criminal law because that would mean :
1) a lot of work for me
2) you wouldn't be able to verify it since I don't believe you have those books too

That, and it would be very difficult for me to provide an exact translation from dutch into English of those articles without altering their meaning (even slightly).

I guess you just have to take my word for it, if you don't believe me that's fine by me. But as I've said before, I've been dealing with these kinds of things on a daily basis for the last five years now, so I guess I do have some knowledge on the subject.

In reply to:

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no-talent assclown

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Ah...from "Office Space"...one of my favorite movies. I second that one.

Speaking of law..here's some offtopic law stories:
http://www.archervalerie.com/lawdis.html

It doesn't matter if it's in good faith or not; the buyer was receiving stolen goods (whether they knew it or not).

This has happened a lot with japanese car imports recently. People buy a jap imported car - sometimes for prices in the $40,000 range, and get it taken away by the police and returned to japan. NO compensation, unless they can sue the dealer they bought it from and get the money back. Because of the demand for fast RHD jap cars (supras, imprezas, etc) this has been happening a lot. One sensationalist TV programme was saying that up to about 25% of all the jap imports were stolen, but there was no easy way of checking the stolen registers in other countries.

Hugo

Here in Switzerland for example it does matter whether you bought it in good faith or not. If you bought in good faith you can keep it, no matter if it's been stolen before.

Marc

Hi Rob.

It doesn't matter if it's in good faith or not; the buyer was receiving stolen goods (whether they knew it or not).

Depends on what happened. If it got stolen, then you are right. However, german law seems to indicate (from the quick browsing of relevant paragraphs I just did, german law: BGB §§986-1003,1007), that there is some order in the claims to be fulfilled.

Let's say A originally owned a good, B stole it from him an C bought it from B. If this is the case, A has the right to demand the good from C. However, C has the right to hold on to the good until his claims regarding this good are fulfilled (i.e. B paid him back). Also, A has the opportunity to demand compensation for the stolen good from B, but if he does so, he looses the right to demand the good from C. Compensation for the good itself left aside, A can always demand compensation for lack of use from B.
If A's insurance already paid for the good (and as such, A got compensated for the good) and C bought the good in good faith, noone can demand the good from C, neither B nor A's insurance.

If the good was lost, and C found it, C must deliver the good back to A, but has the right to hold it back until he got 3-5% of the goods value (5% on values below 500EUR, 3% above 500EUR and for animals) plus his expenses.

If the good was lost, found by B and bought from B by C, it get's more complicated again (but similar to the first (theft) variant, except A can't demand compensation for a lack of use).

Also, if the good was lost, and C found it, C has to indicate his finding to the appropriate governmental agency. Six month from the date of indication of the finding, C gains the full rights on the good, no matter what, even if B stole the good from A and lost it.
In other words: If you buy some stolen good (even in good faith), and the original owner finds you and can proove his rights, you are loosing the good. If you find a stolen good (and don't know it was stolen), and the original owner finds you 6 month and one day after you reported your findings to the officials, you keep the good. Obviously, if you know the good was stolen for some reason, or get to know that it was stolen within 6 month after your finding (and reporting it), you can't keep it.

And I really expect that Belgian law is really similar to german law.

cu,
sven

I strongly suggest to you and Archeon that you check current law. I know this was the case in Germany too, not too long ago (well, some time within the last 10 years or something). But as you can see from my rather lengthy post above, it isn't the case anymore.

cu,
sven

I like the post about registering your empeg as a pheasant and yourself as a game warden.. for those of you ignorant to this, here in the states a Game Warden is probably THEE most powerful law enforcement officer when it comes to search and seizure. They can walk in to anyplace at anytime (I believe without a warrant even) to conduct a search and its legal.

On another note.. if I had my player stolen, had it set up for internet access and actually saw it online one day, I probably would make the trip to its location and try to steal it back. Fair is fair, there is no honor amoung thieves, turn about is fair play, what goes around comes around and all those other used up cliches.

(deleted)

But a search for what? Animals? For instance, if they see a guy that looks like a stoner, can they go in his house and look for pot based just on looks? For some reason I think their special powers may have more to do with checking for illegal hunting and fishing.

Hi Sven,

The law as I state it was still the law as it was practiced five years ago, when it was thought to me (in school) by the district attorney of one of the major cities in Belgium. I don't believe the law has changed since then. (not sure though)

Just for fun, I pulled out my book of criminal law, edition '98-'99 in which it states (roughly translated) :
Book of criminal law, as written 09/06/1867, err. 05/10/1867, err. 02/12/1964/
Book two, title IX, crimes commited to properties
art.505 :
With a prison sentence of 15 days to five year and with a fine of 26Bfr to 100.000Bfr are being punished :
1) those who fence stolen, embezzled or by criminal acts optained goods or parts of them;
2) those who have bought, traded, have in their possession, keeping, or management goods of which they should know of should have known the origin;
....

... in other words : if you're in the possession of stolen goods of which can reasonably be assumed that there was no way for you to check their origin (like with goods bought from ebay) then you can't be charged with fencing and you get to keep to goods.
When it comes to cars, that's something entirely different, because cars come with official documents, serial numbers, licence plates,... all of them are sources that can be checked. So if you get burned there that "reasonable assumption" is not in effect.

Keep things in perspective guys, after all, this discussion began about a stolen Empeg, not a stolen car.

Please don't shoot the messenger, I'm merely stating it as it's been taught to me.

The fuller form is of course "tatooed fuckwit" as said by the great billy connoly

Very sad but true in the uk traffic offences lots of police intrested, your hard earned things nicked why bother telling them.

I would take it back in that situation. I would also help the person remember that crime doesn't pay.

Right.

Would you go after a motorist or a man with a gun if all you had was a stick to protect yourself?

At least all the cameras could record your slaughter!!

I will ask a colleague of mine who is studying law at the university and get him to tell me how current law is regarding this subject...

When I was at university about five years ago, it was taught the way I tried it to explain in my last post. Maybe it has changed though.

Marc

Here in NZ, if you buy stolen goods "in good faith" you wont be sent to jail as per that law you quote.

But the goods will still be returned to their original owner.

Here in NZ, if you buy stolen goods "in good faith" you wont be sent to jail as per that law you quote.

But the goods will still be returned to their original owner.

keeping the goods, and being charged with theft are two quite seperate issues.

Correct, the information is available to that site. However, if that porn site were to turn around and say "On this date/time, the following IP address accessed my site and downloaded illegal photos of minors", and they were to give that information to a private individual without a warrant, that would be (as I understand it) wrong.

Isn't that what hundreds of american firms do whenever you access half the sites on the internet?

I never gave doubleclick.net permission to track my ip and all the sites i visit. But doubleclick do track that info and make it available.

>I've also seen how (excuse my non tech cell lingo) cell phone scanners can pick up the serial # from cell phones when they're in use and use them to place their own calls thus making free calls on someone else's bill. The guy usually won't find out until his bill comes.

That's a uniquely USA thing. GSM networks, and upgraded USA networks, now prevent cloning attacks with authentication mechanisms (random challenge/response).