Apparently the police were able to identify an unconscious jogger from her iPod serial number after a hit and run – [via] Link.
The police are still looking for leads in the San Francisco area (Presidio) the hit and run was early Thursday morning (3/2). Anyone with information on the accident is encouraged to call Detective Sgt. Robert Jansing of the U.S. Park Police at (415) 561-5144.
I rarely carry ID, usually jog with just an iPod, have had way too many close calls with cars while jogging and lost a friend to a hit and run before. Now that I’m in San Francisco for a bit, this reminded me to think about stuff like this, maybe these suggestions will be useful for someone…
My quick thoughts on ways to ID your iPod is to name your iPod with your name when you first get it, that will appear in the about screen. Also, in the contacts section put all your information that’s important and you’d want someone else to see if the iPod was lost/stolen or if something happened – registering your iPod seems to have helped in this case. Using screen lock on the new iPod is ok for potential loss/theft, but it doesn’t display your info, that’s what I’d like Apple to change. That said, you can mod the “Enter Code to Unlock” text, but that’s pretty hard for most folks (how to here if you’re interested). The low-tech solution is to put a sticker on the back and/or etching.
22 thoughts on “Police use iPod serial number to ID unconscious woman”
Comments are closed.
ADVERTISEMENT
Join Make: Community Today
I know this is kind of unfeeling to say, but how about a different solution: don’t jog with your ipod. Listen to what’s around you. You will get hit by cars less.
zev, we should all be able to jog without getting hit by cars.
if you watch the video from the news report, this person was hit from behind, there’s really not a lot of listening you can do when someone hits you with a car from behind, it’s all too fast.
One thing the police are asking people to do here in plymouth uk, is to prefix any important contacts on our mobiles with “ICE”. stands for “In Case of Emergencies”. It might also work quite well on the iPod.
just create a text file called “OWNERDETAILS” and have it set out something like this:
Name: Mr/mrs/ms/master Firstname Lastname
Phone:
(Work) XX-XXXX-XXXX
(Home) XX-XXXX-XXXX
(Mobile) XXXXXXXXXXX
Address:
77
Next Of Kin:
Name-
Phone-
any other bits of information you wanna put here
Or consider making a road id similar to what they sell here: http://www.roadid.com/
A couple methods come to mind:
*) Wrist sweat band with a piece of plastic and a sharpie.
*) Bracelet keychain with a dog tag (engraved cheap at a pet store).
*) Engrave your name and info on the back of the ipod.
*) Knit one.
Be creative, you are a maker after all.
Hmmm . . . of course you *could* have an RFID chip embedded. There’s even a DIY for it somplace!
Was I unnecessarily paranoid about how my fingerprint would be used when I got my California driver’s license?
I’d think this would be a perfect reason to have my fingerprint on file. I wonder if they thought of tracking her this way or what.
Was I unnecessarily paranoid about how my fingerprint would be used when I got my California driver’s license?
I’d think this would be a perfect (maybe only) reason to have my fingerprint on file. I wonder if they thought of tracking her this way or what.
Was I unnecessarily paranoid about how my fingerprint would be used when I got my California driver’s license?
I’d think this would be a perfect (maybe only) reason to have my fingerprint on file. I wonder if they thought of tracking her this way or what.
Was I unnecessarily paranoid about how my fingerprint would be used when I got my California driver’s license?
I’d think this would be a perfect (maybe only) reason to have my fingerprint on file. I wonder if they thought of tracking her this way or what.
In all likelihood a driver who 1) didn’t see someone 2) who drove away was drunk. Or maybe that’s just my faith in humanity that a non-drunk person wouldn’t do this.
oops sorry my internet connection was hanging and I didn’t know all of those were posting :)