Crime Google Earth used for robbery

[enouwee]

Lead roof tiles are worth a lot of money. And you'll find them, in the United Kingdom, at least, on the top of schools, museums, churches, and the Houses of Parliament.

Tom Berge, a man who truly appreciates the free part of free enterprise, knew where he could pinpoint such buildings: Google Earth.

He sat at his computer, googled away, selected his targets (mercifully, the roofs were unblurred), got into his car, and climbed less than socially toward his riches. He managed to collect about $140,000 worth of lead, which he sold to unsuspecting merchants.

Read on.

 

[UndeadDragon]

Google Earth is insecure in the fact that anyone can look at any building and find out any ways in, or in this case, things that are worth stealing.

 

[Snowbizzle]

True that. The benefits don't outweigh the potential consequences. The same concept could be used by far more dangerous people to find the homes of innocent families. If someone is observant enough to notice a specific roof tile, others are going to be able to figure out which houses look easy to burglarize.

I can just see high school kids stalking their ex-girlfriends. . .Kids' houses and cars getting vandalized because of arguments at school.

It was doomed from the start.

 

[UnknowVector]

>Google Earth is insecure in the fact that anyone can look at any building and find out any ways in, or in this case, things that are worth stealing.

Or, they could drive around town and break into houses that have no lights on. Like they already do.

I'm guessing the court commanded him to pay damages to the owners of those buildings? Anyone seen another source?

Heh, by the way ... ($140,000 - $30,000 (court fees) - $30,000 (being in jail sucks)) / (8 months * 4 weeks / month * 7 days / week * 24 hours / day + 100 hours) = ~$15 an hour. Hell yeah. He's making the big bucks now.

 

[Samael88]

>Google Earth is insecure in the fact that anyone can look at any building and find out any ways in, or in this case, things that are worth stealing.

Or, they could drive around town and break into houses that have no lights on. Like they already do.

I'm guessing the court commanded him to pay damages to the owners of those buildings? Anyone seen another source?

Heh, by the way ... ($140,000 - $30,000 (court fees) - $30,000 (being in jail sucks)) / (8 months * 4 weeks / month * 7 days / week * 24 hours / day + 100 hours) = ~$15 an hour. Hell yeah. He's making the big bucks now.

Drive around town just looking would cost gasoline aswell. And that is not cheap these days.
I think that it was rather clever, in a bad way tho
There was some people that did something like this in Sweden a few years back, but they stole copperwires. They earned a lot of cash on that.

And where the **** did you get that formula?
$15, an hour?
Do you really think that he get's to keep the money he earned from that?
And if he does, then he get's free meals and free housing in jail

Also, when robbing a house there is really more to it than just "driving around looking for houses with no lights on".
It needs to be carefully planned so that it won't raise suspicion on the neighbors, and then there the house needs to be checked for dogs and alarms. There are some rather easy ways to do that.
What I am trying to say is that it takes much more than just random house sweeps to get away with robbing houses, the more planning, the easier it is to get away with it

 

[DDRtists]

This isn't google earths fault, at all. For all they know, he could have went around looking for expensive cars in the driveway and went and stole that. The place should have had a better lock or alarm on the building in the first place, that would have solved all of this. Google earth is just being blamed because they want them to take the fall, when in reality, it was their fault for being so open and easy to break in to.

 

[Wiseman_2]

The place should have had a better lock or alarm on the building in the first place, that would have solved all of this.

Last time I checked, you didn't have to break into a building to take something that was on top of it

Though no, it isn't Google earth's fault. They are just a scapegoat; though the thieve's friend did say that was how he did it, and not the victims themselves.