Sen. Schumer

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has proposed cell phone carriers permanently disable stolen cellphones, unless and until they are reactivated by the original owner.

Currently, only Verizon Wireless shuts down stolen phones, preventing their easy reactivation.  Other carriers only disable internal SIM cards, which are easily replaced by any thief in minutes, and for a fee AT&T and T-Mobile will reactivate any phone.  Sprint only disables access to stored contact lists and contents of memory cards that often accompanying modern smartphones.  But anyone can reactivate a stolen Sprint or Nextel phone just by claiming to have acquired it legitimately from the former owner and replacing the removable SIM card.

The result of easy reactivation is a thriving black market for stolen phones, particularly in New York.

“Forty-one percent of all property crimes in New York City in the first half of this year were related to cellphones,” Schumer said, noting phones often sell for hundreds of dollars and are back in operation sometimes hours after being stolen.

SIM Card

Schumer says if carriers permanently disabled stolen phones until the rightful owners declare them retrieved, phones would become worthless to would-be thieves.

The senator notes that European carriers use each phone’s unique identification code to monitor the status of the phone.  Once reported stolen, overseas carriers will not reactivate a disabled phone without a signed statement from the original owner authorizing the transfer of ownership.

Schumer notes cell phone theft is rising dramatically in New York as more people start carrying increasingly sophisticated smartphones.

In 2009, 10,650 phones were stolen in the city.  In 2010 — 10,746.  So far this year, more than 11,320 phones have been taken by thieves.

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WNYW-TV in New York has raw video of Sen. Schumer’s press conference on cell phone theft.  (10 minutes)

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Members of the New York City Police Department’s Critical Response anti-terrorism unit have been deployed to monitor Verizon workers on picket lines in several New York locations.  Striking workers wonder how much New Yorkers are paying in tax dollars to provide de-facto security for Verizon.  “The company made $19-billion in profit, they can’t afford to bring out their own security to watch their own men,” asked Jon Granziel, a veteran of 21-years with Verizon.  WPIX in New York has the story.  (3 minutes)

Verizon Communications has gone to court to limit picketing and protest activity among striking union workers who have been accused of taking their cause too far.

The company filed a lawsuit Wednesday in New York and won a court order Monday in Pennsylvania, and another in Delaware on Wednesday.  The company is waiting for rulings in New Jersey and Massachusetts that would force Verizon strikers to limit the number of picketers at any given location and stop blocking access to company buildings.

Relations between the company and striking workers have deteriorated significantly as the first week of the strike wears on.

Near Buffalo, two strikers were hit by a replacement worker’s vehicle.  A BB gun was fired at a worker still on the job in the Bronx.  Several incidents of pushing and shoving by both sides have also been documented.  But among the most serious incidents are acts of sabotage that have cut off landline and cell service, mostly in upstate New York.

Service was restored late yesterday to residents in Oneida County, who lost both home and cell phone service after fiber cables were cut.  Verizon has rushed out press releases decrying what they call “sabotage” and indirectly implying Verizon strikers are responsible.  The New York State Police continues criminal investigations in several upstate communities were vandalism has occurred.

Austin (Courtesy: Boston Herald; Photo by M. Stone)

Verizon strikers have also been following around replacement workers assigned to do home installations and repair work, and this has occasionally led to picketers arriving outside of customer homes where repair work is underway.

The Boston Herald reports one Quincy, Mass. mom found a circus outside her home yesterday when Verizon showed up to fix her phone line:

A Quincy mom has disconnected her support for striking Verizon workers yesterday after a group of mouthy picketers surrounded non-union repairmen and turned a phone-line fix at her home into what she is calling a “ridiculous” protest scene.

“I looked in the street and there are picketers, 10 of them or more, doing a circle around the Verizon truck,” said Karen Austin, 64, a mother of five who lives on Forest Avenue.

“Every time (the repairmen) would walk up to my house they would follow them. I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is ridiculous. Why are they picketing my house?”

“I’m not on a main street … I’m not a business. I’m a person who needed a line fixed,” she said.

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Verizon alleges vandalism may be responsible for a significant service outage in Tewksbury, Mass., but union officials suggest Verizon’s claims are “straight out of the Verizon strike playbook.”  WHDH in Boston reports.  (2 minutes)

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WABC in New York watched as Verizon strikers booed anyone approaching an entrance to Verizon’s headquarters.  Company officials are seeking court orders to restrain picketing activities in five states.  (3 minutes)

Vandalism causes serious phone outages in upstate New York. (Courtesy: Verizon Communications)

Frontier Communications’ landline customers in Lewis and Oneida counties faced long distance service outages, while just about everyone in northern Oneida County is without both landline and cell phone service after fiber lines serving cell towers and landline customers were cut Monday.

The New York State Police have launched a criminal investigation into the sabotage, while Verizon Communications implies the damage might have come as a result of a strike against the company that began last weekend.

The largest outage, which cut off cell service and landlines, originated in Deerfield, where cables were severed.

Several upstate communities are facing lengthy service outages from a variety of acts of vandalism, most from cable cuts and damage to junction boxes.

Verizon has rushed out news releases regarding the damage, offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals that intentionally damage Verizon cables or facilities or cause or attempt to cause physical injury to any Verizon employee or contractor.  Verizon urges anyone who witnesses sabotage of Verizon property or any suspicious activity to call 911 immediately, then call the Verizon Security Control Center at 1-800-997-3287.

Both sides of the dispute are now appealing to Congress to intervene, an action that may not bring immediate results.  Both the House and Senate are currently in their five-week summer recess.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WKTV Utica Criminal investigation into cut phone lines that caused massive outages 8-9-11.mp4[/flv]

WKTV in Utica covers the impact of widespread landline and cell phone outages in Oneida County, upstate New York.  (1 minute)

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WRGB in Albany explores additional acts of vandalism in the Capitol District and gets reaction from striking workers about whether they were involved.  (3 minutes)

New Englandia. Upstate New York. Northern California. Carolina. Missipiana.

None of these are actual states, but based on the people we communicate with who share our interests, perhaps they should be.

Researchers at MIT’s Senseable City Lab, AT&T Labs-Research and IBM Research are revealing new research that redefines regional boundaries in the United States, using patterns of social connectedness across the country derived from anonymous and aggregated cell phone data.

The results, based on numbers called and the geographic destinations or text messages, are predictable in some places, surprising in others.

The Connected States of America (click to enlarge)

Take New Jersey for example.  The state is remarkably divided between the northern half, whose people are socially linked with metropolitan New York City, and the southern half which almost entirely ignores the Big Apple and Long Island, maintaining closer connections with southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Some other highlights:

• Socially, most of North and South Carolina are indistinguishable from one-another.
• Chattanooga has more in common with Alabama and Georgia than the rest of Tennessee.
• Southern California’s sprawl is to the east, not to the north.  The influence from Los Angeles and San Diego now extends into Arizona, Nevada and even Utah.  Northern California sticks to itself with one exception — it has connections towards Reno, Nevada.
• Upstate New York, mostly above the Hudson Valley, is socially similar all the way west to Lake Erie, with the exception of Chautauqua County, which is culturally closer to Appalachian areas in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
• New England maintains close ties with the exception of northern Maine and New Hampshire, which may be closer to Atlantic Canada.
• Standalone states that mostly keep to themselves include Florida, Texas, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.  With interest, many of those states are also politically defined as “swing states.”

The “Connected States of America” provides a more natural delineation of regions that follows relationships between family, friends and business partners.

“Sister states” emerge, such as Georgia and Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, and Tennessee and Kentucky, among others.

Metropolitan areas often form pockets of influence that extend into neighboring states or communities; for example, Chattanooga, Tenn., is more closely linked to communities in Georgia and Alabama than to the rest of Tennessee. Pittsburgh, Penn., and West Virginia form a new “state,” while St. Louis, Mo., exhibits an expanded reach that splits Illinois into two regions.

New Jersey and California also divide into two distinct regions due to large cities. In contrast, Texas remains whole: Despite the potentially splitting influence of cities such as Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin, the researchers found that there is enough inter-city communication to hold the state together.