What is Digg?167 Comments
- EvanWasHere, on 10/12/2007, -7/+91Thank you all for your support. This has been a crazy 2 weeks for me. Sooo glad it's over!
- MindReaver, on 10/12/2007, -2/+39Do the crime, do the time, Sashie. Sorry your MOTHER and military poilceman brother didn't have the collective brains between them to teach you that lesson.
- Silby, on 10/12/2007, -3/+40she deserves it. I personally think her arm should be cut off....but that's just me and Hammurabi.
- Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+35I have to say that this has been the single best use of the internet since its inception. Well, and porn.
- dbpigeon, on 10/12/2007, -6/+40For those who don't want to log in:
(hopefully I have this right, the last two sentences of page 3, and all of 4, 5, and 6 were just an identical copy of the article.)
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"Dirty Harry had his forty-four. Sherlock Holmes had his brain.
Evan Guttman had his computer, the Web and a couple thousand people he never met. That was enough.
Three weeks ago, Mr. Guttman went on an epic quest to retrieve a friend's lost cellphone, a quest that has now ended with the arrest of a 16-year-old on charges of possessing the missing gadget, a Sidekick model that retails for as much as $350. But before the teenager was arrested, she was humiliated by Mr. Guttman in front of untold thousands of people on the Web, an updated version of the elaborate public shamings common in centuries past.
The saga began when Mr. Guttman's best friend Ivanna left her cellphone in a taxicab, like thousands of others before her. After Ivanna got a new Sidekick, she logged on to her account - and was confronted by pictures of an unfamiliar young woman and her family, along with the young woman's America Online screen name.
The 16-year-old, Sasha Gomez, of Corona, Queens, had been using the Sidekick to take pictures and send instant messages. She apparently did not know that the company that provided the phone's service, T-Mobile, automatically backs up such information on its remote servers. So when Ivanna got back on, there was Sasha.
Using instant messages, Mr. Guttman tracked down Sasha and asked her to return it. "Basically, she told me to get lost," Mr. Guttman recalled. "That was it."
So he set up a no-frills Web page with a brief account of what happened, and posted the pictures of the girl and her family. Within hours of putting up the Web page, Mr. Guttman was fielding hundreds of e-mail messages from those nursing their own bitter memories of a lost cellphone, a Blackberry or a digital camera that went unreturned.
There were links to the page on Digg and Gizmodo, two popular tech-oriented blogs, which helped drive more and more traffic. Eventually, hundreds of other Web sites posted links to his page. The hundreds of e-mail messages became thousands from as far away as Africa and Asia. Mr. Guttman tried to answer them all, and barely slept. "A lot of people have been saying, 'I lost my phone, I wish I did this,'." he said.
Some readers also began visiting Sasha's MySpace page and bombarding her and her friends with e-mail messages. Others found her street address in Corona and drove by her family's apartment building, taking videos or shouting out "thief" in front of her neighbors.
Meanwhile, lawyers and police officers sent Mr. Guttman e-mail messages instructing him on the finer points of property law and advice on how to navigate the police bureaucracy. Some readers took to Internet forums, where they exchanged their own stories of lost phones and recalled the time last year when Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked, allowing millions of people to view her pictures and personal address book.
The site continued to draw e-mail messages and rack up visitors. When Mr. Guttman's Web server crashed from the traffic, several people offered free server space. A reader in Orlando, Fla., recorded a song about the missing Sidekick and posted it on a MySpace page. (Sample lyrics: "Materialistic-kleptomaniac/please just give her her Sidekick back.") Another, Mr. Guttman said, invited him to a party at the Playboy mansion in Los Angeles. Still others located Mr. Guttman's personal site, which is not directly linked to the Sidekick page, and found photographs that he has taken of swimsuit models, some of them seminude. They accused him of an intricate scheme to sell pornography, which he laughed off.
Mr. Guttman also kept exchanging e-mail messages with Sasha and, eventually, her family. Then he heard from her older brother, Luis Pena, who said he was a military policeman and warned Mr. Guttman to leave his sister alone.
Mr. Guttman posted the exchange.
Within days, he was contacted by dozens of active and retired soldiers. One said he had gone through basic training with Mr. Pena; several others told Mr. Guttman that making such a threat was a violation of military policy and promised to report Mr. Pena to his superior officers.
Mr. Guttman posted it all.
"I don't want people to be punished," he said last week. "I just want them to give the Sidekick back."
The girl's family was not pleased by the attention, especially the random visitors to their street. Though Sasha and Mr. Pena did not respond to several instant messages and e-mail messages seeking comment, their mother, Ivelisse Gomez, confirmed that her son was serving in the Army and had got into trouble with his superior officers after some of the visitors to Mr. Guttman's Web page called in to complain. She also said that Mr. Guttman's Web site amounted to harassment and said the family might sue him.
"They told him to come pick it up," said Ms. Gomez, speaking in the apartment of her building's superintendent. She said she bought the phone for $50 on a subway platform in Queens and gave it to her daughter. "We said he could have it if he gave the money we paid for it," she added.
Mr. Guttman, however, said that the offer to retrieve the phone was accompanied by a threat of physical injury. So after posting a warning that Sasha had one last chance to return the phone, he accompanied its actual owner, his friend Ivanna, to a Manhattan police station. Ivanna asked that her last name be kept private, as she was about to be married, and, she said, "I don't want to be famous for having lost my Sidekick."
"I was worried, because I had all this information on the phone - all these numbers and e-mails, personal and work," she continued. "So I called Evan, because he's really good with computers."
People are not nice," she added, referring to Sasha. "Why?"
Last Thursday, the saga of the lost Sidekick began meandering toward a conclusion. The police arrested Sasha and charged her with possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, a misdemeanor. (The police have possession of the Sidekick and plan to return it to Ivanna.) Sasha was released, but was not available to speak to this reporter. Her mother offered a parting comment.
"I never in my life thought a phone was gonna cause me so many problems," Ms. Gomez said. - Barmat, on 10/12/2007, -4/+38In the NY Times eyes racism only travels one direction.
- Kajico, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34For the original Dugg website: http://evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+34Nerds win :)
- BBX25, on 10/12/2007, -5/+36User: eatme98
Pass: Password
Via Bugmenot. - ScrabbyDoo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+331) Its the mother who "bought" the phone
2) Do your know what condone means? - CatsAreGods, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30I notice the NY Times didn't see fit to reprint the racist comments that Sasha made to the victims...
- rainfay, on 10/12/2007, -32/+59http://endofnet.com for photoshoped pictures
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26Never in a million years did this mom think that the sidekick would be tracked by it's original owners, serves you right for two things
1. buying stolen goods and
2. not knowing how to use it properly - SystemHasFailed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25Next stop for Sasha... pr0n!!
Sidekick Sasha.. in Sasha does the Corona Crew - radu79, on 10/12/2007, -3/+26Glad to see the whole story is over.
BTW, if they dare to sue you, I hope you will fight back. I will personally donate for your legal team, with the condition that after you win you counter sue them :) - Barmat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Wow all this time and the family still can't take responsibility for their actions. They are thinking of suing? They are truly lower forms of life then the rest of us.
- radiatrixzero, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22"I never in my life thought a phone was gonna cause me so many problems."
Priceless. =) - macewan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21The whole message of this being theft seems to be lost on that family. Hopefully, instead of think the owner is a "white bitch", she'll instead see this as a lesson. *coughkarma*
- RegisteredUser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18RSS link (no login required)..
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html?ex=1308542400&en=d381f9622c0c59ce&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss - NeMeSiS187, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18wow the NY Times makes the bad guys sound so much nicer than they really are. Glad the cell phone is finally going back to its rightful owner though!
- orgasmatron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Forget the sidekick..did you go to the playboy mansion party??!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18Glad she got pwned like she deserves..
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17The NYT thinks criminals should have more rights than the victims. The MP should be thrown out of the military for threatening a civilian with violence when he was not at risk.
- Kajico, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I've lived with dirt ***** poor, and there is a difference between integrity and desperation. When you're poor, if you are going to steal, you don't steal sidekicks you steal food. They live in a AMERICA, where social welfare is so giving that it's damn near socialist communisim. They don't need to steal to survive, especially not a Sidekick that is nothing but a luxury and was used as a toy, not as a means of monetary gain.
Don't be idiotic and justify their actions because they are monetarily disadvantaged. Their actions were based on greed and malice because the people that they kept it from were not of the same race and color as they were. That is racisim and ignorance.
If you want to get out of the gutter, you get out of it through hard work, strife and independance. You don't hide behind exemptions because you're a minority and poor. - Yarnage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15If you have been following the story, they originally said they found it in a taxi. Then, after hundreds of e-mails and IMs were being sent to them, they changed their story to they paid $50 for it.
- Snakedal337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Bugmenot.com and its also posted above.
- thenorwegian, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15bigvics, who the ***** are you? OHHH yeah you're that guy that is constantly getting dugg down because you're an ugly nippleface. hmm..
anyways...congrats evan, glad you pursued this. - Driver7, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Congrats Evan.
It was a great story to follow for the last 3 weeks.
And it even had a happy ending. Well not for Sasha I guess. - LR2_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13@ScrabbyDoo | Via Evan's site: "Three notes to the [NY Times] story... When the mother says that they gave me an address to come pick up the Sidekick, that was the address I posted above...which turned out to be a fake address... Also, she mentions that they bought it at the subways station for $50... Yet they told me (among other stories) they got it from a cabby...and were trying to sell it to me (supposedly) at $100. Sad that the stories are still being made up..."
So, according to Evan the mother lied to the NY Times. - teknosaurus, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Your a douchebag
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14It's not surprising how the New York Times left out all the racist, anti-caucasian comments that the thugs made about Ivanna and Evan.
Wait, only white people can be racist according to the mainstream media. - gage006, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12You don't need a NYT sub to read it.
- pairanoyd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Too bad she wasn't slapped with a felony charge. That would have been super sweet!
- lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I agree, I hate the fact that minorities (of which I am one) automatically assume that just because they're not white they can be as racist as they want without fear of reprecussions. Just because you're a minority doesn't make you special, it makes you equal to everyone else. That's what OUR (yours and my) ancestors, gave their lives trying to achieve.
- ZinjaShike, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Mace, you mean "condemn". Condone would mean she accepted it as a way of life or that it's considered allowed.
Glad to see this come to an end. . . - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12See folks? This is the reason why people tell you not to buy stuff that might be stolen.
>"We said he could have it if he gave the money we paid for it," she added.
It's not the original owner's responsibility to refund you -- that onus belongs to the dude who sold it to you on the subway platform. Good luck finding him. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11^he blasted for posting gay porn, which if you saw it on the forum, was pretty hardcore stuff..... the stuff on his site is pretty much "playboy" poses.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Same thing happen a year ago in Long Island, NY. This monkey breaks into a car, steals a phone and takes pictures of himself mostly looking gay in front of the mirror posing while undressed. He even uses the phone to shoot a pornographic short movie of himself and his underage gf. The kid is completely oblivious that the owner of the phone sees everything on the teleco's website. So the phone's owner posted the pictures everywhere for awhile until his 15 minutes of fame were up.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,68668,00.html - Dissipate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8This girl's mom is threatening to sue for harassment? Give me a break. All the guy did was post information that they told him. This whole family sounds like trash.
- cheztir, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11nah i think being hit by the a good portion of the world is just enough, and she does have a baby. Think of the kid, though she probably won't take care of it.
- randyest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Excellent story of the triumph of geekdom and the power of the net to do good.
Only 2 minor disappointments:
1) The NYT didn't mention the disgusting, blatant racism of the thief:
("I immediately contacted the AOL name: Sashacristal8905 and requested that the Sidekick be returned. I was immediately told that my “white ass” didn’t deserve it back. That she was not a “white bitch” (my friend who is a blonde white girl had pics on the phone this person had obviously seen) stupid enough to return a phone she found.")
. . . Which isn't surprising, but it's still annoying since you know they'd mention any racism -- even just alleged racism -- if a white person said it about a non-white. It bugs enough me that some people seem to think that only whites can be racist, but it's downright shameful when the "Newspaper of Record" follows that retarded and ignorant logic.
2) Ivanna isn't going to press charges. The little racist thief should be nailed as hard as possible IMHO. And her fat epebophile boyfriend (he's in his 30's, she's 16!) should be court martialed and charged criminally. And the little racists' parents should be charged too, since they bought the stolen goods -- they could also probably use some counselling and parenting classes. - bayonetblaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8i'm much more disgusted with the over-age boyfriend and the 'military police' fellow. It could be argued that Sasha is still learning how to be a human being, though I would expect more progress by 16.
- helpimstuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Give me a break. Impoverishment is no excuse for theft. White privilege exists but your lenient attitude towards non-white thieves is terrible.
And again, she DID NOT buy the Sidekick for $50. That was only one of the 4+ excuses she and her family gave. - dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@ Yarnage
Exactly! They change their story every time about how teh obtained it, even though early on they pretty much admitted to taking it. - compuguy1088, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Yay for Geeks!!
- eatablog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@chess007
No...she stole the phone...being ignorant just to be ignorant is silly. A lot of you peeps really must not have read the entire saga unfold. NY Times facts are not always facts, be sure to read other evidence and make your own conclusion.
Plus, you don't know how she lives. You've seen pictures like the rest of us and made assumptions. Although I believe that white privilege exists, don't categorically make the assumption that if you're poor, you're a criminal...like Sasha and her homies. I was poor, but stealing wasn't something that I did. - RegisteredUser, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8BugMeNot is cool, but why even bother logging in? Story submitters need to stop being lazy and post the RSS links instead. All major news sites that require logons have RSS links to stories that don't require a logon.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21sidekick.html?ex=1308542400&en=d381f9622c0c59ce&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss - bayonetblaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's so incredibly saddening to see that there are such shameless, disgusting people in this world.
- cinder, on 10/12/2007, -8/+15Oh, why digg him down?! That's ***** hilarious.
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