Attendees who lost phones in the Golden Gate Park crush tracked them down Interstate 5 to a few blocks of downtown Los Angeles. The service takeaway for the next big Bay Area crowd: what the thieves' methods tell you about protecting your phone.

If you lost your phone in the crush between stages at Outside Lands last weekend, it probably isn't in San Francisco anymore.

The San Francisco Standard reported Wednesday that several attendees watched, through Apple's Find My app, as their stolen phones traveled south out of the city, down Interstate 5, and into a narrow slice of downtown Los Angeles near Koreatown. Reporter George Kelly spoke to victims who described near-identical thefts in Golden Gate Park on Aug. 8 and 9, then pings that converged hundreds of miles away days later. KRON4 independently reported the same pattern — phones lifted at the festival, tracked to Los Angeles — and cited LAPD receiving roughly 20 similar reports in a single day.

A note on how we sourced this: The Dissent confirmed The Standard's account and reviewed Apple's documentation directly. The victim interviews and the tracking maps are The Standard's and KRON4's reporting, not ours.

That's the news. Here's the part that's useful the next time you're in a big Bay Area crowd, because the thieves' methods are the whole lesson.

They power the phone off, fast. One victim told The Standard her iPhone went dark almost immediately after it left her pocket — a deliberate move to defeat live tracking — before resurfacing on I-5 near Gilroy two days later. Turning on Stolen Device Protection (Settings › Face ID & Passcode) helps here: per Apple's support documentation, when your phone is away from familiar places, erasing the device or changing your Apple Account password requires Face ID or Touch ID with no passcode fallback, plus a one-hour security delay — and the feature itself can't be switched off without your biometrics and that same delay.

A strap is not a lock. One victim had his phone cut from a cord around his neck near the Lands End stage without noticing, The Standard reported. A crossbody bag that zips, worn in front in a packed crowd, beats anything dangling.

Back up before you go, not after. Victims told The Standard the worst loss was photos and video saved nowhere else. Turn on iCloud or Google Photos backup before the next show so a stolen phone is an expense, not a loss.

One hard truth from the reporting: recovery is a long shot. An LAPD lieutenant told The Standard that detectives made inquiries at the locations victims provided and could not locate any of the phones. Don't count on the ping map getting yours back.

Crowd season isn't over — Summer of Love lands at Pier 39 on Aug. 22–23, and the fall calendar is filling in. If you're heading into any of it: front pocket zipped, Find My and Stolen Device Protection on, backups done, and one eye on your bag when the crowd surges. That's the move.