Cell phone theft is on the rise, but the industry isn't helping much

Think about what happens when your Latest Smartphones phone is stolen. You have to go out and buy a new one, then you have to sign up for a new plan with your carrier.With cell phone theft generating new sales for manufacturers, and new contracts for carriers, why would they do anything to stop it? Kevin Mahaffey is with the mobile security firm Lookout. He says there is one incentive: Keeping customers.

“The manufacturers and the operators care very deeply about trying to improve people’s experiences," Mahaffey explains. "Because they’ve found that making people happier is profitable.”Mahaffey says the industry has created a new database to track stolen GT-I9300 phones, but it doesn’t work outside the U.S., and many of the stolen phones end up in other countries.

George Gascon, district attorney of San Francisco, takes this approach when he’s taken in meetings with cell phone makers and carriers, and he asks them to fight cell phone theft.“For the people in the industry to step up and do the right thing without necessarily being dragged into court or being legislatively forced to do this,” Gascon says.dsdD23DCS

On Monday May 13th, 2013 Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood requested the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) analyze the two cell phones seized pursuant to a search warrant related to the in custody death of David Silva. Specifically, Sheriff Youngblood requested the FBI conduct a forensic analysis of the contents of the Buy Cell Phones.

A request to the FBI was made following the preliminary results of the Bakersfield Police Department’s analysis of the phones. The analysis by the Bakersfield Police Department confirmed the existence of video footage related to this incident on one phone and no video footage on the second phone. This prompted the subsequent request for further analysis by the FBI.Sheriff Youngblood also requested the FBI conduct a parallel investigation into the circumstances surrounding this incident.

The number of cellphones in the world is staggering — more than 6 billion. Another staggering number, which seems unrelated, is that nearly 6 million people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1996, the worst conflict since the Holocaust.Almost every discount cell phones contains a mineral called coltan, the substance that makes the phone vibrate. About 80 percent of the world's coltan comes from northeast Congo, the region where most of the violence in that country has been happening.