# An iPod that had been underwater for five years helps solve an attempted murder **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 28, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254 "2025-03-28T13:36:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/1 "2025-03-28T13:36:27Z")
Apple should make a whole ad campaign around this story! The iPod in question was found in the Thames and contained evidence about a shooting by the members of a gang of thieves. > **[How an iPad under the Thames solved museum thieves' murder plot](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5nw5nez7zo)** > > Police were able to use the iPad as key evidence in a trial of three men who plotted to murder a cage fighter. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/2 "2025-03-28T14:15:46Z")
Note to OP: An iPod is **NOT** an iPad. Plus the iPad was merely the container a SIM card was in. Other than that the iPad was irrelevant. Apple has nothing to brag about here. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/3 "2025-03-28T19:46:34Z")
Maybe reading an article ought to be a prerequisite for citing it & starting a thread about it? ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/4 "2025-03-28T20:53:14Z")
Yeah yeah, I got too excited. I’ll do better in the future. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/5 "2025-03-28T21:08:53Z")
In your defense, the article title was click-bait garbage unworthy of the BBC. And the article was pretty impenetrable to anyone not steeped in the history of infamous UK capers. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/6 "2025-03-28T21:23:30Z")
The larking of mud on the Thames is one of the interesting rabbit holes Facebook likes to send me down. > **[Thames Festival Trust - Foragers of the Foreshore - Thames Festival Trust](https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/heritage-programme/foragers-of-the-foreshore/the-history-of-mudlarking/)** > > MUDLARK | Noun – a person who gains a livelihood by searching for iron, coal, old ropes etc. in mud or low tide. Dig deep into the history of mudlarking with Thames Festival Trust. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/7 "2025-03-28T21:31:16Z")
I follow Lara Maiklem for all my mudlarking news. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/8 "2025-03-30T13:58:17Z")
> [@](#): > > In 2006, Allen was part of a balaclava-wearing gang Did they also have [bushy eyebrows](https://www.wnep.com/article/news/investigations/action-16/kohberger/moscow-murder-introduce-terabytes-evidence-purchase-black-balaclava-mask/277-4e66be4d-8d40-4d12-b863-570b6b2b9763)? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/9 "2025-03-31T04:15:08Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Note to OP: An iPod is **NOT** an iPad. Yep, I’m old. > [@ftg](#): > > Plus the iPad was merely the container a SIM card was in. Other than that the iPad was irrelevant. But if the headline had just said a SIM card was found in the Thames, wouldn’t readers wonder how it’d be still functioning usefully? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-ipod-that-had-been-underwater-for-five-years-helps-solve-an-attempted-murder/1016254/10 "2025-03-31T11:36:28Z")
What do you mean “functioning usefully?” A sim card is like a mini USB stick. All it is is some passive memory. Some things, like the serial number, are burned into the memory at the factory. Other than that it’s just a very small capacity equivalent to a solid state disk drive. Like a USB stick, it can sit there for decades (centuries?) inertly before it starts to lose its data. The cops sure didn’t turn on the muddy iPad to extract the data. They pulled out the SIM, washed it off, and stuck it in a SIM reader. And once power was supplied to it, the data could be read off it. The only thing the iPad did was be a large enough, and interesting-looking enough, box for somebody to notice and bother picking up out of the mud. SIM cards being roughly the size of a fingernail, it’s a racing certainty as the Brits might say, that it would never have been noticed in the mud if it had been separated from the iPad. Note to future badguys: Remove and dispose of SIM cards separately from devices.