Petri
Reged: 01/19/04
Posts: 1350
Loc: Helsinki, Finland
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That's pretty bad experience. Luckily firearms are not so widely available in e.g. St. Barth as in the states.
I'm glad my appearance alone will scare people, together with a strong finnish curse scared the gipsies in Firenze and they handed my wallet back nicely.
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Andynap
Reged: 10/24/02
Posts: 12360
Loc: Philadelphia
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QUOTE:"scared the gipsies in Firenze "
That's funny. My wife yelled at them in Florence too before they had a chance to do anything. She won my respect- I didn't know she could do that.
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Andy -
St. Barts- where no day is ever the same and one day is not enough
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georgedp
Reged: 06/22/04
Posts: 2804
Loc: Beautiful hunterdon county new...
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Quote:
That's pretty bad experience. Luckily firearms are not so widely available in e.g. St. Barth as in the states.
I'm glad my appearance alone will scare people, together with a strong finnish curse scared the gipsies in Firenze and they handed my wallet back nicely.
Unfortunately firearms are readily available in St. Maarten and Anguilla even through they are for the most part illegal. Would not be too difficult to smuggle them into SBH on a boat. The problem is not with firearms owned by the law abiding - it is with the illegal firearms in the hands of the criminal elements and that can occur in SBH as readily as any number of places.
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JackR
Reged: 10/10/02
Posts: 981
Loc: North Shore
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Anyone from Any EU country (and not all are wealthy) can travel to SBH on their passport. That is where the money is. Of course I cannot imagine stealing an old ipod, but maybe a laptop. When we bring ours to SBH I also bring the cable lock and use it. Also, and even at my own home, I LOG OUT of my computer.
This is a great deterrent to identity theft. LOG OUT when you GO OUT
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JackR
Reged: 10/10/02
Posts: 981
Loc: North Shore
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PS Where is IV to make sense of all this?
Signed,
The IV fan club
PSS I could not steal a laptop. I am a mac guy so I don't know how to work computers.
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JEK
Moderator
Reged: 01/20/04
Posts: 10983
Loc: Northern Virginia
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Quote:
PS Where is IV to make sense of all this?
Signed,
The IV fan club
PSS I could not steal a laptop. I am a mac guy so I don't know how to work computers.
IV is just back from SBH.
PS He promises a trip report
PSS Apple makes laptops :-)
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Carnaval 2009: Mardi 24 Février 2009!!!!
JEK
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jaimesbh
Reged: 04/22/06
Posts: 12
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Ok, this just makes my skin crawl! In April of this year my son's newly married sister and brother in law went to St. Lucia for their honeymoon. While they were asleep one night they were awakened by men on top of the wife binding her mouth, hands and ankles with duct tape while they started roughing up the groom. They then forced the bride to open the safe where they found US dollars and a cell phone. They took it all, but left her diamond rings and pendant. They then locked the couple in the bathroom and left. The thugs continued past the next bungalow (where British people were) and hit the 3rd and 4th bungalows where Americans were sleeping. These couples also lost their US cash. Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt (physically). The resort and the St. Lucian police did (and have done) virtually nothing to help. My daughter in law (the bride's sister) wasn't too keen on the idea of our renting a villa on SBH next June after this happened. I have been reassuring her that SBH is a very safe place and we have nothing to worry about! Now I read this and am shocked and am wondering if we should take a chance in a villa. The one we're most interested in is in the Preservation District of Gustavia. Does anyone know how populated this area is? Are many of the villas there rented out in June...thus making the possibility of having neighbors perhaps a bit of a deterrent to a similar fate? I recognize that this could happen anywhere...and unfortunately often does in my home town. But to have it happen while on vacation in beautiful SBH would be horrible! Thanks for any thoughts!
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Island Visitor
Reged: 12/19/02
Posts: 10396
Loc: Retraité
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Mac has a feature that makes its laptops WORTHLESS to steal. It is called Filevault. When activated, it takes a home folder and turns it into an encrypted "image". Rather than a folder where info resides, it takes all the data that would be there and encrypts it on the fly as though it were a mere image such that it can ONLY be read when it is unencrypted.
Most industrial encryption is done with 56 bit code whereas Filevault uses 128 bit code. It has been estimated that if a machine could decipher a 56 bit code in one second (and no known machine can), it would take that same machine 190 TRILLION years to decipher a 128 bit code. As such, so long as your password (and master password for the machine) are secure, it is claimed that even Apple can't get past Filevault. Indeed, if you forget the password and master password, your Filevault data is GONE FOREVER.
It is a wonderful security feature that works on the fly. When you are logged out, your data is UNREADABLE. So long as no one knows you password or master password, they CAN NOT READ IT. Even if they boot from another machine or another disk, all the data is still encrypted and cant be bipassed.
Memo to thieves: Most Maccies use Filevault and can lock their machines down. As such, dont even bother to steal them.
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Island Visitor
Reged: 12/19/02
Posts: 10396
Loc: Retraité
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My view is that the gendarmes DO take the idea of even "petty" burglarly seriously. Even so, there probably is a "what can we do" attitude about all this. In some ways, I think there is a LOT that can be done. For instance, Pointe Milou is not a very large area. Even something as simple as a fellow walking around at night with a walkie talkie could be a powerful deterrent.
I imagine that the gendarmes do try to investigate these things. However, if there is concern that these become "cold cases" (and many probably do) why not elevate them to the status of Hot Ticket Items?
In other words, yes, report these cases to the gendarmes. But also tell your rental agency. It seems logical that if the rental agencies, whose bread and butter depend on villa rentals, start getting a groundswell of "We're thinking about Mustique after what we are seeing on the internet and what happened to us" they will be forced to make a lot of local noise.
Personally, my own view here, were I repping a lot of villas on PM, I would have a couple of big guys walking around the neighborhood at nights.
Here in the South, we have some rural gas stations that stay open all night. Some of them have a wall of mirrors behind the cashier and a BIG sign that says "Man with shotgun sits behind mirror four nights a week".
Ya know, those stores never get robbed.
If this is a pattern, and I dont know whether or not is it, then I would advise people to put the issue in the lap of those who have a HUGE stake in happy tourists continuing to rent villas.
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Island Visitor
Reged: 12/19/02
Posts: 10396
Loc: Retraité
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Yes, this is my third post in a row in this thread. But let me give an example. We have vacationed two straight years on St Croix which many will have you believe is Poster Boy for "dangerous islands". Even so, we have felt safe as kittens both times knowing that the Armstrong family were NOT ABOUT TO LET anything happen to us at The Buccaneer.
Well, The Buccaneer is a property about the size of Pointe Milou and from a purely geographical standpoint it would be a lot easier to infiltrate than Pointe Milou. Yet it is locked down by The Armstrongs and anyone planning to cause harm to their fellow man would be advised to look for other locations.
Pointe Milou has one road coming into it and is otherwise surrounded by rather foreboding cliffs and water. I am sure that The Chris will guard their hotel grounds 24/7. As such, so long as someone keeps an eye on the main road coming in or a fellow with a walkie talkie strolls the rest of the place a few nights a week, it seems that burglarly would go WAY down.
God has provided most of the protection that Pointe Milou needs with water and rocky cliffs. Protecting the road in and the main roads around the area would NOT be hard.
Were I to have a problem at The Buccaneer, I would tell Elizabeth Armstrong (manager) and it would be tended to immediately. While Pointe Milou is not one single property with one single manager, it is mostly rental properties with only a handful of companies repping them.
Tell these companies. They have as much interest as we do, indeed MORE, in keeping these properties safe.
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JEK
Moderator
Reged: 01/20/04
Posts: 10983
Loc: Northern Virginia
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Quote:
Mac has a feature that makes its laptops WORTHLESS to steal. It is called Filevault. When activated, it takes a home folder and turns it into an encrypted "image". Rather than a folder where info resides, it takes all the data that would be there and encrypts it on the fly as though it were a mere image such that it can ONLY be read when it is unencrypted.
Most industrial encryption is done with 56 bit code whereas Filevault uses 128 bit code. It has been estimated that if a machine could decipher a 56 bit code in one second (and no known machine can), it would take that same machine 190 TRILLION years to decipher a 128 bit code. As such, so long as your password (and master password for the machine) are secure, it is claimed that even Apple can't get past Filevault. Indeed, if you forget the password and master password, your Filevault data is GONE FOREVER.
It is a wonderful security feature that works on the fly. When you are logged out, your data is UNREADABLE. So long as no one knows you password or master password, they CAN NOT READ IT. Even if they boot from another machine or another disk, all the data is still encrypted and cant be bipassed.
Memo to thieves: Most Maccies use Filevault and can lock their machines down. As such, dont even bother to steal them.
But if your are a common thief you are not after passwords and data, but the iron. Format, reload and sell. Did you really just do an IV and reply three straight. God, it is good to have you back.
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Carnaval 2009: Mardi 24 Février 2009!!!!
JEK
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JackR
Reged: 10/10/02
Posts: 981
Loc: North Shore
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Thanks IV
I just found filevault with my spotlight feature.
I plan to use it since this computer pays bills and keeps financial records.
When we stayed at PtM. there was much daytime construction. The workers would watch us come and go and I thought at the time (suspicious me) well they know we are here. The workers looked like regular joes though doing a tough job in wonderful surroundings. BUT its an expensive place to live and I bet many of the workers are transient.
My dental buddy practices on St Croix. He goes to the beach at SBH.
FWIW
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