The Kindle, like all small expensive objects, will occasionally be stolen. The following story comes from the Amazon forums, and is what one person experienced when their Kindle was stolen.

All was well. Then, through no fault of Amazon’s, my Kindle was stolen. (I had it with me while shopping at a local supermarket, I must have put it on a counter for a few seconds, turned around, and it was gone.) Within 30 minutes, my Blackberry notified me that four new books had been purchased and downloaded to the device.

Assuming some logic to this process, I immediately went online to de-activate my One-Click account. That being done, I called Amazon. That’s where the craziness began. They did immediately credit my account for the four books, but then I was told that whoever was in possession of my Kindle had “de-registered” or removed it from my account (without my consent, using one click from the device itself), and there was “absolutely nothing we can do.” Three phone calls to Amazon later, I was able to learn that Amazon could indeed provide more information, but only to my local police department.

If I lived in a quaint small town, I suppose this would have been a simple issue. But I live in San Francisco. While I have filed a police report with the serial number of my device and proof of ownership, the SFPD informs me that they have a 6-9 month backlog on cases, and that there is “realistically no chance” of recovering my device. Not only that, but it was most likely that I would never hear from the SFPD again about this issue, and that no officer would “ever” have the time to contact Amazon to research the issue.

What could be worse? Well, imagine if you will that the thief tried to register my device for their own use. Guess what? Amazon lets them, and that’s exactly what happened. Someone now has my $400 Kindle, with the entire library of books I paid for, and lifetime wireless access happily served up by Amazon. Amazon’s position is that they are “not a policing agency.”

I keep thinking that stealing a cell phone should be this easy. I could take someone’s phone, contact the carrier, tell them that I’d like to register it in my name, and bingo – it’s mine! What’s more, I would be able to keep the insurance and features assigned to the phone, and use all of the pre-paid minutes. I can just see the former owner complaining to Sprint, and the Sprint agent saying “well, sir, we’re not a policing agency …”

I know that I can’t expect Amazon to give me the information about who is in possession of my property (although they have a full record of this person’s identity). But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have required SOME kind of authorization before de-registering the device.

I believe that this security gap – the ability of anyone to just grab a Kindle and start using it as their own with the full cooperation of Amazon – should be enough to keep anyone from buying one, especially the newer $490 version which apparently has the same security flaw (at least, Amazon isn’t mentioning any difference in the programming).

For now I’ll just wait – I’ll be patient – sooner or later someone will come out with an e-reader which has the rudimentary security of a cell phone.

I must admit, I’m somewhat surprised. While Amazon is right that they’re not a policing organization, and they don’t want to get involved in disputes over ownership of a kindle (“I paid for it!” “No he didn’t!”), it would seem that making users sign over rights to a kindle through their online account would be a simply way to make theft less profitable and still allow people to sell their old kindles on the secondary market.