4 Ways To Track And Recover Your Stuff If It Gets Stolen When Traveling
We’re beginning a new era in the cycle of travel theft in favor of the victim despite the amount of coverage of what thieves can do to you with technology. Yet, our stuff that is so tempting to steal, is also getting smart enough to protect itself, fight back, and find its way home. You’re probably carrying smaller, more expensive electronics today than you ever have – two good reasons to prepare yourself in the craftiest ways possible.
1. All Around Laptop, Tablet, Mobile Phone Recovery: Project Prey
I am a huge fan of Project Prey and if there’s one solution you should use as part of a physical security plan for your gadgets, Project Prey is it. This free piece of software runs on your laptop (Windows, Mac, and Linux), mobile phone (iPhone and Android), and tablet (yes, iPad too); remaining hidden until you activate it. If your gadget gets stolen, you activate Project Prey remotely (through a free account on their website) and you can track it, get secret screenshots, steal passwords, and even get pictures of the crooks covertly with any built-in camera. Need more convincing? Project Prey helped Matthew recover his Macbook Pro in Panama.
Mac users can also take a look at iCloud (although it doesn’t work nearly as well).
2. Set A Decoy Wallet Trap To Surprise A Pickpocket
I’ve talked about decoy wallets before as part of a broader travel security plan to reduce your loses if you’re unfortunate enough to be pick-pocketed. Decoy wallets also make good dummy targets but if you want to add a small chance of catching the thief, be sure to leave an unused – but activated – credit card in yours. This won’t work in every country but if the pickpocket decides to use that credit card somewhere and you’ve reported it stolen, police can use surveillance footage from stores to track them. More criminals are caught this way than you might think. Plus your credit card company likely won’t hold you liable for unauthorized transactions.
You probably won’t get your wallet back but justice may still be served.
3. Find Lost Or Stolen Luggage With An Inexpensive GPS Tracking Unit
Although controversial, GPS tracking units are often used to follow the movements of criminal suspects in many countries around the world. These small-palm sized devices broadcast radio signals that can be used to track them from a computer. Place Hide one of these (the Winplus AC13268-72 Beacon GPS Tracker is $29 or the Telespial TrackStick $149) in your backpack or checked luggage to find out where it is when it’s not where it’s supposed to be.
4. Keep A Digital Eye On Your House With Your Desktop
There are plenty of uses for that clunky desktop when you’re traveling; one of which is to act as security guard. Both Yawcam (Windows) or iAlertu (Mac) can snap and email you photos when they detect any motion – especially useful when things should be motionless. A picture of a potential burglar may help you get your stolen things back. Plus, you’ll finally know if you’ve really trained your cat not to jump on tables when you’re at work.
In addition, iAlertu (and Laptop Alarm for Windows) can put some muscle on your laptop so it sounds a loud alarm if moved. Useful for those times you’ve just got to hop up for a napkin or your 6th cup of coffee in a cafe with your laptop just within visual range.
Hope For The Best But Plan For The Worst
No security is absolute – the first rule of security – and that’s why any plan without a backup is doomed to fail eventually. Remember, your data is more valuable than any piece of electronic equipment you own so don’t screw up your vacation by preparing for mini-disasters. Recruit your gadgets and technology to work on your side for protection and preparation just in case.
Low Budget Travel Tricks You Can Use To Overcome Big Budget Problems: Part 2
January 12, 2012 by Anil P.
Filed under Health and Fitness, Money, Security
In Part 1 of Low Budget Travel Tricks you learned to tame mother nature and battle armies of microscopic vampires, you, our nomadic hero. Though your path is still wroth with bandits and ruthless dragons who control the skies, yet still, you will overcome them. Leverage and luck on your side you’ll defeat these foes, allowing you to go on the offensive, but first to today’s battles.
Fight Off Attackers, Pickpockets, And Hotel Thieves
Prevention, awareness, and contingency are the basic steps to a robust security plan, whether you’re looking out for hackers or simply want to be prepared in case of a mugging. When it comes to your personal safety, knowing the streets or parts of town you might want to avoid (or just avoid at night) can go a long way in keeping you from assault. Hotels, hostels, and Tripadvisor are all good resources that can lessen your chances of ending up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Pocket Protection
- Carry Only What You Need – I only carry a day pack if I’m hiking or looking for a cafe to get some work done. Otherwise, I leave my laptop and other valuables with wherever I’m staying. They’re safer there, no day pack often helps you blend in, plus it’s better for your back.
- Distribute Your Money On Your Person – A little bit of cash in your pockets, socks, underwear, bra, etc. means if someone picks your pocket, you’re not losing everything. A decoy wallet with a small amount of cash and an expired credit card can also protect you by fooling pickpockets.
- Catch The
BastardsCrooks – One of 4 ways to be shadier than a thief is to set a credit card trap:
“Keep this card (with no money in the account) in your decoy wallet. If it’s stolen call the credit card company or bank right away to let them know. In most countries the companies will keep close track to see where and if that card is used. If there happens to be a camera at the first place the pickpocket tries to use the card you may be in luck.”
The digital equivalent of a credit card trap is to use the free Project Prey on your laptop, mobile phone, and tablet.
Hotel Hacking
Much like protecting the items on your person when you’re out and about – it’s a good idea to distribute your valuables. Make use of the safe in the room (no guarantee yet decent protection) but generally speaking, locking the zippers on your bags provides enough discouragement for opportunistic thieves. The first rule of security is that no security is absolute – you just need enough security to make a potential theft more risky than it’s worth to the thief.
- Create A Backpack Security Plan – Remember the layers of clothing that keep you warm and make your mom happy in Part 1 of this series? Well, layers will insulate your most valuable items against theft.
- Get Pacsafe Security Without A Pacsafe – That’s also much less conspicuous.
Overcome Physical Threats
Let’s start with an obvious one that’s easy to forget depending on where you’ve been traveling – keep your valuables out of sight. That means iPhones, which seem as common as grass these days, but don’t forget they’re a cool $600 that’s easily resold anywhere in the world. It’s tempting in taxis, buses, and while wandering the city streets to multi-task with a bit of texting or gloat to your friends (“I iz totally rockin Buenos Aires right now Jimmy”) but it’s not Jimmy that’s going to get jacked that way.
- Treat Your Gadgets Like Real Actors, Not Reality Stars – Meaning be picky about when they make an appearance.
- Uglify Your Things So They’re Not So Enticing – Wise Bread has an excellent guide on uglifying and some handy anecdotes from Brazil.
- Bring A Safety Whistle – This is one personal safety tip from Legal Nomads I can’t get enough of and Jodi’s got 3 good reasons to carry a whistle.
When it comes to personal safety though whether you’ve got formal training or not, these 3 insightful rules by Sam Harris could help you avoid being harmed physically.
Tomorrow in the third and final part of this series you’ll take down a frequent foe and battle your own demons to become the one to rule them all.
Optimistic, Forgotten, And Burdened: The Plight Of 3 Unrecognized States Around The World
There are over 40 unrecognized states around the world, all in various states of progression towards self-determination. It’s not a direct path in the least and one with no obvious final destination. These 3 unrecognized states are all somewhere along this path, lost primarily due to the political and economic isolation they face jut outside of their de facto borders.
Kurdish Autonomous Region – Iraq
The nation of Iraq has essentially split into three loosely related regions, delicately coordinated by a central government in Baghdad since the 2003 Iraq War. And while the disenfranchised Sunnis and stagnant southern Shiites work reluctantly together, the stable Kurdish north has taken a drastically more positive turn. That’s one of the reasons Kurds told me enthusiastically how much they love George W. Bush; Kurdish rights were consistently suppressed and abused during Saddam Hussein’s rule, often to horrific extremes.
These days the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) flies their own flag (concurrently with the Iraqi one) all over the lands they control which sit behind a well defined and armed border. For many violent years in the rest of the country after the US invasion, both the Americans and Iraqi government were happy to turn a blind eye to the increasingly autonomous and assertive Kurdish north.
This growing autonomy and the ambiguity of the term “Kurdistan” however illustrates its complex position in the region. Kurdistan can refer to either the area of the existing borders but is also often used to describe the region where Kurds form a significant minority or majority in the Middle East. That area happens to overlap with neighboring Turkey, Iran, and Syria; giving them an uneasy feeling about a potential uprising in those countries. (One view two terrorist organizations are currently spilling blood over.)
Nerves are one thing and if you’re not confused yet about the relationship the KRG has with it’s neighbors, consider this. Turkey is northern Iraq’s biggest economic partner, exchanging over 6 billion dollars in 2010. That’s an increase of 50% from 2008. And while the fate of Kurdistan is in question the optimism of its people is not. Kurds in northern Iraq are extremely optimistic about their chances to finally be the controllers of their destiny. They’ve got a very long way to go than the next unrecognized state below but I could almost feel the hope floating on the streets of Sulaymaniyah. The Kurds have been waiting for this chance for decades since the British drew arbitrary borders around Iraq in 1920 and are nurturing the opportunity in front of them.
Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus – Cyprus
When the Turkish military arrived in northern Cyprus to prevent a Greece-backed coup d’tat in 1974, Turkish Cypriots fled north and the Greeks south, as violence erupted between the two communities who had been living on the island for centuries. 9 years later, while tensions remained high, the Turkish north declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). That state is officially not recognized by any government in the world except Turkey (although there have been rumblings from Russia and others).
Jump ahead more than 25 years in the future from 1983 and you would think the TRNC would be in much better shape than the less organized and recognized KRG in northern Iraq. But it’s not. The European Union currently sees Cyprus – the entire island – controlled by the Greek south, as the legitimate country whose north is occupied by Turkey.
Economic isolation has been detrimental to the TRNC, who can only trade with Turkey; meanwhile their southern counterparts have since joined the EU. A crucial vote to reunify Cyprus went to referendum in 2004 with the Turkish north voting yes to the deal, while the Greeks in the south voted against it. Since then, the TRNC has been stuck.
Most unrecognized states around the world want some form of normalization but the citizens of the TRNC actually rejected it only to be rejected themselves. The Turkish Cypriots fear a lose of their culture as more Turks (from Turkey) move to the island – and many Turks don’t appreciate 400 million of their annual tax dollars being spent to keep the TRNC afloat.
Although today formal recognition by anyone isn’t on the horizon, there are soft spots. You can find North Cyprus flight and vacation billboards in the London Tube, Italian cruise ships regularly dock in Girne, and until recently, ferries went back and forth once a week from Syria. The TRNC may have to embrace its independence or completely give it up in order to move in some direction other than neutral.
Freetown Christiania – Copenhagen, Denmark
Christiania is an unusual unrecognized state in the world because of its size and the fact that it has been allowed to exist in the first place. Basically a neighborhood in east Copenhagen, Christiania was created when a group of squatters took over what was the site of a former military base in 1971. Generally, unrecognized states have enough guns behind them to deter being reabsorbed into their larger states, but Denmark has dealt with Christiania differently. Although Christiania is not completely independent, much if its control was transferred from the local government to the nearly 900 residents in 1989.
Christiania was based on very idealistic democratic principals and while a look inside reveals it has strayed somewhat from them, decisions in the community are still made by unanimous vote. Yet, it is the freedom of Christiania that threatens its existence today. Organized crime has taken advantage of the community’s very liberal drug laws and raids by the police have the Danish government thinking twice about Freetown Christiania.
Christiania is independent to an extent, but cannot exist without the supplies, electricity, nor police protection of the big brother that surrounds it. So, while the community may be able to police itself, it hasn’t been able to control the invasive external elements that have moved in to take advantage of its semi-independence.
Recognition Isn’t Utopia
Often the struggle for independence is one that sees self-determination as the end goal. Really though, it’s only the beginning. In fact, the push toward recognition helps to unite the nation that doesn’t exist. Afterwards ambitions, hopes, and ideals take different paths – the teenage years of a country if you will. As we’ve seen in Egypt’s recent revolution, the hard part begins after birth. The KRG, TRNC, and Freetown Christiania are now going through various stages of a difficult process in which they are forced to hold one trait, patience, in common for the unforeseeable future.
The Mafia Beginnings Of Las Vegas’ Most Successful Failure
Throughout it’s short history as a city beginning in 1829, a lot of people have bet on Las Vegas and lost. Beginning with the Southern Paiute native peoples’ displacement during the mid-1850s, the Mormons tried their hand around the same time in an attempt to make Las Vegas a refueling destination for western travelers. That idea lasted 2 years before the environmental hardships created enough tension to split up the inhabitants.
It wasn’t until Benjamin “Bugsy” Seigel, a Genovese crime family associate, was lured to the area around Las Vegas in 1937. Seigel was originally sent to there to create illegal entertainment opportunities for the thousands of workers building the Hoover Dam in 1934. That was a much riskier venture than Seigel preferred, rather deciding to use Nevada’s legalized gambling laws to create a lucrative, legitimate business front.
The Great Depression and World War II both created the economic incentives for Nevada to further liberalize its gambling laws and gave Seigel the momentum he needed to seek investment from various mob bosses. Motivated by greed, the investments by Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and others were huge, topping out around 6 million dollars. And Seigel made sure to spend every cent of it on his casino The Flamingo. Although the old adage goes you can’t cheat a cheater – that’s exactly what happened to Seigel. Organized construction workers ran up costs nearly 10-fold mostly by not delivering supplies but making it seem as they though they had. Unions, being manipulated by other crime families, went on strike to delay construction or simply be used as bargaining chips.
It also turned out that Seigel was stealing money from the investments he had received, quietly stashing some of it away in foreign banks. When investors found out – it was the financial success of The Flamingo that would determine Seigel’s life. In a rush to get The Flamingo open, Seigel neglected to finish the hotel, but threw one of the most expensive grand openings in the world. Celebrities chefs, actors like Clark Gable, and entertainers were brought in from around the globe.
The press was incredible – the stars were the biggest – but nobody else showed up. It was right after World War II and few people had the expendable cash to spend. And the celebrities couldn’t stay at The Flamingo since there weren’t any rooms.
Approximately 6 months later however, the glamorous press coverage along with a rapidly improving economy made The Flamingo a gold mine allowing Seigel to payback nearly a quarter of the loan. By that time though, he had stolen too much and made too little. Bugsy Seigel was killed by gunfire in his home on June 20, 1947 – just 5 years before 10 more casinos opened and the Las Vegas strip was born.
Much of this Las Vegas history is covered in great detail in the book Five Families, a fascinating read about organized crime’s relationship with the United States over the 1900s.
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