Dateline “To catch an i-Jacker”

If you have ever had an iPod stolen from you (or lost one and find it easier just to tell yourself someone must have stolen it), you know that there isn’t much chance you will ever get it back. Calling Apple won’t get you anywhere, as they can’t (or won’t) do anything for you. Dateline NBC decided to investigate and see if there really isn’t anything Apple can do for you.

When you register your iPod, Apple stores information such as the serial number of the iPod, your email address etc. Dateline wanted to find out how easy it would be to find a stolen iPod after it had been stolen using means that Apple might have available to them. The results may surprise you.

More than half of the iPods that were stolen were able to be found by Dateline. The iPods were planted in shopping bags, on park benches and in malls in their original boxes. What the theifs didn’t know is that instead of an iTunes installation CD there was a specially made CD that had software on it that would be used to track them. When the user clicked “I Agree” in the software agreement, they were agreeing to much more than just software licensing.

You can watch the entire episode of Dateline by going to their website and Launching the Web extra video on the right-hand side. Watching the entire 6 segments of video is worth while for any Apple fan, as it provides insight into why people steal iPods, and how Apple could potentially track down stoen iPods.

This investigation has even helped pressure Apple into doing something about the iPod theft epidemic, even though FSJ likes things the way they are.

Read [Dateline NBC] via [Digg]