Let’s synchronize his advice.
Homeless turned tech mastermind serves 94 months in prison for year-long smartphone theft case, reveals secrets of criminal dealings To the Wall Street Journal.
Before being arrested as part of a grand theft ring in Minnesota last year, 26-year-old Aaron Johnson stole iPhones and manipulated financial apps to steal an estimated $300,000.
Johnson’s sinister approach did not seem harmless to i-witnesses. His victims often willingly handed over their cell phones to him.
He targeted women in bars and clubs who were inebriated and unguarded.
College men in particular are easily marked because “they’re already drunk and don’t really know what’s going on,” Johnson explained.
He noted that women are more aware of their surroundings and are more alert to suspicious people.
Johnson would often supply his victims with drugs or ask them to add him on platforms like Snapchat.
“I say, ‘Hey, your phone is locked.’ What’s your passcode? I say something like ‘2-3-4-5-6.’ And I just remember that,” Johnson recalls. Johnson would record people entering the codes if possible.
Once inside the house, he quickly accessed the Settings app and changed his phone and Apple ID passwords “faster than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
It also disabled tracking features such as “Find My iPhone” and added its own biometric authentication to Face ID.
The latter was the “key to everything” because it allowed access to passwords in iCloud Keychain.
For these reasons, Apple is rolling out stolen device protection in iOS 17.3.
This feature intentionally introduces a one-hour delay before implementing password or Face ID or Touch ID changes when the phone or other product is operating in an unfamiliar location.
For Johnson’s victims, the anti-theft measures came too late.
After quickly bypassing the device’s security protocols, he went straight to banking and cryptocurrency apps while simultaneously searching notes and photos for sensitive information such as social security numbers.
By the next day, when the victims had sobered up, Johnson had already sent money through apps like Apple Pay and was able to go shopping. He sometimes bought higher-end devices at the Apple Store, such as the $1,200 iPad Pro model. That he would resell it for cash.
According to WSJ, Johnson plans to drop off 30 iPhones and iPads over a nice weekend, worth up to $20,000.
Johnson said his reason for revealing his nefarious tricks was, “I’m already in prison.”
“I feel like I should be on the other side of things and try to help people,” he added.
Source: nypost.com
