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Stolen MacBook Victim Uses iSight to Bust Thieves

gizmodo.com — A White Plains, NY woman who was the victim of burglary, including her MacBook, used the Back To My Mac screen sharing feature to turn on her webcam and capture images of the unwitting culprits using the computer. As a result, police were able to arrest the thieves and recover most of the stolen goods.

Who dugg this? Made popular May 10, 2008

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234 Comments

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  • MaxMWood, on 05/10/2008, -1/+415Whats with the image on the right?
  • GhostWithToast, on 05/10/2008, -4/+252They didn't follow protocol.
    1) Use technology to find dumb theives (with no awarness of current tech they've stolen)
    2) Post thieves images and story of thievery on blog
    3) Submit to Digg
    4) Create media firestorm, embarrass and destroy thieves
    5) Reaquire stolen goods
    6) Humiliate thieves on various websites as possible, including posting of personal information,
    myspace and facebook links, and home addresses of parents
    7) Wait for next moron thief, and repeat
  • DeanRed, on 05/10/2008, -10/+193I can't believe somebody got Back to my Mac working!
  • Jambi, on 05/10/2008, -1/+152Digg now inserts random theme images for each article, even if it has nothing to do with the actual content. No, that's not the guy who stole her MacBook.
  • inspecality, on 05/10/2008, -8/+141HOLY ***** THAT'S ME IN THE PICTURE! WTF
  • inspecality, on 05/10/2008, -1/+107In the Gizmodo picture, I'm not kidding. They pulled it off my Flickr without my permission.
  • AvidPreatorian, on 05/10/2008, -1/+95iAlertU app will snap a photo of whoever disturbs your computer and e-mail to you behind the scenes. works great if you have a phone with e-mail because you know who is messing with your stuff ... even if most of the time it's your roommate or his ugly girlfriend he fell back on after he got dumped by the girl of his dream for cheating .. true story. but anyway, iAlertU.
  • Doktag, on 05/10/2008, -1/+78link to original (and more detailed) article: http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200 ...
  • inspecality, on 05/10/2008, -0/+56Proof here.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexheinz/2480218459/

    (There goes my anonymity.)
  • AvidPreatorian, on 05/10/2008, -4/+52don't use that line ever again, EVER
  • marx2k, on 05/10/2008, -2/+47You have a nice ass
  • byrdgang, on 05/10/2008, -0/+40Would it have been impossible for you to link to the original article, which has details and mug-shots? Gizmodo is hardly useful. Unless you work for Gizmodo, there's no reason you should have linked to it instead of the original source (others have already provided a link to the original source).
  • mac9001, on 05/10/2008, -5/+43Don't knock it, just enjoy it...
  • mhuggins, on 05/10/2008, -2/+37I guess it's because the police defied standard protocol by actually helping the victim(s) in this situation.
  • saleem, on 05/10/2008, -3/+35$100 a month? wow i didnt know just how stupid some people are
  • jc7012, on 05/10/2008, -5/+358)????
    9) meh nevermind..
  • hello2usir, on 05/10/2008, -1/+25Drudging up overdone Mastercard parody that stopped being funny ten years ago = buried.
  • billbugger, on 05/10/2008, -0/+23now thats justice! the scarlet letter of our day.
  • 0011002, on 05/10/2008, -3/+26Source w/ mugshots:
    http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20 ...
  • TROY7, on 05/10/2008, -7/+32Apple can add this to the long list of reasons to buy a Mac...
  • Pegasus_Strain, on 05/10/2008, -2/+24Apple announces new feature "Give Me Back My Mac"
  • Andyschism, on 05/10/2008, -2/+23NOOOOOOOOOO! YOU WERE SO CLOSE!
  • santaliqueur, on 05/10/2008, -0/+21Come back to us when you are sure about the other 10%.
  • cleverdiggname, on 05/10/2008, -0/+21http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexheinz/514034592/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexheinz/
    yeah it looks they stole your ***** =/
  • TheHayze, on 05/10/2008, -5/+26A macbook is 2 grand? Since when? The top black Macbook is not more then 1500. You're thinking of the Macbook Pro... Besides, if you're the type of fool to buy it in a bigbox store, with a 100$/mo insurance policy, you deserve to get it stolen..
  • MrZaiko, on 05/10/2008, -3/+22You know those girls that use your macbook to take pics, specially the explicit ones they delete right after...
    This just gave me an awesome Idea
  • WiZZLa, on 05/10/2008, -0/+15Not surprising. Gizmodo steals from other blogs; stealing from flickr is the next logical step.
  • WCL23, on 05/10/2008, -2/+19Probably one of the few occasions when not having a password on your laptop actually helped
  • WCL23, on 05/10/2008, -0/+14What the....?
  • inspecality, on 05/10/2008, -0/+14I emailed the editor a few hours ago telling him to remove it. No response.
  • Metis2be, on 05/10/2008, -0/+13Umm... if you don't want to get spied on, don't steal computers.
  • svetty, on 05/10/2008, -0/+12Try giving it a call.
  • Coolmatt49, on 05/10/2008, -0/+12It's not video recording nor is it spying. iAlertU takes a picture of someone who is using your laptop/desktop computer when you don't want them to.

    Besides, if someone is messing with your ***** without your permission, isn't that illegal as well?
  • drgmdp, on 05/10/2008, -1/+13apple can use this as the only reason to keep a .mac account
  • xedd, on 05/10/2008, -0/+12Haha. Looks like sometimes that last 10% is the most crucial.
  • shmatt, on 05/10/2008, -0/+11Do you have a .mac account? BtMM only works for .mac subscribers, not a free service..
  • kreatre2007, on 05/10/2008, -1/+13It seems that Apple is working to get it working properly. When mine wasn't working, I complained to customer relations and someone from the .Mac support team actually called me. We got the whole thing straightened out and it works great. It turns out that my AT&T U-Verse gateway was the culprit. I turned off the firewall (which I didn't need anyway because my Macs have firewalls turned on) and all was well.
  • cerealjynx, on 05/10/2008, -0/+11I don't know those girls.
  • manitoba98xp, on 05/10/2008, -0/+10I believe that users have the ability to choose the license (Public Domain, All Rights Reserved, Creative Commons, etc.)
  • sougly, on 05/10/2008, -0/+10What are you gonna do about this?
  • daEvan, on 05/10/2008, -0/+9You have sparked my interest....Proof?
  • artgrrl, on 05/10/2008, -0/+11i like this recovery story so much better. shows screenshots of what the suspect is doing on the stolen computer, and gives timestamps:

    http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/nc.html
  • borninda818, on 05/10/2008, -0/+9to that?
  • BedPost, on 05/11/2008, -0/+10***** Gizmodo. They pull that huge dick move at CES, they steal from blogs, and apparently straight from flickr (inspecialty). I cannot understand why anyone would digg this or visit their website. They are complete and utter *****.
  • inactive, on 05/10/2008, -2/+10depends on the phone, windows mobile at least you have this ability and there are plenty of free programs out there that do exactly this. If the device is reset it will still preserve this and at the enxt power on send you SMSs (on their dime, noticing the sim card is different), it can even give you information about the BTS (mobile tower) they are associated to giving you location information.

    You can set it up to have several alarm type functions whether its a sim card change, or something else.

    I do not believe there is this functionality for non windows mobile phones though because of the way they operate. The iphone would be difficult without violating some EULA and at least jailbreaking. Apple would rather you buy a new phone instead of getting your old one back.
  • Kennerk, on 05/10/2008, -0/+8its called anti-theft.... if anti-theft is illegal, then wtf?
  • ChristianMagic, on 05/10/2008, -1/+9Pic unrelated.
  • Aphelion, on 05/10/2008, -1/+9yeah but if you buy a mac, get your mac stolen and get your mac back, in the end you'll have a mac
  • skoles, on 05/10/2008, -2/+10Thank god they told any potential thieves how to disable this handy feature.
  • AvidPreatorian, on 05/10/2008, -4/+11works like a dream with all my family and friends who use it
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