M11 Theft

[amedick]

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First I would like to thank the Leica community, both individuals and dealers who have kept any eye out for the body and lens. Special shout outs to Blumenfeld, Jaapv and dealer Michiel of Digimaxx.

The story of the M11 body since being stolen so far is it has made its way to Holland, (i) was listed / removed on local Dutch website Marktplaats, (ii) attempt made to sell it by a Dutch speaker to local dealer who was suspicious of history and (iii) attempt made to sell it to a private individual by leveraging Dutch dealer in (ii).

I am trying to get the camera and lens added to the Dutch police database as suggested by Jaap.

I mentioned in an early post that it would be interesting to have an Apple AirTag place on a half case. As pointed out by a couple persons, Oberwerth has recently released and apparently patented this feature. I have received one of these case two days ago and it looks good and fits well.

Thanks for everyone's help.

John

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[IzelPhotography]

Just to point out that the Apple Air Tags have anti stalking measures. This means they bleep and as a result, they give away their presence to anyone carrying a piece of kit with them attached. Once they hear it they'll just remove it and throw it away.

They're only useful if you have an honest person who finds a lost camera and wants to return it.

[69xchange]

3 hours ago, IzelPhotography said:

Just to point out that the Apple Air Tags have anti stalking measures. This means they bleep and as a result, they give away their presence to anyone carrying a piece of kit with them attached. Once they hear it they'll just remove it and throw it away.

They're only useful if you have an honest person who finds a lost camera and wants to return it.

Once the AirTag is separated from it’s paired iphone, I believe you will have a few hours before it starts to beep. Also if the thief also has an iPhone with an updated iOS, it’ll give them a notification that an AirTag is travelling with them.

 

 So realistically, you only have a few hours from the moment it’s stolen to track your camera down.

Edited December 18, 2022 by 69xchange

[IzelPhotography]

Actually... after I posted that I did find an alternative way to avoid the issue. It's not official and involves a little tweaking of the AirTag. I'll not give a link but if you google "stop airtag from beeping", you should find a few useful pages, videos!

[Marc B-C]

5 hours ago, 69xchange said:

Once the AirTag is separated from it’s paired iphone, I believe you will have a few hours before it starts to beep. Also if the thief also has an iPhone with an updated iOS, it’ll give them a notification that an AirTag is travelling with them.

 

 So realistically, you only have a few hours from the moment it’s stolen to track your camera down.

I believe too that they can only update their position if a bluetooth enabled Apple phone is nearby. Whilst the chances of that are probably good, that is also a potential failure point. 

[Herr Barnack]

On 12/18/2022 at 4:19 AM, IzelPhotography said:

Just to point out that the Apple Air Tags have anti stalking measures. This means they bleep and as a result, they give away their presence to anyone carrying a piece of kit with them attached. Once they hear it they'll just remove it and throw it away.

They're only useful if you have an honest person who finds a lost camera and wants to return it.

How very considerate of Apple - protecting the scumbag camera thieves [/sarcasm]. 😡

[IzelPhotography]

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7 minutes ago, Herr Barnack said:

How very considerate of Apple - protecting the scumbag camera thieves [/sarcasm]. 😡

I don't think they had an option, they had to work with law enforcement to come up with a way to prevent unwanted tracking. There were complaints of people using AirTags for stalking so this was the only way to keep the product going. 

[SrMi]

12 hours ago, Herr Barnack said:

How very considerate of Apple - protecting the scumbag camera thieves [/sarcasm]. 😡

Apple wants to stop scumbags who track people in order to hurt them. That is more important than recovering a stolen camera or bicycle.

[Siriusone59]

9 hours ago, SrMi said:

Apple wants to stop scumbags who track people in order to hurt them. That is more important than recovering a stolen camera or bicycle.

The beeper is easily defeated as was mentioned earlier and the method is probably well known by any scumbags that wish to use the device for their malicious purposes.  It does however come as a feature for helping a legitimate owner find a misplaced item and most likely serves as a liability protection for Apple if the AirTag is used by the nefarious scumbag.🤔

[Farkle-Mpls]

Regarding the use of AirTags, in my Leica camera bag I use TWO AirTags.  One is put into a zippered pocket where it can be easily found (and discarded) by a thief.  I hide a second one by cutting a very small slit in the foam in the bag's perimeter.  I tuck the AirTag into it.  Likely no one will look for a second AirTag after they find the first and it might buy me more time to track the bag before it starts beeping (thanks for the link to understand this behavior better).

[jakontil]

On 12/30/2022 at 4:34 PM, Farkle-Mpls said:

Regarding the use of AirTags, in my Leica camera bag I use TWO AirTags.  One is put into a zippered pocket where it can be easily found (and discarded) by a thief.  I hide a second one by cutting a very small slit in the foam in the bag's perimeter.  I tuck the AirTag into it.  Likely no one will look for a second AirTag after they find the first and it might buy me more time to track the bag before it starts beeping (thanks for the link to understand this behavior better).

if you mark ur second airtag as missing, would it still beep?

[SrMi]

The airtag starts beeping after 8 to 24 hours. That is plenty of time to retrieve the empty camera bag from a trash can .

[Photoworks]

6 hours ago, jakontil said:

if you mark ur second airtag as missing, would it still beep?

You can easily open them and remove the speaker. It will not beep anymore. But you can still find it

[jakontil]

1 hour ago, SrMi said:

The airtag starts beeping after 8 to 24 hours. That is plenty of time to retrieve the empty camera bag from a trash can .

 

14 minutes ago, Photoworks said:

You can easily open them and remove the speaker. It will not beep anymore. But you can still find it

i mean if the airtags start beeping it's like telling the thief that the bag is traceable... or am i missing something here, or i miss the point of airtag altogether 😀

[ianforber]

18 hours ago, jakontil said:

 

i mean if the airtags start beeping it's like telling the thief that the bag is traceable... or am i missing something here, or i miss the point of airtag altogether 😀

I’m thinking of buying some AirTags and will probably remove the speaker on some. I accept though that their primary purpose though is to help you find stuff you’ve lost and not stuff that’s been stolen. Even removing the speaker won’t stop the AirTag telling the thief that they have something with an AirTag via a notification on their phone. Still, finding an empty bag will make me feel better!

[pgk]

On 9/12/2022 at 3:19 AM, Ba Erv said:

I guess I’ve become something of an expert on theft over the years.  My everyday backpack is a Lowepro 150 that opens from a zipper on the backside only.  The single zippered compartment accessible from the front is where I store an assortment of loose double sided razor blades and fish hooks.

This would almost certainly be illegal in the UK. If you were to be injured and incapacitated and the police opened your bag in the hopes of finding ID or mediation then someone may well be injured trying to help you. Not such a good idea and as it would clearly be deliberate you might find yourself having problems as a result.

[jakontil]

2 hours ago, ianforber said:

I’m thinking of buying some AirTags and will probably remove the speaker on some. I accept though that their primary purpose though is to help you find stuff you’ve lost and not stuff that’s been stolen. Even removing the speaker won’t stop the AirTag telling the thief that they have something with an AirTag via a notification on their phone. Still, finding an empty bag will make me feel better!

aahhh oke got it, the main purpose is to find things we misplace, hence the speaker... 

[Photoworks]

3 hours ago, ianforber said:

I’m thinking of buying some AirTags and will probably remove the speaker on some. I accept though that their primary purpose though is to help you find stuff you’ve lost and not stuff that’s been stolen. Even removing the speaker won’t stop the AirTag telling the thief that they have something with an AirTag via a notification on their phone. Still, finding an empty bag will make me feel better!

My friend got his equipment out of a car, the left the bags and took everything else

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[Ba Erv]

8 hours ago, pgk said:

This would almost certainly be illegal in the UK. If you were to be injured and incapacitated and the police opened your bag in the hopes of finding ID or mediation then someone may well be injured trying to help you. Not such a good idea and as it would clearly be deliberate you might find yourself having problems as a result.

It wasn't real, constable...but thanks for the reminder why I never travel to the UK.

[NigelG]

Firstly - so sorry to hear about your experience.

However, unless the thief followed you having seen you using your M11 they maybe just got lucky.

I would personally never use a backpack and usually have no bag at all. The thief didn’t necessarily know what he was “dipping” for - could have been anything at all - and lucked-out to get your M11.

I generally wear one of my Leica Ms on a cross-body strap and tuck it under my arm on the tube/crowds and have a second lens in a pocket. I don’t hide it under a coat or jacket - I don’t really believe there’s a cohort of Leica-targeting thieves we need to worry about, and in fact due to the robust reporting of stolen serial numbers etc I think for a petty thief it’s “a mug’s game” to try to sell-on stolen Leicas.

I also don’t think anyone necessarily would look at me and say “ooh a Leica I’ll nick that from him” - but if they decided to it would be much harder with it on show than lifting it from my bag - and I would certainly be aware of what they were doing!