[HN Gopher] Stolen Picasso and Mondrian paintings found stashed ...
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       Stolen Picasso and Mondrian paintings found stashed in a ravine in
       Greece
        
       Author : prismatic
       Score  : 101 points
       Date   : 2021-07-06 03:51 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | Dah00n wrote:
       | FYI this is a week old.
       | 
       | https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/stolen-picasso-mondria...
        
       | shadilay wrote:
       | > The Caccia sketch was damaged during the robbery and discarded,
       | the suspect told the police.
       | 
       | The real crime.
       | 
       | Works being stolen usually adds to their value.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | Really?
         | 
         | That means some of these heists are staged!
        
       | klyrs wrote:
       | > He took the metro into town, changed clothes in a park next to
       | the gallery and waited until the museum's 9 p.m. closing time,
       | before finding a balcony with unsecured doors. When he moved a
       | door and a beep sounded, he said, he reconsidered his course of
       | action ... "That's when I decided that annoying the security
       | guard was the best way to do the theft, by making him believe
       | that there was a technical problem in the alarm zones," the
       | suspect told the police. So he opened and closed the door several
       | times to confuse the guards.
       | 
       | This is a great hack, applicable to probably most human security.
       | Can it apply to computer security? Well, if you've ever been
       | inclined to silence an alarm you can't diagnose...
        
         | alexpetralia wrote:
         | There must be some infosec term for this, but I'd imagine it's
         | close to "signal poisoning" - turning signal into noise.
        
           | chapium wrote:
           | Alarm fatigue.
        
         | vl wrote:
         | Or he is well-versed in classics - this is exactly what happens
         | in "How to Steal a Million" with Audrey Hepburn and Peter
         | O'Toole.
        
       | hirundo wrote:
       | I think the thief does deserve leniency. He had nothing to gain
       | by turning himself in other than guilt relief, and a lot to lose.
       | Much respect. Prison time still seems appropriate, but a lot less
       | than otherwise.
        
         | fumblebee wrote:
         | Maybe, hopefully. But this paragraph suggests that he thought
         | the police were onto him before he turned himself in.
         | 
         | > According to the news reports, the suspect said he had moved
         | the paintings there in May after reading that the police might
         | be onto him.
        
       | av3csr wrote:
       | A small follow-up on that destroyed sketch by Caccia
       | 
       | https://www.ekathimerini.com/culture/1163872/the-mystery-of-...
        
       | neonate wrote:
       | https://archive.is/Qx5Lz
        
         | axiosgunnar wrote:
         | Thank you
        
       | haunter wrote:
       | And they let the Picasso painting drop on the floor lol
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfmFsNec24
        
         | scudd wrote:
         | Puts it back in the exact same position too
        
         | happytoexplain wrote:
         | It's frankly hard to imagine somebody putting _a Picasso_ in
         | that position. Look at the height of the painting! Look at how
         | low the wall it 's resting on is! Look at the surface it's
         | sitting on! How is it that nobody there has their intuitive
         | every-day-physics alarms going off??
        
           | jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
           | Sometimes, you need to be honest even if harsh - the people
           | putting a picasso painting on that space to fall off are
           | incompetent fools who should never touch expensive art in the
           | first place...
        
             | heavenlyblue wrote:
             | How much of your salary are you willing to sacrifice in
             | order for police to be able to afford such competent
             | smarts?
        
               | subroutine wrote:
               | $3.50
        
             | chmod775 wrote:
             | "Local man surprised police officer who makes $15.50 an
             | hour lacks qualifications to handle $100m artwork."
             | 
             | Who cares. It's just a piece canvas that derives its value
             | from provenance, not condition.
        
           | swader999 wrote:
           | And touching it with their bare hands getting finger prints
           | on the canvas.
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | What really got me is how immediately after it fell, they put
           | it back exactly the same.
        
         | axiosgunnar wrote:
         | That's hilarious
        
       | watertom wrote:
       | He would have been better off framing them and hanging them on
       | the wall, nobody would believe that that construction worker had
       | the stolen originals on his wall. The other benefit is that he
       | would have been able to enjoy the art.
        
       | adolph wrote:
       | This EconTalk podcast episode is an interview with an author of a
       | book about the "Art Loss Register," a private registry for stolen
       | works of art. The economic aspects of provenance and trust are
       | likely interesting to folks interested in blockchain
       | applications.
       | 
       | https://www.econtalk.org/anja-shortland-on-lost-art/
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-06 23:00 UTC)