Headsup About Security of your Sheds, Tools and Big Boys Toys

[Timless Timber]

Just a heads up for members about security of your sheds tools and big boys expensive toys!

Guys - there's been a rash lately in Perth of thefts of big boys expensive toys here in Perth - stuff that can be sold via gumtree or sent east to sell etc...and make a quick buck for the drug crazies around the joint.

Mostly its been off-road motorbikes (like 3 or 4 a night - every night) but also are included, jet skis, quad bikes, go karts, Clubsports and FPV vehicles....even the odd boat.

Plods been at a loss to explain the upsurge... it seems organized.

Some bright sparks figured out the connection and posted about it.

It's all to do with photos posted online (facebook and forums 'like this one') that have been posted online - of their sheds and toys that have been taken and posted with the new I Phones with cameras built in!

These new smart phones have a GPS chip in them that can track the whereabouts of the phone at all times - you can use them as a car navigator for example!.

I+unknown to many is that unless you specifically go into the phones menu and disable "geocaching" option that allows to hone to track from satellites via its GPS chip - that when you take a photo, the geocaching software actually saves a GPS coordinate location within the photo metadata file of where the pic was physically taken.

So,

If you then upload that pic of your shed and all it's treasures and expensive toys... the young phone tech savvy thieves, often using a stolen Iphone, can download your photo, open it's meta data file and extract the GPS coordinates from the geocaching record of where the photo was taken, and download THAT data into google earth on the phone and then navigate right to your shed where the item's stored.

With the address now known they can look up the electoral role online for your name and then search your facebook page, if you don't have good security settings they can see posts from you your wife and kid and friends etc saying your off to Bali for a week - back next Tuesday and that one of your kids will be looking after the dog at their place etc.

They now know exactly what treasures and big boys expensive toys you have and what shed they are in to come steal the lot when no ones home.

There's been instances of rental moving trucks pulling up, and cleaning out entire sheds of motor bike collections etc.

So it would seem that if your determined to post pics of your treasures on line and you use a smart phone to take the pics be SURE to disable the geocaching option in your menu if you dont want to provide the thieves desperate for their next drug fix - with all the info they need right in their hand - to rob you blind.

It's a brave new world out there folks, and these kids seem to know how to exploit any loop holes to their advantage.

Stay safe, lock up your stuff and don't post pics online of your treasures and toys that have your address in them.

Most will tell you that a big savage dog is the answer - but it seems we now have crime rings with dog fighting meets - who use the online phones pics thing, of peoples pets to target which dogs to steal now - the more savage the better!

Crimes just spiraled out of control of late here in the west, and it seems these new smart phones are just a tad to smart for the average bloke and the crims know how to exploit them only to well.

With the offroad bikes theft thing - the teen gangs kids members have all been to the movies and seen these drifting / car racing etc pics - and they have organized themselves for off road bike races out of the suburbs every night of the week - and the condition of entry is you have to have stolen the bike that week, & if you lose the race the other guy gets the bike... they get stripped for parts & sold etc

Plod seems powerless to stop it as they can't keep up with the technology. Many of them are still typing reports about the thefts on typewriters for goodness sakes, while the crims all use stolen smart Iphones laptops and Ipads etc.

Hopefully this might save a few of you becoming next weeks victim.

Cheers!

[Evanism]

As a precaution, perhaps the site should strip EXIF data out of all images already published plus strip it automatically from new ones.

Since the site uses PHP, it shouldn't take long to implement.

E

[DJ’s Timber]

I just looked into this with images that I had uploaded to WWF and FB and copied the images back to my iPad and checked the originals and the copied ones for the data and the copied ones had no record of location but the originals still on my iPad did.

Not disputing what you're saying , it isn't good news.

[pmcgee]

I predict a $2 or $3 app will appear soon to act as a 'picture firewall', stripping out that info.

Paul
(or exists already)

[Timless Timber]

I don't have an Iphone / smart phone - (just a dumb phone) so i can't say for sure - the bright spark who posted on Perth Crime facebook page about this said something about just turn off geocaching in your phone menu? How accurate that is I have no way to tell. If it is then surely you wouldn't need an app? (unless it's to strip out the geo spatial (GPS Co-ordinate) data as you upload photos.... which could be handy as a backup in case you forget to use the menu.

[BobL]

I just tried loading an image on Gum Tree and note it strips camera EXIF data so I presume it will strip everything else.

[Timless Timber]

Good to know Bob.

Another point raised was the suggestion they follow people home from Mbike club meetings etc to get their home address!

There has to be a commonality somewhere, coz they have used a hired truck to clean out 4 or 5 Mbikes and quads in one go.

Mate of mine owns a car yard in Wangarra, and was telling he his partner in the business is into go karts with his kids! They had a cruiser ute he'd just restored on the lot - and the crims broke in from neighboring industrial units driveway thru a chain mesh link fence, broke into the building and got all the go karts, put them on the back of the cruiser ute, which they stole, and drove it out thru the chained / locked gates across the driveway! Few days later the ute minus the go karts was found in the pines up behind Wangarra burnt out.

The next weekend (after having the fence repaired during the week), they were back again and this time stripped the complete interiors out of 2 HSV clubsports on the lot - right down to the dash and steering wheels seats mats everything but the hood lining!

If you look at Perth Crime reports on facebook - you will see that it's (law &order) out of control in Perth of late.

https://www.facebook.com/perthwacrime

This is a pic of a mate (Joe's) $100+K boat stolen from Hillaries Marina, - it was only there for one night in his pen, while he did annual trailer maintenance.



If its not nailed down in Perth at the moment it will be gone in the blink of an eye!

If its not the smart phone images thing.... then someone must know how they know which sheds to break into to get all the big boys toys?

[tdrumnut]

Thanks formthe heads up TT -food for thought

[BobL]

If you look at Perth Crime reports on facebook - you will see that it's (law &order) out of control in Perth of late.

Firstly I would hardly call FB any sort of authority on crime statistics.

How about we look at the the following - this took me 3 minutes to check on line.

The total number of reported crimes against property and persons has decreased by 15.9% over the last 5 years (That's June 2008 to June 2013).
Look here http://www.police.wa.gov.au/LinkClic...SU=&tabid=1219 for the 2012/13 data
and Here for the 2007/8 data http://www.police.wa.gov.au/LinkClic...cg=&tabid=1219

We should also factor in that the population of Perth has increased by 15.2% in the same period

Yes, motor vehicle thefts are up substantially up, from 8000 in 2007/8 to 8600 last year BUT they are down on a per-capita basis
Of course some specific areas and suburbs could be experiencing increases in crime rate but overall there is no evidence for a so called crime wave.
People are also for a number of reasons also possibly not reporting as many crimes but we simply don't know what this number represents.

[rustynail]

There is no point standing behind a pile of statistics when someone is shooting the place up. Where one suburb can be as quiet as, another can be hell on earth. Statistics would say no increase in crime. Ask a bloke in suburb No2 what he thinks about statistics.
Its time for some serious #### kicking.

[Timless Timber]

One of the problems I believe Bob, is that police now often don't attend property crime scenes in many cases - you just report it online - to get a report number, so you can claim insurance. Police pretty much only attend crime against the person now days. Those people who aren't insured, often as a result don't file a report online - because they don't intend to claim insurance and thus don't need the report number.
Maybe that's why crime reports are down?

There are other ways that WAPOL massage their stats figures for annual reporting to parliament.

Just one example (I do a fair bit of volunteer work for the families of long term missing kids in WA) is missing persons.

It's not a crime to go missing in WA, (for good/valid reasons) and we have over 50 now long term (greater than 10 years) missing persons cases, which if reviewed a fair % age would turn out to be unsolved homicides where remains have never been found. None of the felony crimes appear in the crime stats - simply because bye burying the file in the missing persons cabinet at WAPOL HQ. No Cold case review - nothing!

Heres one where the 17 year old girls been misisng for 14 years this week (Vanished 29 July 1999) (National Missing Persons Week also incidentally).

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pleas...62951187094286

I do think statistics is a valid measure and the per capita comparisons are very pleasing - no question about it.

I also don't think the statistics are as good as they could be.... I think a LOT of crime is never reported or when reported doesn't make it to the statistics pile if it can be classsified as a non crime.

In essence.... there apepars to be a mentality at WAPOL that if you don't trip over a body at a crime scene don't look too hard or you'll screw up the crime stats - better to leave it as an unsolved missing persons case!

In support of that position - one of the MAJOR Forensic tools for finding missing human remains? Cadaver Dog. Until a few months ago (after 4 years lobbying Barnett by me) WAPOL dog squad have just obtained 3 cadaver scenting dogs!. Until then they hired them in from eastern states police forces with a handler and flew them out here for a few days on a "as and when required" basis...

Is it any wonder - we have so many unsolved long term missing persons cases?

Like I said Bob - I agree with your stats to a point.... but after 4 years trying to get anything out of WAPOL Major Crime and Serious Crime squads in the area of long term missing persons, my own impression is they couldn't find the cheeks of their own butt with both hands if I loaned them tracker dog to sniff it out and a mirror on a stick to view it!

Maybe that's a little unkind - but it's an opinion I've formed over a long period of giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I am sure there are some good people within the force, I've met and worked with a few over the years.
Whatever the problem is (under resourced, under funded, under staffed etc) its systemic unfortunately.
Wishing it were different isn't likely to change it sadly.

[BobL]

There is no point standing behind a pile of statistics when someone is shooting the place up. Where one suburb can be as quiet as, another can be hell on earth. Statistics would say no increase in crime. Ask a bloke in suburb No2 what he thinks about statistics.
Its time for some serious #### kicking.

Sure, but hang on, I was responding to the claim "that law and order was out of control" in Perth.
The claim was not about specific suburbs.
And I also already said one suburb can differ substantially from another.

Here are some stats that show this.

Local Government	POPULATION	CRIMES	Per 1000
Peppermint Grove	1,779	19	10.7
Cambridge	27,442	411	15.0
Serpentine-Jarrahdale	18,395	298	16.2
Nedlands	22,918	394	17.2
Cottesloe	8,357	156	18.7
East Fremantle	7,751	147	19.0
Joondalup	167,634	3,275	19.5
Mosman Park	9,513	193	20.3
Kalamunda	56,699	1,180	20.8
Melville	103,767	2,179	21.0
Vincent	31,771	728	22.9
Subiaco	19,077	462	24.2
Canning	89,879	2,366	26.3
Mundaring	39,532	1,047	26.5
Rockingham	108,022	2,896	26.8
Wanneroo	156,337	4,197	26.8
Claremont	10,034	282	28.1
Stirling	205,961	6,346	30.8
Bayswater	62,627	1,980	31.6
Cockbum	94,003	3,068	32.6
Armadale	64,284	2,118	32.9
South Perth	44,760	1,508	33.7
Swan	116,068	3,933	33.9
Gosnells	109,041	3,712	34.0
Belmont	35,979	1,860	51.7
Bassendean	15,000	777	51.8
Kwinana	30,433	1,587	52.1
Fremantle	29,383	1,704	58.0
Victoria Park	33,745	2,518	74.6
Perth	18,616	2,410	129.5

[doug3030]

Cockbum	94,003	3,068	32.6

Are you serious????

Whats the postcode?

[BobL]

Are you serious????
Whats the postcode?

WA 6164
SA 5440

You might also be amused by WA suburb by the name of Inaloo 6018

[doug3030]

WA 6164

So I followed the link, which gave me a map showing the location of a suburb with eight letters - C O C K B U R N.

Thats fine compared to the name in the table you posted, and quoted by me with seven letters - C O C K B U M.

Go back and see...