my nexus 7 got jacked

On 2 August 2012 by matthew With 11 Comments - culture, google, tablets, technology

—> UPDATE <—

At some point this evening, between the Ver­i­zon Wire­less store and Qdoba, both in Rockville, MD, some­one stole my brand new Nexus 7. If you’ve been read­ing my blog in the last week or so, you know how much I went through just to get the damned thing. Now it’s gone. I didn’t even real­ize that the Nexus 7 was gone until I got home. I hold myself account­able because I left the tablet out of my back­pack on the back seat. (I am also kick­ing myself for not enabling the lock screen on the Nexus 7.) Clearly, I must have left the doors to the car unlocked, because the win­dows are in tact and there was no force­able entry.

Of course, once I dis­cov­ered that I had been jacked, I scram­bled to change every con­ceiv­able pass­word, dis­able Google Wal­let, and offered up a gen­er­ous heap­ing of curse words for the new owner of my Nexus 7. I also pushed the Plan B app to the Nexus 7 in the hopes that if some­one con­nects the device to a WiFi net­work, I will be able to see its where­abouts. If it’s on a wire­less net­work long enough, I can let the police know.

[deep breath]

I am really bummed about this; but I admit that part of me won­ders if it just wasn’t meant to be. Per­haps all the has­sles with ship­ping were an omen that I should have heeded.

Lar­ceny sucks!

, , , ,

11 Comments

  1. Reply
    Francis 2 August 2012

    After all you went through, some­one steals your Nexus 7. I’m sorry, man. I think you’re tak­ing the right steps to pro­tect your data. I hope they do try to acti­vate it so that Plan B with lock them out and allow you to retrieve it. I saw some­where on a google sup­port site, that they have the abil­ity to remotely dis­able the nexus 7 in the event it was stolen. I would also try call­ing the Nexus sup­port line. At the very least it would rob the rob­ber of their prize.

  2. Reply
    matthew 3 August 2012

    Thanks Fran­cis. I was won­der­ing about a remote lock­out. I’ll try giv­ing Google a call. Thanks for the suggestion.

    • Reply
      savannah 20 November 2012

      So my Nexus 7 tablet was stolen at school just yes­ter­day. I did not pre­vi­ously install the Look­Out app, so now I am hav­ing to rely on Plan B to find it via Google Play on my lap­top. I did step one, which was to install Plan B, and it says the app is com­pat­i­ble with my tablet. Still no infor­ma­tion back on its loca­tion to my email. But how do I do step three?

      • matthew 28 November 2012

        Savan­nah. I don’t think there’s much that can be done until the tablet con­nects to a wire­less net­work to install the app. I don’t know of any device that auto­mat­i­cally con­nects to a new WiFi network…even if it’s open. Seems like a flaw in Plan B, if you ask me.

        I would try con­tact­ing Google to see if they can brick the tablet remotely. Short of that, I don’t know what else you can do. Sorry. :-(

  3. Reply
    robert 3 August 2012

    Wow that does suck. Hope­fully you can find out who did it. A pod­cast I lis­ten to a guy used Find My iPhone to watch his iPad, recently stolen from his shop­ping cart at the gro­cery store, drive away. The police were able to track it to the lady’s house, and she was prosecuted.

    Good luck!

    • Reply
      matthew 3 August 2012

      Thanks Robert. I was post­ing an update as you left this com­ment. The Nexus 7 turned up…on the side­walk next to the car. (egg on face)

  4. Reply
    Andy Boatman 31 August 2012

    I just got the Nexus 7. Last month my Side­Kick got stolen. I was not able to get it back but T-Mobile could lock out the phone.
    With the Nexus 7 I am won­der­ing how to lock out or wipe the infor­ma­tion in case it is stolen. Have you found any apps for this pur­pose?
    It looks to be a great device thus far. Did you get a cover folio for your device yet?

    • Reply
      matthew 31 August 2012

      The best thing to do if your device gets stolen is to imme­di­ately change your pass­words and set up the two-step val­i­da­tion (for Gmail and/or Google Apps accounts). These changes won’t pre­vent some­one from scrolling through infor­ma­tion that’s already been pushed to your device, but it will “lock up” the accounts if some­one tries to do any­thing. You can push Plan B to your device remotely, but it really only serves as a bea­con for find­ing it.

      While you still have the device in hand, I would highly rec­om­mend using a pat­tern lock or PIN for the ini­tial secu­rity on the device. You might want to con­sider pur­chas­ing and installing Kasper­sky Mobile Secu­rity. I believe that it, among other things, allows you to remotely lock down and wipe your device.

      I never did pick up a cover or case for the Nexus 7, and I even­tu­ally sold the tablet to a friend. Good luck with your Nexus 7.

  5. Reply
    codehpro 18 November 2012

    Yes, I work for google android and we will Brick the device it wont even turn on ;) Just fyi

    • Reply
      mindy 20 November 2012

      My nexus 7 was stolen last night and I called the nexus help line and they said since it was pur­chased through a third party (Sta­ples), they would not brick it. They told me to call Sta­ples… Any help would be appreciated.

  6. Reply
    Ben 21 January 2013

    You can brick it . all you want. Chances are you will never see your nexus 7 back ever… You will pissed off the thieve.and he s gonna destroy or nexus7 jaja. Good luck

Leave a Reply