Possible Stolen Red Camera. Help Needed.

[Axel Mertes]

Here's a thought- perhaps Red Cine should be slightly altered to look for the serial number in the Bin Hex. There could be a database of Reds reported stolen. If an .R3D from one is loaded, it automatically puts up a warning...Noah

That is indeed an interesting suggestion that should be directly addressed in all next versions of RED software. On the other hand one might patch this out at some point, so it should not be simply the number...

Another option might be to send an automatic email or the like if it has internet connection on that particular system.

Anyhow, all this does not prevent bad guys from doing workarounds at some point.

Maybe its more prohibitive to have a watermarking in exported images if they are encountered as "from stolen cam" and identify themselves.

Another approach could be to render the camera useless with a new firmware update that disables the camera and future user sided firmware updates, except RED team itself. But then, OTOH, the camera may be completey worthless and dropped away, maybe never localized and returned.

Best thing would have been a hidden embedded GPS module and maybe even embedded cell phone to send regular life signals when enabled with a new firmware etc. A technical value of maybe 100 or 200 bugs, that will give other benefit of being able to embed GPS data to every shot, which might be interesting to some poeple.

After all it should be considered how a specific camera may get identified and localized for situations like this.

Just thoughts,
Axel

PS: NYC seems to be pretty unsafe place...?

 

[Rick Darge]

I like the idea of a firmware update that fries the camera. Worst case scenario, at least you know this guy isn't profiting from your investment and now he has a big paperweight. I'm really sorry to hear about this. Hopefully its all a big misunderstanding and your camera is coming back to you.

 

[Mike Harrington]

Here's a thought- perhaps Red Cine should be slightly altered to look for the serial number in the Bin Hex. There could be a database of Reds reported stolen. If an .R3D from one is loaded, it automatically puts up a warning...

Noah

I for one would be happy with the loss of some privacy for this kinda protection....
If this camera ends up in Suadia Arabia or China or whatnot you will have almost no recourse legally...even if you know where it is.(unless you fly there and......well you know)

Although this severely sucks......
best thing to do is make everyone aware, maybe Red can watch out for it....
and just forget about it.
I had some cars stolen in the past.....and staying up late thinking of ways to kill people was a complete waste of time.
I do sympathize....I'm just being practical
I doubt this guy was an idiot.....he was specifically going after this camera.
It may even be someone in china wanting to do a knockoff.......who knows.

Anyway....lets pray he is an idiot and takes it to Red for a retrofit.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Program camera to shut down after rental days are up.

Program camera to shut down after rental days are up.

The camera could be modified to allow the rental house to enter a password to set a timer in the camera to shut the camera down after the rental time is up, plus maybe a day or two. The camera could display the time left on the rental to tell the renter when the camera is due back.

The accessories could get a code through their power from the camera that would be required or they would power down, so they would not work on camera's SN not programed into their firmware. The camera password could be used to add more SN to the accessories, that way if any accessories are taken they will not work on another camera since only the owner can change permissions.

The owner would set the timer/limiter so it would also lock out the reset on the clock, and limit the number of turn-ons before the camera locks up with just a prompt for the password.

You could add some combination of buttons to be pressed in some defined order along with the password so that it would be very hard to crack and get the camera to ever work.

You could have the camera burn out a fuse (or worse) or something if someone trys to crack the password more than three times. (it could start beeping continuously until the battery is unplugged also!)

The display can say "This camera stolen from: Don Doe, 123 Main, Anytown, USA" all the time after the rental time has lapsed.

Do not have a way the renter can extend the time, even over modem or beep code through the microphone input, since that would allow a crack.

That would make the camera useless to anyone who steels it, and RED (tm) could tell everyone so to discourage such acts.

 

[brandon herman]

i agree

the option of a password is a great idea.

 

[Chris Pickle]

I for one would be happy with the loss of some privacy for this kinda protection.....

Famous last words.

Chris

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Wow. I suppose we all knew this would happen to someone sooner or later.

Hopefully you covered all your bases, notified authorities in the area you shipped the camera to and give them all information you have about this "Abdul". Notified your insurance agency, notified RED. You should have a valid shipping address, I'm assuming someone had to sign to receive the camera at an actual location. There's got to be a way to track this guy down. Established customer you say? How did he pay you before? Chances are, you can track him. Unfortunately, he's probably out of the country by now and your camera has already changed hands.

On the bright side of things, if RED is notified, the thief and anyone he sells it to, shouldn't be able to upgrade to the new camera. Perhaps other measures can be taken? Would it be possible in future firmware updates to render known stolen cameras non-functional?

 

[Cloudchaser]

Pera

Pera

You should register the stolen camera and any associated lenses, etc. on PERA's website.

http://peraonline.org/cgi-bin/WebObjects/PERA

David

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Deadman's switches are just asking for a disaster on set due to a malfunction. Passive protection seems like the best (if any) solution.

 

[Brent J. Craig]

It sucks to have a camera stolen, but your course of action should be pretty clear:

You have a shipping address and name, and you obviously would have had them provide proof of insurance before you shipped.

Call the police to report the theft, then call their insurance company and put in a claim, INCLUDING the lost rental days until the camera can be replaced.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Most insurance covers you if the camera is stolen from the guy who is renting from you. If he steals it you're screwed.

We talked to Indie Rentals earlier today. We're pretty sure this same scammer tried to steal a Phantom and Optimo from us this summer.

Mitch Gross
Technical Director of Rentals
Abel Cine Tech

 

[Stuart English]

Camera P.I.N

Camera P.I.N

Please let everyone that you do business with know that RED ONE cameras have a unique 9 digit electronic serial number - a P.I.N - that complements the physical serial number tag. The latter may be erased, defaced or otherwise tampered with, but the P.I.N can't.

The P.I.N is also written to every video frame recorded (its in the .R3D file) but an instant view of the camera P.I.N is available by pressing the key to the right of the joystick, plus the joystick itself. The P.I.N will then be displayed in the rear LCD panel. In the case of my test camera, the P.I.N is ABC_123_XYZ

The P.I.N is also displayed on the rear LCD panel and on all monitor ports at camera boot up from Build 8 firmware onwards.

 

[Brook Willard]

Thanks Stuart, I always wondered what those numbers were.

That's not a bad thing for camera owners to think about: write your P.I.N down somewhere safe!

 

[Gareth]

This kind of activity rings the alarm bells of "Lusa Producoes" (not a real company) who pulled a similar stunt with Sony HDCam gear in HK around 18 mths ago. I believe APV Web had to write the loss off. Could this be the same grub??

My condolences.

Gareth Lee
Sunshine Coast
Australia

Related link below
http://www.apvweb.com/news/news.asp?id=16

 

[ericyoung]

...We shipped a Red One (serial number in the 90's), to Fresh Meadows, NY. Just outside Queens and Manhattan for a previous/established customer to use on his short film "On the Way Back" shooting from 12/3 - 12/9/07...

As he was a previous/established customer, do his previous rental contact details give alternative avenues of investigation?

...He called us on 12/11/07 to extend his rental to the 12th (due to weather) and confirmed paying for his rental with a wire transfer confirmation number. The camera never came back, the wire never came in and no tracking or wire transfer confirmation numbers lead us to anything. Now, his phones are disconnected and emails are unanswered...

It sure looks a lot like it has been stolen. :sad:

But it may be that something else is the reason. I mean doesn't it seem weird that if he was going to steal your camera that he would bother to phone to extend the rental? There may be some innocent explanation. :umm:

 

[Dalibor Fencl]

....
The P.I.N is also written to every video frame recorded .....

That's nice to hear & clever to let known it to everybody.

 

[Omnius]

This guy ABDUL. . . any last name? any indication on what part of the M.E. he might be from? I have a significant amount of contacts in the M.E. including Lebanon, U.A.E., Bahrain and Egypt. The industry is small and everyone basically knows everyone involved, so if a RED all of a sudden shows up in the Middle East when RED has no record of selling any "extra" unregistered ones directly to the area, it may not be that difficult to track it down. If the camera has left the U.S. the U.S. police will basically be impotent in doing any thing about it, but things in the Middle East work in Entirely different ways, especially when it comes to cops and bakhsheesh. If this 'Abdul' is truly his name and a Middle Eastern the word could be put out to the players in the Middle East and it should be easy enough to get word. Any one in the Middle East with a RED will more than likely be flaunting his new toy and word will get around rather quickly, unless it's of course an Israeli using the name Abdul as a cover to throw people off track, but even though, I think few Israeli's will have REDs in hand and it should be easy to locate. It's not like there are a lot of REDs in circulation. At least not yet. I'll spread the word through my Lebanese, Bahraini, Syrian, Egyptian and Emirate contacts for you.
Sincerely

 

[Omnius]

One last thing.

I have a very close friend who works as a "Skip Tracer"
If you could possibly P.M. me with as much information as possible on this guy I can have my friend run him through their systems.

Trust me when I say my friend has a knack of finding just about ANYBODY

Any and all details will help in the trace.

 

[ChrisLyon]

Jumping on the firmware interaction train, when a stolen camera is identified, the firmware installer could call home with information on the computer like IP address/computer registration info. IPs can be tracked back to the ISP and then legal steps would have to be taken to ID the owner of the IP at the time of the call home. Then just fly over and knock down the door with a few hundred red ninjas.

I've never had a camera stolen-I can only imagine.

 

[RivaiC]

Sorry to hear that man. This is awful !