Student Uses Computer to Help Arrest iPhone Robbers

Robbed of his iPhone last week, a student at Carnegie Mellon University used a tracking program on the phone to help police officers find and arrest the robbers outside a fast-food restaurant.

Early Saturday morning, Can Duruk, a senior, was walking home when two men stopped him and asked for his wallet, according to a press release from the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police. One of the men showed Duruk what looked like a handgun and demanded his PIN number, while the other took Duruk’s wallet and iPhone out of his pockets.

After calling the police, Mr. Duruk used the program MobileMe to track the movements of the robbers, according to The Tartan, Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper. MobileMe has a feature called Find My iPhone. Users can log onto a Web site to access a map, which can be updated at the push of a button, that shows the approximate location of the phone. As they headed toward an Eat’n Park restaurant, police went after them.

Diane Richard, a spokeswoman for the Pittsburgh police, said she didn’t know of any instances when a victim had been able to track robbers himself. “I’m glad that he was able to help us clear the case so quickly and apprehend the people who took his belongings,” she said.