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ideas for getting a lost iphone back

J

JATF

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2009
17
0
hey everyone, the other day i lost my iphone in a bad neighboorhood. I cancelled it and reported it to the police but i feel like there's got to be another way to get a hightech, always connected, phone back.

some of the ideas i had were to send the phone an email with tracking code in it. code from a website like statcounter.com or something that could track its ip address. I guess my question is will that work? what will having the ip address get me?
also my phone was hacked and probably had openssh on it. would that help in anyway?
does anyone have experience recovering a stolen iphone?
any suggestions are greatly appreciated
 
JATF said:
hey everyone, the other day i lost my iphone in a bad neighboorhood. I cancelled it and reported it to the police but i feel like there's got to be another way to get a hightech, always connected, phone back.

some of the ideas i had were to send the phone an email with tracking code in it. code from a website like statcounter.com or something that could track its ip address. I guess my question is will that work? what will having the ip address get me?
also my phone was hacked and probably had openssh on it. would that help in anyway?
does anyone have experience recovering a stolen iphone?
any suggestions are greatly appreciated
Click to expand...

The answer to all of your questions are: no and/or nothing.
 
probably shouldn't be taking out my anger here but it seems so stupid that as ridiculously connected the iphone is, it becomes untraceable when lost. what's even more despicable is i never had the option to get insurance on the phone. i just cant believe att or somebody couldn't trace it, and it makes me angry that they wont even try, especially since they wouldn't sell me insurance on it.
but anyways, thanks for the answer.
 
Hmm.....if your phone had one of those social locating services on it, like maybe Loopt or something, you might be able to locate it using a friend's computer. I've never used those type of apps, but just an idea.
 
You win some, you lose some... literally.

Don't go blaming others for not offering you insurance when you can easy go get insurance or some tracking device yourself!
 
freediverdude said:
Hmm.....if your phone had one of those social locating services on it, like maybe Loopt or something, you might be able to locate it using a friend's computer. I've never used those type of apps, but just an idea.
Click to expand...
i think who ever has it would have to open the app so probably a no go, but thanks.
 
You could post fliers of what it looked like and start a candlelight vigil. Maybe even go on shows like Nancy Grace and infer a conspiracy or something. Maybe then you could even confront Steve Jobs, as she blames him for the loss and starts yelling at him. Thats what I would do. Eventually a made for TV movie could be made starring lorenzo lamas and markie post. They could portray those gutwrenching first few hours when everyone is like "Where's Billy?...Have you seen Billy?...He was right here a second ago in the shopping cart.... BILLY!!! BILLY!!!! Where's billy ? He was wearing a eco friendly bright red plastic case made from recycled water bottles and condoms, that protected him from damage and scratches but at the same time, allowed full access to the home screen all the while maintaining a slim form factor coming in at just under 1mm . BILLY???? Have you seen Billy!!!!" What am I gonna do? :rolleyes:

Eventually your iphone will turn up years down the road as it was forced into some third world country phone ring in which strange men pay money to touch its screen and dial foul questionable numbers. When you get it back, you don't even recognize it because the screen has been scratched all to hell and the back has been replaced with one of those cheap chinese ones bought off of ebay. You try to move on, but the iphone is now different, constantly making calls at night despite putting it in airplane mode and when you get mad at it, it just goes into DFU mode as though to say , "I'm not talking anymore". Despite trying to pass it off as a normal iphone you are forced to accept the fact that it likes being jailbroken and having malicious code spewn all inside it. That all though might be better for the sequel of "I know my name is not Apple"
 
akeemD said:
You win some, you lose some... literally.

Don't go blaming others for not offering you insurance when you can easy go get insurance or some tracking device yourself!
Click to expand...

who offers insurance options for lost phones or tracking devices? I did have accidental handeling insurence from squaretrade that was voided when i jailbroke the phone. and the only tracking software i know of for the phone works only on jailbroken phones. so it's kind of a catch 22
 
JATF said:
who offers insurance options for lost phones or tracking devices? I did have accidental handeling insurence from squaretrade that was voided when i jailbroke the phone. and the only tracking software i know of for the phone works only on jailbroken phones. so it's kind of a catch 22
Click to expand...
Nono, I mean before-hand.
 
branjosef said:
You could post fliers of what it looked like and start a candlelight vigil. Maybe even go on shows like Nancy Grace and infer a conspiracy or something. Maybe then you could even confront Steve Jobs, as she blames him for the loss and starts yelling at him. Thats what I would do. Eventually a made for TV movie could be made starring lorenzo lamas and markie post. They could portray those gutwrenching first few hours when everyone is like "Where's Billy?...Have you seen Billy?...He was right here a second ago in the shopping cart.... BILLY!!! BILLY!!!! Where's billy ? He was wearing a eco friendly bright red plastic case made from recycled water bottles and condoms, that protected him from damage and scratches but at the same time, allowed full access to the home screen all the while maintaining a slim form factor coming in at just under 1mm . BILLY???? Have you seen Billy!!!!" What am I gonna do? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

geez, I'm not asking for pitty or anything just mainly looking if someone had any useful suggestions aren't the idea of a forum to help other people out. your just being a dick
 
JATF said:
geez, I'm not asking for pitty or anything just mainly looking if someone had any useful suggestions aren't the idea of a forum to help other people out. your just being a dick
Click to expand...

I thought it was obvious that I was joking, but thanks for calling me a dick.
 
JATF said:
can you explain in case i buy another one
Click to expand...
Well in the UK, o2 sells insurance for the iPhone (link) which covers theft, loss, accidental damage etc. But since you're in the US, I don't have a clue who sells iPhone insurance.
 
akeemD said:
Well in the UK, o2 sells insurance for the iPhone (link) which covers theft, loss, accidental damage etc. But since you're in the US, I don't have a clue who sells iPhone insurance.
Click to expand...

thanks. i remember the att rep i got it from said you could put it under home owners insurence. guess ill do that next time
 
All cell phones have an internal serial number. ATT will know if the phone is being used or activated again with a new sim card.
This is the case with any cell phone, not just the iphone.

Call ATT ask for your serial number, then ask them to check and see if it is being used.

Ask for a supervisor since most of the regular employees would not have a clue.
Expect it not to go easy, ATT is the hardest company to deal with.
 
Why is the first reaction if you lose your phone you automatically cancel it. If the person isnt smart enough to not use it could to call his friend like an idiot saying "Hey i found an iphone, its awesome!' Then you could have AT&T alert you if it is used. Then they could maybe track it or find the person he called and ask him who it was.

On the other hand some people will restore it.
Although I dont have a iPhone(might get one soon). So if the iphone bricks when the sim is cancelled, smart move. but on the other hand.
 
scottnj1966 said:
All cell phones have an internal serial number. ATT will know if the phone is being used or activated again with a new sim card.
This is the case with any cell phone, not just the iphone.

Call ATT ask for your serial number, then ask them to check and see if it is being used.

Ask for a supervisor since most of the regular employees would not have a clue.
Expect it not to go easy, ATT is the hardest company to deal with.
Click to expand...

thanks for the help, ill try that today. its currently deactivated, but does anyone know if you can get att to trace it to the cell tower its connected to or something, assuming it still connects to them for e911 and time after being deactivated?
then maybe ill be close enough to go find its mac address in its wifi signal if i drive around? i think i know what neighboor hood its in too so that kind of info would help the police get a warrent right? well assuming they could trace it to a specific house?

thanks everyone for the advice
 
Mexbearpig said:
Why is the first reaction if you lose your phone you automatically cancel it. If the person isnt smart enough to not use it could to call his friend like an idiot saying "Hey i found an iphone, its awesome!' Then you could have AT&T alert you if it is used. Then they could maybe track it or find the person he called and ask him who it was.

On the other hand some people will restore it.
Although I dont have a iPhone(might get one soon). So if the iphone bricks when the sim is cancelled, smart move. but on the other hand.
Click to expand...

yeah i didn't deactivate it until i was sure it wasn't me who misplaced it. the person who took it called 3 people multiple times and stopped hours before i deactivated it. i assume the battery died then.
 
If the person called people, you can get the numbers off of your AT&T online account access.

At that point it's really up to you what you do. I don't see the police doing anything about it if you call them with the numbers so I guess your best bet would be to call the numbers yourself. Something tells me the people he called aren't going to be too helpful when you call though.
 
lostprophet894 said:
If the person called people, you can get the numbers off of your AT&T online account access.

At that point it's really up to you what you do. I don't see the police doing anything about it if you call them with the numbers so I guess your best bet would be to call the numbers yourself. Something tells me the people he called aren't going to be too helpful when you call though.
Click to expand...

thanks, yeah i did all that. one was a daycare center another was a line that didn't work and the other was a guy i generally dont think knew. the calls were around 730 am on sat in the span of 15mins and each call says 1 min on it, so i don't think anyone answered.
 
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