Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by ghshephard on Thursday June 02, 2011 @02:43AM
(#2611003)
Reason #1 to always request a receipt when purchasing anything. It's entirely possible that the Cab Driver just thought he was getting a good deal off of craigslist, but, without a receipt, he's now in possession of stolen property.
Also a good reason for the purchaser to visit the seller's place of residence, instead of having them come to your home.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by JoshTriplett on Thursday June 02, 2011 @07:15AM
(#2611471)
"possession of stolen property" requires the recipient to knowingly accept stolen property; if the recipient didn't know, then they haven't committed any crime (though they will lose the property in question, and have to hope they can get their money back from the seller).
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by Nishank on Thursday June 02, 2011 @03:24AM
(#2611067)
"A representative for the product's London-based developer, Flipcode, did not respond to emails on Wednesday."
This is why you regularly check your general inbox. Guaranteed PR opportunity that was missed by the app developer. A single response would have resulted in a quote and a more elaborate mention of the app.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by mhw on Thursday June 02, 2011 @06:13AM
(#2611343)
Given the 10 hour difference between the publication's time zone in Melbourne and the developer's in London, it's likely that the email dropped in to their inbox between the hours of 11pm London time (9am in Melbourne) and 4am (1pm in Melbourne, shortly before the article was published).
Even knowing that this story was starting to get some press coverage, would you really have stayed up overnight on the off-chance that someone on the western pacific rim would be the first one to run with the story?
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by hyperbovine on Thursday June 02, 2011 @06:55AM
(#2611423)
The sad part is the guy in the picture probably didn't actually commit the burglary. It's not uncommon in Bay Area to have your stolen bike / camera / iPods turn up on CL a few hours later. The cabbie probably the MacBook off somebody for cheap.
Don't get me wrong, he got what he deserved, but the true instigator of this crime will probably never be known.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by johnyzee on Thursday June 02, 2011 @11:23AM
(#2612350)
I am surprised he is not worried about getting slapped with an epic lawsuit over this. The guy in the pictures has had his reputation absolutely destroyed, complete with pictures of the inside of his home, pictures of him half-naked and pictures of his sleeping child. If it turns out he had been acting in good faith all along... ouch.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by hyperbovine on Thursday June 02, 2011 @12:09PM
(#2612558)
It's very very obvious when somebody is selling stolen property on CL. No box, manuals, receipt or power adapter? Asking 25% of retail? If nothing else, there is usually some stock picture or none at all, and the spelling/grammar/punctuation are terrible. In short, "you just know."
To answer your question, if you knowingly buy stolen goods, you deserve to be punished. (I emphasize that this whole scenario is just conjecture on my part.)
Edit: also, there's a screen cap of him /erasing the other guy's account/. I mean come on ...
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by whackedspinach on Thursday June 02, 2011 @03:12AM
(#2611043)
The laptop's return was the culmination of a one-man crusade of online
sleuthing, social networking and moments of voyeuristic creepiness
aided by the software called Hidden.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by jvandonsel on Thursday June 02, 2011 @07:44AM
(#2611527)
I'm not quite clear on how this worked. Since the disk wasn't wiped, either the thief would have had to have logged into an existing account or the MacBook didn't have a login requirement.
So tracking software is useful only if you don't require a login on bootup or wakeup?
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by deno on Thursday June 02, 2011 @08:09AM
(#2611604)
The best of both worlds is to have a fake system—that is booted automatically, without any password etc. and with installed spyware—alongside your actual OS, encrypted and hidden.
You could even just keep data on your disk and have /boot on a pendrive (or a memory card, which seems more practical).
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by cdr on Thursday June 02, 2011 @10:49AM
(#2612186)
I have a passwordless Guest account set up on both Windows and Linux for Predator. It's possible that as stories like this continue to get publicized thieves will get smarter and start removing or wiping disks, but it seems like a lot of the time they're not nearly that smart.
Re:This Guy Has My MacBook, Caught by Police
by talaketu on Thursday June 02, 2011 @09:48AM
(#2611928)
Issues related to the expectation of privacy will depend on jurisdiction.
But copyright is interesting. Generally, copyright is held by the photographer. Who is the photographer in this case? The one who blindly operated the camera by remote control? Or the one who unknowingly pointed the camera to the subject? Perhaps there is no copyright here.
Also a good reason for the purchaser to visit the seller's place of residence, instead of having them come to your home.
--or if that's not practical, for the seller to show purchaser his DL.
This is why you regularly check your general inbox. Guaranteed PR opportunity that was missed by the app developer. A single response would have resulted in a quote and a more elaborate mention of the app.
Even knowing that this story was starting to get some press coverage, would you really have stayed up overnight on the off-chance that someone on the western pacific rim would be the first one to run with the story?
Don't get me wrong, he got what he deserved, but the true instigator of this crime will probably never be known.
To answer your question, if you knowingly buy stolen goods, you deserve to be punished. (I emphasize that this whole scenario is just conjecture on my part.)
Edit: also, there's a screen cap of him /erasing the other guy's account/. I mean come on ...
Nothing better than a viral success story to generate press for an app like this.
So tracking software is useful only if you don't require a login on bootup or wakeup?
You could even just keep data on your disk and have /boot on a pendrive (or a memory card, which seems more practical).
But copyright is interesting. Generally, copyright is held by the photographer. Who is the photographer in this case? The one who blindly operated the camera by remote control? Or the one who unknowingly pointed the camera to the subject? Perhaps there is no copyright here.
Ironically, in the UK, you'd probably get sued by the person who nicked it.