Antitheft measures? Airtags?

jamesstiff · 2023-03-23T16:58:15.918Z

PAPANOONGAKU:

homeowners insurance (and insurance companies are always looking to screw you out of paying you right away).

My home insurance wouldn’t cover my gear, at least not outside the home. I had to find specialist cover from another insurer and even then, modular synths were a grey area.

ZDS · 2023-03-23T17:12:33.065Z

Can confirm. My MacBook was stolen, I could tell them the address of the ‘fence’ plus all the addresses it went through before that (including a shop). They didn’t even follow up. Apparently theft like this is dealt with by PC’s who have to squeeze it in around their beats & emergency calls.

thermionic · 2023-03-23T17:23:07.356Z

Right, property protected optimizes for corporations and the otherwise ultrawealthy in some form or another, not a nicked guitar unless it’s accidentally found in some ring that also slings millions of dollars of meth or the cops attending can pretend to have “inhaled fentanyl” to get paid time off work.

One’s energy is best spent on taking inventory (serial numbers/photos and identifying marks) and contacting custom music gear insurers since home insurance will not cover valuable goods worth over a hundred dollars or so.

Beatmode · 2023-03-23T20:02:39.793Z

Hey, as far as I can tell the removal of the speaker would be completely pointless anyway

In that same video, he mentioned something about Apple notifying the thief on their iPhone that a tag this is potentially being used for stalking, is near them. And if that’s the case then what’s the bloody point in removing the speaker anyway?

Gotta be honest, it doesn’t make sense to me either mate!

thermionic · 2023-03-23T20:08:40.540Z

Yeah, I left the option open to miss some factor I hadn’t thought of (and do love hardware hacks, have an AirTag and help people in some vocation with very weird infosec issues) and wanted to not give in to the clickbait but also to be aware of how the public are talking about safety issues.

I still appreciate the details!

HBIII · 2023-03-23T20:19:57.052Z

I think the best thing for peace of mind is just insurance. There are places like musicpro insurance that specialize in it and make it easy to update gear lists. Covers the gear at home or away etc. and can also cover general studio stuff like furniture, acoustic treatment, etc.

Easier than a deep pit full of spikes.

thermionic · 2023-03-23T20:30:27.214Z

Here’s a question: Obviously traditional insurers are not great and specialized insurers of which there are few players.

For those who engage with them and preferably have had to collect on the insurance for worst case scenario, what aspects should a musician keep in mind?

(Assuming these are primarily kept in-home, the scope of international travel and band vans may be overbroad.)

ro.keys · 2023-03-23T21:03:17.643Z

Whatever the use case, I’d doubt that airtags would even work well if placed inside the all-metal Elektron housings.

Fin25 · 2023-03-23T21:19:01.704Z

If you live somewhere that you can tell the Old Bill where and when your gear was stolen and where it can be found, then have them do something about it, then you are lucky indeed.

Round here you’d need a live CCTV feed of the perps, ANPR details of their van and their mother’s mother’s maiden names before plod even answer the phone.

Best bet is to get insured, then get on gumtree as soon as you find stuff missing.

As far as I can tell these air tags are only really any good for stalking people with, but I don’t know shit really.

Juniper_Steels · 2023-03-23T23:39:10.546Z

The only places I use air tags is in my checked luggage when I travel, that way I’ll know if the airline lost my bag as soon as I land. I’ll also leave one in my car if I’m parking in a large, unfamiliar lot like at an airport. For theft, I just try to keep an eye on my shit and cross my fingers…

re5et · 2023-03-23T23:46:38.537Z

i did have an idea regarding a form of protection for synths…
being able to define a set of keys so that the synth properly boots.

so you’d be able to define an encoder or trigger buttons / steps that need to be held to boot the digitakt or whatever.
you could use the step buttons to type in a pin code

it may not get used much, but (and i’m being cynical here) … it could be claimed to be a usp and gather lots of marketing and articles about the devices… leading to more sales again ?..
i’m not aware it is being done with synths.

dcsux · 2023-03-23T23:48:38.261Z

Fin25:

If you live somewhere that you can tell the Old Bill where and when your gear was stolen and where it can be found, then have them do something about it, then you are lucky indeed.

My bike got nicked out of the bike locker on my street. My partner had a few days off work, was supposed to be studying for an exam but instead went full Miss Marple. Found the guy selling my bike and a bunch of others on Gumtree. Was calling himself Horatio so was quite easy to see all the bikes the daft fucker was selling. On one of the pics you could see out of his window and he literally lives round the corner. She went round and could see some of the bikes through the glass door of the block of flats he lived in and took pics of it. So our friends who lived opposite him then filmed him selling the bikes to people from their flat. We handed all this to the police. They went round and arrested him (my bike had already been sold for about 10% of what it was worth) but in the end let him go without charge because “insufficient evidence”.

So yeah. Little faith it would make much difference. Sadly, insurance probably the only way.

Oh, and the best part… a few days later, Horatio posts a “Want to buy” ad on Gumtree looking for a “battery powered angle grinder, preferably as quiet as possible” cos his last one had given up the ghost.

captain8 · 2023-03-24T00:22:13.918Z

where do you people live, around my way only shootings go unprosecuted but if you steal someone’s bike you could get 10- life

re5et · 2023-03-24T00:32:20.156Z

Another gumtree story.

I had an old garden gate in the front garden for ages , vines were growing on it
One day I noticed it had gone

Then while browsing gumtree it showed local adverts and I recognised my gate / it still had the vines on it … they wanted £10 and it never sold.

I felt a bit sorry for them if they’re so desperate to steal things out of garden for so little.

Bunker · 2023-03-24T00:54:55.143Z

re5et:

I felt a bit sorry for them

I wouldn’t, they’re prob bagheads

PAPANOONGAKU · 2023-03-24T02:05:20.411Z

This is hilarious. Good on your friend. Obvs YMMV on the effectiveness of the cops depending on where you live. I live in a place where they will fetch your cat from your tree, but thirty miles to the west they will shoot you for a traffic infraction. So my opinion of the cops is rather low.

I’ll take a look at the additional insurance. 117USD to insure a couple Elektron boxes, a few synths, an RME interface, and some effects seems reasonable. And I’m not going to go all Dark Knight on dude who nicks my Octatrack.

I remember reading a guys advice on camera theft and he carried all his gear in bright pink and green diaper bag because a big bag that said Canon on it would always attract more attention than a bag of wipes.

Fin25 · 2023-03-24T08:28:10.914Z

Or you could do the old pub bike trick and cover your gear in so many random stickers that it is either immediately recognisable or a massive pain in the arse for the thief to deal with trying to get all the stickers off.

Although it does mean having stickers all over your gear, like a fucking 12 year old.

obscurerobot · 2023-03-24T14:01:38.960Z

image4032×3024 2.28 MB

Or maybe one large sticker

re5et · 2023-03-24T21:24:17.407Z

cant resist…

if it had that label it’d probably be half the price and 99% the same … maybe the filters might be wrong.
and it might come in more colours.

Kegeratorz · 2023-03-25T00:27:23.466Z

re5et:

cant resist…

And never be released!