LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
03.24.13
Crime Waves
and Echo Chambers
N THIS WEEK’S issue
of Huffington, Gerry
Smith gives us an indepth report on how
smartphones and tablets, especially
Apple products, have created an
entirely new — and very dangerous — criminal ecosystem. Smith
shines a light on each part of this
new global phenomenon, and shows
how the story continues — for both
the phones and the victims — long
after the original crime.
He introduces us to Hwangbum
Yang, a 26-year-old Korean immigrant who was just starting to realize his dreams. Having worked his
way up as a cook at the Museum of
Modern Art’s restaurant, he carried
a notepad to write down the dishes
he was going to serve in his own
restaurant one day. He also carried
his iPhone, which his sister Sunah
gave to him two years ago. In April
of last year, he was killed for it as
he returned home from work.
“Yang’s murder stands as a chill-
ART STREIBER
I
ing example of a modern-day crime
wave sweeping the country,” writes
Smith. “The spike in robberies
has grown so pronounced that police have coined a term for such
crimes: Apple picking.”
It’s a global market worth $30
billion a year, attracting criminal gangs from all over the world:
from Mexican drug cartels to organized crime rings to the militant
group Hezbollah.
And as Smith shows, stopping
the robberies is not easy, requiring unprecedented and never-ending joint efforts between phone
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