
Seattle vigilante reuniting stolen bikes with their owners - bootload
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/15/bike-batman-seattle-theft-vigilante-anonymous
======
jessaustin
_Of the first 10 or so people he helped, most were from out of town..._

This rings true to me. I once rented a bike during the second week I lived in
a particular city, while I was waiting for my bicycles to be shipped. That
bike got stolen, largely thanks to the shitty lock the bike shop included in
the rental. I wouldn't be surprised if that shop just bought the bike back
from the thief, after charging me the _new_ price for a seriously used POS
bike, but I certainly didn't darken their door again.

Later on, after I had lived in that city for a year or so, an admitted bike
thief told me straight up, "oh yeah we know that bike is yours and we see you
around all the time and you seem ok so we probably wouldn't ever mess with
it."

Thanks, I guess?

~~~
viraptor
Wait, are there bike rentals with no insurance from theft? Most of the places
I rented from had some policy about it. Otherwise that just looks like a setup
for some protection racket.

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mc808
I wonder if there is more that bicycle manufacturers/dealers can do to prevent
theft or help recover stolen bikes - not because they're obligated but just to
improve sales. Especially as the price approaches four digits, "what if this
gets stolen?" has to be near the top of most potential buyers' list of
concerns and probably chills sales to some degree.

~~~
tlrobinson
Exploding bike seats?
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYlBT1d_GWo](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYlBT1d_GWo)

Seriously though, GPS receivers and GSM radios are a few dollars each these
days. Seems like an easy thing to hide in the frame (of course a thief could
still part out everything except the frame)

~~~
dpark
The problem is then you need to remember to keep your bike's GPS tracker
charged. Your bike isn't carrying a large capacity 12V battery the way your
car is.

~~~
tlrobinson
For this purpose you could just have the cellular module wake up every x
minutes to check to see if it should begin tracking.

Or use BLE and an accelerometer. If your phone isn't in range and the bike is
moving then starting tracking.

I haven't done the math but you could probably get away with recharging every
6 months or so.

~~~
dpark
I have to be honest. I'm seriously doubting that math you didn't do. In my
experience GPS murders small batteries. And putting large batteries on bikes
seems like a nonstarter for bikes that aren't electric assist.

~~~
mikepurvis
But the GPS only needs to be active when the bike is a) moving, with b) the
BLE phone connection absent. There are ultra low power motion sensor ICs that
literally have a GPIO for "motion detected". Put that on the reset pin of your
CC2541, and you'll be set for months of battery life.

~~~
Someone
You don't care where your bike went, you care where it is, and you want a way
to get that data remotely. The GPS only needs to be on when you call your
bike, and that's where the problem lies: you have to find a way to decrease
power usage of the GSM part.

Switching it on for a minute or so every hour if outside BLE range could help,
but would make it harder to locate your bike fast. Maybe, it should start at a
100% duty cycle, and drop off over time? (Clock drift shouldn't be a problem.
The device has GPS, so it has an accurate clock)

And you need to filter that 'motion detected' thing, or your bike will keep
resetting itself, even before it can check the BLE connection. Or is that
something that the sensor ICs can do for you, too, nowadays?

~~~
walrus01
I am pretty sure you could make a very, very low power watchdog circuit that
only wakes up a GPS receiver and 2G/3G modem when it detects 60+ seconds of
continual motion. Otherwise it'd sleep at very low power. This would fit in a
$50 CF seatpost.

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BEEdwards
This is an awesome thing for him to be doing, but I don't understand why he
needed to step up and do it.

The thieves post in a public place basically admitting that they stole the
item and are more than willing to meet up... Why did it take a third party to
start doing it?

~~~
ck2
Because the police simply do not care about bike thefts so the criminals know
they can get away with it.

~~~
archgoon
Not strictly true; the article details that 'The Batman' actually works in
conjunction with the police.

It seems more like the case that he's taken on the overhead of investigating
and coordinating meetups. Once that's done, the police seem happy to do the
actual arrest.

However, this sounds like there are some very bad incentives in the PD, where
performing arrests is prioritized over investigation. However, I think
characterizing the issue as "simply do not care about bike thefts" may not be
the most accurate description of the problem.

~~~
a_imho
Our local police or other stake holders actually tried and succeeded in
disbanding the groups chasing bike thieves with bait bikes. You can watch the
episodes on yt.

------
maaaats
In Norway we have a central register where you can add your bike. Each bike
has a serial number engraved in the frame which is used for registering it. In
an ideal world, everyone would check the bike they are buying in this register
and see if it is reported stolen or not. Of course, this doesn't happen, but
the opportunity of it I think helps deterring people somewhat for stealing a
bike to resell it.

And last year in my town there was a "big bust" where they found a lot of
bikes. Those who had registered their bikes could easily get them back.

~~~
na85
What's stopping people from filing the serial numbers off?

~~~
usrusr
Because potential buyers would instantly know that they are buying stolen
goods. People who would be fine with that might just as easily steal a bike
for themselves, making the definitely-stolen-bike market a really weak one.

~~~
hueving
>People who would be fine with that might just as easily steal a bike for
themselves

This isn't true. I know several people that don't care much about buying
things with a shady history but would never steal anything themselves. The
logic was something like, "Would you still accept a $20 bill if it had been
stolen at some point since it was printed?"

~~~
striking
That wouldn't hold up in court :)

If they could prove you knew or suspected it might have been stolen, you can
get charged (depending on your state's laws).

------
dkopi
"The married engineer, who is in his 30s, and has been quietly tracking down
stolen bikes for the last year, spoke to the Guardian on the condition of
anonymity amid increasing curiosity about his identity, motives and
methodology."

I'm guessing the main reason he wants anonymity isn't from criminals, but from
his family, who would obviously kill him if they knew how much danger he's
putting himself into.

~~~
loeg
Bike thieves are hardly organized criminals with weapons. Probably mostly
homeless or very poor people without better ideas. It's a very low margin
crime.

~~~
snowwindwaves
In British Columbia there is organized bike theft. The police caught a group
of thieves who had rented a cube van and driven up to whistler from Vancouver
and stolen half a dozen bikes. One of the bikes was a police "bait bike" with
a tracking device. The Mounties care!

[http://globalnews.ca/news/785241/bait-bike-leads-whistler-
po...](http://globalnews.ca/news/785241/bait-bike-leads-whistler-police-to-
bust-alleged-thieves/)

------
tzs
The economics of bike theft are interesting. See this article:
[http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-
happens-t...](http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/30393216796/what-happens-to-
stolen-bicycles)

Here is the HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4444708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4444708)

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stewartbutler
I have the feeling that someone trying this in Atlanta would just get
themselves shot. Hopefully nobody around here is inspired by this.

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honksillet
The Seattle police should be ashamed of themselves.

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chrischen
Sounds like a problem for neural networks to solve!

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JustSomeNobody
Why do people always want to know the person's identity? This is so selfish. I
feel they either want to know it because they want to be the first to know or
they just hate not knowing. Shallow and selfish. Yuck.

~~~
jcoffland
Do you have a lot of experience with vigilante exposers?

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ashitlerferad
It is probably time to eliminate bikes from the list of things that can be
considered "property". It should be illegal to lock up a bike or "own" one.

~~~
Retra
That sounds absurdly arbitrary.

~~~
ashitlerferad
I dream of a future without bike scarcity.

------
ck2
News people always smugly expose people who should be anonymous, I wonder if
he knew they were going to print a photo of him.

One day the intersection of super easy access guns with the combined lack of
intelligence/respect of a bike thief is going to make things end very badly
for the good guys.

~~~
matthiasl
"I wonder if he knew they were going to print a photo of him."

The fourth paragraph of the article starts with "He was however happy for the
Guardian to publish a photograph of him".

