Porch pirates are following FedEx drivers and have access to tracking data for iPhones being sent out by AT&T, reports the Wall Street Journal, resulting in a wave of thefts, many captured by doorbell cams. As summarized at Ars Technica:
"The key to these swift crimes, investigators say: The thieves are armed with tracking numbers. Another factor that makes packages from AT&T particularly vulnerable is that AT&T typically doesn't require signature on delivery… Verizon and T-Mobile require a signature on delivery for smartphones; AT&T generally doesn't," the article said.
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Doorbell camera videos show the thefts in New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, Michigan, Georgia, Florida and Texas. The details are similar: A FedEx driver drops off a box with an iPhone from AT&T. Then a person walks up—sometimes wearing an Amazon delivery vest—and plucks the package off the front step. The heist can be so quick that in some videos, the FedEx driver and thief cross paths.
"They know what's getting delivered and the location," said Detective Lt. Matt Arsenault from the Gardner Police Department in Massachusetts, which is investigating several recent thefts. "They meet the delivery driver at the front door and take it."
Here's a report by WMUR-TV which includes footage of a comically brazen theft in Hampton, New Hampshire. Note the reporting came prior to the revelation that thieves have insider information about AT&T tracking, but police clearly had an inkling. ↓
AT&T denied it had been compromised—"no evidence of any breach of our systems, and this was not a hack."—leaving the remedy as an exercise to anyone still willing to order anything from AT&T.
