When I boarded an Amtrak train this summer, I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for.

Upon arrival at my home stop in Connecticut, I realized that my iPhone was missing. I still had hope, though. Apple's free Find My iPhone service uses GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular information to locate lost i-gadgets on a map. After a couple of days, Find My iPhone e-mailed me to announce that it had found my phone—a map revealed it to be at a house in Seat Pleasant, Md.

Well, great. How was I going to retrieve a phone five states away? On a nutty whim, I posted a note to my Twitter followers about my lost phone. “Find My iPhone shows it in MD. Anyone want to help me track it down? ADVENTURE!” And I included a map showing the green locator dot over a satellite image of a nondescript house.

Within an hour the quest to recover my phone was on blogs, Twitter, and even national newspapers and television shows. “Where's Pogue's phone?” became a high-tech treasure hunt.

Using the address provided by Find My iPhone, local police got involved. The homeowner confessed to stealing the phone—no doubt baffled as to how the police had known exactly how to find him. And a day later I had the phone back. (I decided not to press charges.)

To me, that was that. Modern tech + good old-fashioned police work = happy ending, right?

Not for everyone. Lots of people were disturbed by the affair. They saw my posting the thief's address as a gross violation of his privacy.

“Are there to be ANY limits in this country?” wrote one reader. “Mr. Pogue … not only … crowdsourced instant ‘deputies,’ giving [them] detailed maps of the device's location but got the police to go to that location. That location is someone's home. What's the presumption of privacy there?”

My initial thought was: “Wait a minute—we're expressing sympathy for the thief?” When you steal something, don't you risk giving up some rights? How was my Twitter post any different from the “wanted” posters of suspects' photographs that still hang in post offices?

Of course, the difference in this case is that I, not law enforcement, posted the map and began the chase. Does that constitute a breach of the thief's rights? Is this a slippery slope into a world where the Internet's citizens become digital vigilantes?

Those are tricky questions. Even when the government or law-enforcement agencies want to get cell location information, the law is not always clear-cut. Sometimes the police require a warrant to obtain such information from cell phone companies; in other instances, they do not. In my case, there's not even much law to guide us, says Chris Soghoian, a privacy researcher at Indiana University Bloomington. A bill proposed last year in Congress, nicknamed the GPS Act, would have addressed “find my phone” services, saying that it's “not unlawful” for the owner of a stolen phone to use geolocation information to help an investigation.

It is possible, Soghoian says, that I violated some kind of state harassment or stalking statute. For the most part, however, both the legal and ethical ramifications of my crowdsourced phone quest are nothing but murk. It would have been better if I had been able to recover the phone without blasting a photograph of the guy's home to the Internet at large. It would have been better if he hadn't taken my phone at all or had responded to the “Reward if found” messages I sent to its screen. Yet combining the powers of geotracking and social networking seemed such an obvious tactic that, at the time, I hardly gave it a second thought.

In the end, maybe what society really needs is an app called Find My Moral Compass.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
Apps to find your lost phone: ScientificAmerican.com/nov2012/pogue

This article was originally published with the title To Track My Thief.

17 Comments

1. 1. janeq 08:14 AM 10/23/12

   If you violate another person's privacy by stealing their personal device, then you give up the right to your own privacy. It's that simple.

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2. 2. BillR 08:53 AM 10/23/12

   The thief should count himself lucky. In another time or place, he could have lost a hand.
   
   The problem with the privacy uproar is that everyone is paranoid that they themselves might get caught doing something they should not be doing. I should have privacy and security concerning access to my finances, and other private information but I do not deserve privacy protection for any illegal or immoral activities.
   
   Of course, just tossing this kind of information out into the public eye is not very tactful. I would have sent the information directly to the local police in the thief's jurisdiction with a request to retrieve your personal property and left it at that. It is up to you whether to press charges or not but that person's actions were definitely criminal and subject to the law.

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3. 3. divcurl 09:10 AM 10/23/12

   I think you have provided a great service. You were entirely innocent and did not presume to track an individual. That person and other will now think twice before attempting a similar crime. The right to protection against unreasonable search an seisure is a mandate to surpress uncontrolled federal power. We have generalized this concept far too much.

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4. 4. lowndesw 10:08 AM 10/23/12

   I agree with janeq that when someone STEALS your property, you have a very legal and moral right to track them down and get it back. Even more so, in this case, the author was tracking his PHONE, not the thief.
   
   I don't steal stuff, but I have FOUND stuff, including phones. Pogue didn't say exactly HOW he and his phone got separated to begin with, but chances are that he LEFT IT on the seat when he got off.
   
   If someone finds it and takes it home, are they a thief?? I have done exactly that, several times, usually in a restaurant. I was able to identify and locate the owner, call them and arrange a delivery, before the cops arrived to arrest me.
   
   What about the "Lost and Found" at the restaurant/train station/airport/auto rental?? I have had too many bad experiences with people there pocketing the item. And in the real world, they are usually too busy to go thru the identification and location process, IF they knew how to operate the phone.
   
   Therefore, I believe it is proper and just to locate your phone, AND have the police recover it. But I think it MIGHT be jumping to conclusion to publicly label the person with your phone a thief.
   
   
   

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5. 5. edrew 01:28 PM 10/23/12

   I'm not sympathetic to thieves, but here's what happened to me: after a flight, I took out my my cell phone and found it had reverted to default settings (no personalized screen, contact list, etc.) and I could not access my voice mail. Called Verizon and went through all sorts of troubleshooting. Was I sure this was my phone? Yes, I was. They told me it was registered to someone else. How did this happen? They didn't know. No solution. Used my husband's cell instead.
   
   A few days later, packing for another flight, I found a duplicate phone in my bag. MY phone. I had accidentally picked up someone else's phone, identical to mine. Very unlikely, as it's not an iPhone but a Samsung old-fashioned flip phone. This must happen to iPhone people all the time. If all the settings are at default, how can you tell?
   
   I dropped the "stolen" phone at a Verizon store on the way to the airport. What would I have thought if cops had shown up at my door? If I could not produce my duplicate? The fact that you sent your phone a reward message, might, of course, have helped--unless, like me, you don't do texts.
   
   

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6. 6. cccampbell38 07:29 PM 10/23/12

   If you don't do anything wrong you do not need privacy in public places. The phone was taken in a public place. It was wrong. Taking the stolen item home should not somehow make it a privacy issue.

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7. 7. Greenberet 07:09 AM 10/24/12

   I agree with the statement that the person who does something illegal gives up his or her rights.
   But what if a person just picks up a phone, which has been stolen and abandoned by other people, on the street, and it is tracked by its owner? How can this person prove his or her innocence?

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8. 8. PhilB 06:22 AM 10/30/12

   You were right to take the information you had to the police. Wrong to put it in the public domain, in my opinion. And it's not so much a privacy argument (though privacy issues are clearly engaged) as a due process one.
   
   Though you turned out to be correct in this instance that it was stolen, other posters have already mentioned circumstances in which a phone might NOT have been stolen, but still end up in someone else's possession (I found someone's iPhone on a bus last year. The lady was very glad to get it back, but it took a while to work out how to reach her.)
   
   Losing possession of your phone does not make you judge and jury. Had there been a different outcome (e.g. an actual or even plausible explanation as to why the person had your phone in your possession) calling someone "thief" in public and giving out their address might - justifiably - have exposed you to legal action.

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9. 9. lowndesw 07:52 AM 10/30/12

   PhilB brings up a good point, it can be very difficult for a "Good Samaritan" who finds your phone to determine who is the owner AND how to reach them, even if they are familiar with that type phone.
   
   As I used to preach to the Boy Scouts and parents, "If you DON'T want it back, DO NOT put you name on it."
   
   I suspect that 99% of all missing phones are left somewhere and the person that finds the phone either tries to find the owner or not. How would someone outright "steal" your phone?? Maybe a "purse snatcher" or pickpocket, maybe steal a jacket or briefcase with the phone in it. Maybe a car break in??

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10. 10. ccccclark 11:29 PM 11/3/12

    I read nothing in the piece that indicates the person who had the phone was a thief other than Pogue's assertion that he was. I see no reason why he should have had to return the phone, other than it wasn't worth any harassment to keep it. If there were a "confession", I'd love to hear the details - one would have thought the cops would have taken more interest.
    
    I'd think that a tech guru would have a clone of his phone, just replace the SIM and forget it. There's no better feeling than recovering something you've lost, but to call in a virtual possee? Out of line....
    

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11. 11. RonGraves 09:02 AM 11/6/12

    @ccccclark Please explain exactly which part of "The homeowner confessed to stealing the phone..." you're having trouble with.
    
    While you're at it, explain how he just replaces the SIM when he no longer has the phone.
    
    As for the original question, I have another - why not keep your phone where it can't be stolen in the first place? Pockets are rather good for this purpose.
    
    I mean, seriously, just how the hell did you manage to get it stolen in the first place? How did it even get out of your sight, to be stolen, on a train journey?
    
    Like many people, I take large items, like phones, out of my pockets when seated, in a bar, or maybe on a train, but if I leave my seat for any reason, they come with me at all times. It's not rocket science. For something to be stolen like this, you must have provided the opportunity.
    
    And no, it wasn't right to publish the thief's address, not least because, at the time, you had no idea if they'd stolen it or found it. Vigilantism writ large.

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12. 12. bgmayes 04:34 PM 11/7/12

    This is an assumption, but I'm guessing/betting that Pogue CALLED his phone first and THEN sent the reward text message and upon no response (after two days from his story above), decided to act otherwise. Those actions show IMHO that A) Pogue did his due diligence in trying to retrieve it and help the person that found it return it and B) the finder had no intention of returning it and therefore IS a thief as stated.
    Pogue ALSO stated that the home owner admitted to stealing the phone. At which point, like others said above, the THIEF foregoes his rights to privacy. I can concede that there are some situations that may be UNIQUELY innocent, but to sacrifice justice for what most would consider extremely unlikely situations seems absurd. Pro-Pogue.

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13. 13. ccccclark 02:20 AM 11/9/12

    re @RonGraves's "please explain", here's the LONG version of my "trouble". I'm bringing up a lot of issues here - hopefully it'll spark some thoughtful response, maybe even from Pogue. Since I've gone through the trouble to write out my troubles, and now when I go to submit the web form says I've "exceeded the allowed character count" (then why did it initially allow me to type to my heart's content?) I'll try submitting it as multiple comments. Hopefully the software won't block multiple submissions. If this is abuse, report me...
    
    TROUBLE #1
    
    Pogue starts out with "When I boarded .... I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for." He then states that "[on arriving home] I realized that my iPhone was missing." So exactly what sort of ride did Pogue have? If he was mugged, held up, or had some other "ADVENTURE" relate to the missing phone, wouldn't he have written about it?
    
    As one can divide people between those that have either a "cup half empty" or a "cup half full" outlook, there is also a distict divide betwen the "stolen"s and the "misplaced"s. When something goes missing, the first type blames someone else. The second blame themselves. In his first 2 paragraphs, Pogue defines himself as a "stolen". This colors my outlook on the rest of his piece.
    
    

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14. 14. ccccclark 02:22 AM 11/9/12

    TROUBLE #2
    
    Pogue continues by saying he places his hope of getting his phone back on " Apple's free Find My iPhone service". Huh?!? I have had cel phones since the early 1990s. Before that, I had commercial band radios with telephone patching - I never lost these, they were hefty. Over the years, I probably have misplaced cel phones for a day or two several dozen times. (One problem is that most of them are black, which I attribute to manufacturer's intent - they are DESIGNED to get lost.) I usually get the misplaced ones back, but in any case I always have a backup ready to go, so that I'm not very inconvenienced when one goes missing. (More on replacing SIMs later). I'd say I've owned about 5 in my life, which indicates that my recovery rate is pretty good, without any help from Apple.
    
    I have retrieved misplaced phones by
    
    1) hearing my phone ring when I call myself on my backup phone (under the car seat, in an unexpected pocket)
    
    2) someone else answering my misplaced phone when I call it and arranging to return it to me (a reward, always offered, is usually refused)
    
    3) someone digging into my phone and calling someone I'd previously called, asking THAT person to put us in touch. After all, while one can easily check a cel phone's number, how does one get an ALTERNATE number for the owner? I've never put a password on my phone, which helps. What about Pogue? If he had access to his phone password protected, whoever had the phone in their possession certainly wouldn't have been able to investigate its provenance by looking at its contents. Was this to his advantage?
    
    

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15. 15. ccccclark 02:24 AM 11/9/12

    Trouble #3
    
    Pogue uses social media to call in a possee, the police get involved, and the phone is retrieved. No problem. However, Pogue then writes "The homeowner confessed to stealing the phone". I find this statement HIGHLY unlikely. If the cops come to your door looking for a missing phone that you have, it's very likely you'd "confess" to HAVING the phone. Why lie to hang onto a little piece of silicon and plastic? Pogue tells us that his "thief" is a "homeowner", so extreme poverty is not a motivating factor here.
    No one in their right mind, however, would confess to STEALING the thing. "Oh yes, officer, I have this phone because I noticed a man put it in his coat pocket, afterwhich I waited for my chance and filched it when he was distracted" - does this seem realistic? Pogue writes that he "decided not to press charges." It sems to me he actually had no grounds to. Since he indicates that, other than arriving home with his phone missing, his train trip was uneventful, what details could he give to back up his assertion that his phone was stolen, rather than just lost? That it had belonged to him but was now in someone else's possession indicates nothing about the legality of how it was obtained. Regardless of a "stolen"s outlook, Keeping something you find is NOT a crime. Theft must be proven. If the person who had the phone DID somehow find out who its owner was and how to contact him, he/she would be immoral, and Pogue would be justified in calling them an a**h***, but not a thief. If he/she actually began to "confess", the police would have been obliged to read them their Miranda rights and take them in - Pogue's pressing charges would have been irrelevant.
    
    

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16. 16. ccccclark 02:27 AM 11/9/12

    TROUBLE #4
    
    Pogue says that he "[sent] Reward if found” messages ... to [his phone's] screen". I had an iPhone for a while, and thought I'd probed all its features, but if what Pogue says is true he needs to teach us how -it's not obvious. Is Pogue saying he remotely changed his screen backround to "Reward if found - call xxx-xxx-xxxx"? I use computer to computer remote control programs all the time, but I've never seen anything like that for phones. A Google search on "iOS remote control" brings up lots of apps for controlling things FROM your phone, but not about controlling your phone's settings from something else. Pogue, how did you do it??? In the interest of "due diligence" did you also remotely change your ringtone to "Help - I'm lost- please call xxx-xxx-xxxx to reach my owner"? If not, how did you expect the phone's custodian to know how to get in touch with you? After all, answering someone else's phone, or reading someone's text messages, is CERTAINLY a gross invasion of privacy. By ignoring them, your "thief" was just doing the right thing!
    

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17. 17. ccccclark 02:42 AM 11/9/12

    re RG's question about replacing SIMs, most likely he overlooked the word "clone" in my comment, but since due to his precautions he’s probably never lost a phone, I'll clarify. I suggested that I'd expect a tech guru to have a duplicate of his phone. If not, he'd certainly have its contents backed up on his computer. So, he had the option of going to his service provider and getting a new SIM for his old number, popping it into his backup phone, and, if the backup phone weren't already cloned, restoring it from the computer backup. (The SIM in the original phone is deactivated when the cel company activates the new one.) A pain, but certainly less disruptive to one's life than mounting an uncertain crusade to retrieve the original. OTOH, Pogue's a writer, and the route he took gave him something to write about. So, different strokes for different folks, I guess. All in all, it's a tempest in a teapot.

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