As for a crime lower than stealing my bicycle: That's crazy. Even if you have a bicycle worth more than your laptop, the loss of time and possible identity theft that could happen with a lost laptop more than outweighs the financial loss of either.

Now onto a subjective matter. A bicycle is a highly personal item for many people. It may not involve identity theft, but for some people it involves a loss of freedom and mobility that can't be replaced easily. My current bicycle has been highly personalized for my use. Having it stolen would be like having a bit of my soul stolen.

If you don't feel the same way about your bike, I quite understand.

UPDATE:

You said that "The dude lost his right to privacy when he stole a laptop." Did you notice what you just did? You convicted someone of an offence without trying them in a court of law. If we were in a jurisdiction where murder is a capital offence, you could use exactly the same logic for lynching and hanging a man without bothering to try him. He lost his right to life when he murdered, and we know he murdered, so fetch a rope and a horse.

Now some (strawman alert) might say that the evidence is overwhelming. Well, where do we draw the line? What's the rule for "We don't need a trial?" Pictures on the Internet? Eyewitness accounts?? Confessions? All of these have been proved unreliable in the past, which is why we have trials.

The court system and government should treat people as innocent until proven guilty. Private citizens have a lower responsibility.

At no point did the original poster claim that man stole his laptop - he merely stated that his laptop was stolen and posted pictures of the man currently possessing the stolen laptop. Other people assumed this man stole the laptop, which may or may not be accurate.

The man is in possession of stolen property. At some point we need to balance the owner's rights to retrieve stolen property against the right's of a man possessing stolen property to retain complete anonymity.

If elected officials do not enforce the law, the burden falls onto private citizens to do so. This is the common law with thousands of years of precedent.

2. Person A no longer has a laptop. Person A did not sell or give away this laptop. The laptop was stolen.

3. Person B now has the missing laptop.

Conclusion: Person B is in possession of a stolen laptop.

If you're not doing that, then no, it needn't be.

This guy also has every right to collect and publicize any information collected by the laptop which will help him locate it. He's titled it "This guy has my MacBook", not stole, and he hasn't posted anything irresponsibly that I've seen.

He has every right to collect the guy's personal information, too, but that doesn't mean he can use his credit card or publish his social security number.

Conclusion?

I for once would pick living amongst a disorganized mob who would lynch me upon suspicion of doing something that I also consider unjust, over an organized society that would punish me, through the best procedures, for something that I find my fundamental right.

Neither case is ideal, obviously, but it's better for a society to miss procedures than a sense of individual rights.

Also, I think it is far easier for a society to build procedures/laws than change radically its perceptions on what is right and what is wrong.

Your hypothetical Craig's lister would be in possession of stolen goods.

In fact, having photos of the person improperly in possession of your property and not making any effort to identify that person could be perceived as being complicit in the arrangement.

(However IANAL...)

You are conflating two distinct legal principles:

Caveat Emptor, the principle that the BUYER of property takes the risk of defects in that property (except in the case of fraud/misrepresentation on the part of the SELLER); and

A thief cannot convey good title, which is actually a fallacy. If you honestly purchase goods from a thief, for market value, without knowing that the goods are stolen, your interest in those goods actually trumps those of the original owner. Counter-intuitive huh?

The original owner has recourse only against the thief, as you are effectively an innocent party to the transaction.

Caveat emptor protects the seller against a careless purchase followed by buyer's remorse.

Merely possessing goods which are stolen is not a crime in any jurisdiction i'm aware of (and for good reason), this offence almost always implies a mental element of knowledge or at least suspicion as to the source of the goods.

See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/2753701/Motorists-u...

My understanding was that the due diligence one is expected to conduct under caveat emptor would include ensuring the buyer had the legal title of the goods to be purchased, but this might be a regional variation or I could just be wrong.

Could be but one could also speculate the other direction. What if the robbery occurred in a very short time span, and the photo of him driving away was taken (assuming it was time and location stamped) during that time and in the immediate vicinity of the crime?

This would make it unlikely that a third party transaction had occurred.

  a) the guy owns a laptop
  b) he took pictures using it

Does it sound like I'm in the clear to post them anywhere I like?

Imagine taking a picture at a party with intoxicated people in it, do you get everyone's consent before snapping the pic? What about being filmed on security cam driving past an ATM? So those are two examples of where although you might not actively expect to be filmed, they are still protected filming locations.

edit: typos

I'm uneasy with this kind of plastering as well, it has this "mob lynching" vibe that is often for the worst rather than the best. It appeals to our worst instincts, and you can sense that the author is angry and we are helping him to punish this guy when we look at this.

I felt dirty to be honest. If you don't believe it, ask yourself: why didn't he blur his face ? Would his message be less efficient ?

Also, are you uncomfortable with the publishing to the extent that it is a punishment? I interpreted it as an attempt to get people's attention and thus make it more likely that his property is returned, rather than a punishment.

There's a whole "presumption of innocence" thing going on in my head. I feel like people are telling me that it only applies when they haven't been shown what looks at first glance like compelling evidence.

I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights.

As I acknowledged elsewhere, this is an excellent point, thank you.

I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights.

Ah, now this is another matter. It looks like the author of this blog has this other person's GPS location and Google credentials. I am not an expert, but I am also not sure that publishing these pictures in this context is solely a question of identifying the person.

So even if he is careful to avoid a blatant accusation, I still don't like the implication and I don't think that identification is the purpose. If it was, it would be easy enough to get in touch with this person without explaining what this has to do with a laptop.

Also, from the photo's it is only clear that he has the guys email address, and even if he did have his password I'm not sure what he could do with it without committing a fairly serious offense.

I really have no idea how you would go about contacting this person without putting yourself in a compromised position. I realize that you do not want people to jump to conclusions as to this guys guilt, however, at the very least he would be a leading suspect in the theft of this laptop, and that is not the sort of person I'd meet for a coffee and to talk about him maybe giving back my laptop.

Also, if you emailed the guy and politely asked him to return the laptop how long do you think it would take for him to get rid of it on craigslist or ebay?

Therefore, attempting to get more information on who this person is in order to build evidence that the police might be interested in looking at seems quite reasonable.

This same location method is used by iPads and iPod Touches, which also don't usually have any better way of locating themselves. The WiFi technique is even used for iPhones, in the rare event that they can't use GPS or cell tower triangulation at a given point in time.

What if it turned out this guy did not steal it but bought it from someone? He, his house and a sleeping woman are now on the internet.

You should read the post here on HN about scanners at airports where we all are suspects. Everybody would scream about the privacy issues...

1.) He doesn't care whether the guy is the thief. He is publishing the photos in an act of non-vengeful vigilantism, with the hopes that someone will see or recognize the guy and contact the OP.

2.) He is assuming the guy is the thief. And, he is publishing the photos to harass/humiliate that person.

Personally I am comfortable with #1 but certainly not #2, for the reasons you cited. In #1, the guy's innocence (or lack thereof) is irrelevant to the OP's motivations.

At least he contacted the police first, who wouldn't act on the evidence and only then did he try to garner public support for his case by showing the world the evidence he had. He even did this without accusing the man in the pictures of anything other than possessing his laptop, which is a fact arising from the evidence, even if it hasn't been considered by a court. This case wouldn't even reach a courtroom if it weren't for the fact that this website eventually got the attention of the police.

Ideally the police should have just taken the evidence and investigated the case, but instead the justice system failed. What options did this guy have, other than drawing attention to the fact that the police didn't do their job? Grabbing his pitchfork and willfully instigating a real lynch mob? Letting his computer go?

In this case, the guy is using a photographic device that is not his (we don't know if he stole it or not), specifically, he is pointing the camera directly at his face. My gut feeling is that it would be a fine line to walk, but that there might be a decent argument that he has no reasonable expectation of privacy. It's not his device, he knows there's a camera in it, and he's pointing that camera at his face...

Just another way to look at it.

People would still be eager to punish the guy in the pictures, pre-trial and regardless of his story.

if you personally saw a murder you don't need no trial to know who is the killer. trial is to convince everybody else.

In this case, trial might be required to charge this guy with anything, but you can see him driving away with the laptop just as it was stolen. might not be enough to charge with theft, but pretty much enough for me.

I don't think you know why we have trials. We don't have trials to convince everyone else. We have trials because your eyesight alone is not sufficient evidence, you need to consider all of the facts, not just what you think you saw.

That is not how causality works in this universe.

In the USA these kinds of allegations are made public whereas in France both parties (alleged victim and alleged per(p|v)) are treated the same private way until a court deliberates.