"The people who now have my laptop have been good enough to get in touch and therefore the tracking software has done it’s job." (emphasis mine)

Astroturfing round 2

Agreed. This is a brilliant scheme for building backlinks. Adding it to my list of blackhat garbage.

A new post st http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/post/47772239088/further-news

"The innocent new owners of my laptop have been in touch and are mortified about the story and are keen to return the laptop.

Given the huge error of judgement on my part in sharing the story and failing to respect their privacy I have asked them to keep it by means of an apology."

"Given the huge error of judgement on my part in sharing the story and failing to respect their privacy I have asked them to keep it by means of an apology."

So, the victim apologizes for shining the public light on the theft of their property. (In this case, even with the software, it's unlikely that the new possessor would have been identified without the publicity.) Furthermore, in lots of places prior theft invalidates later sale and transfer of ownership even if the illicit purchase occurred without mens rea. There's no insurance policy on counterfeit money either - in this case the current possessors (presumably) paid for a second-hand (high risk, possibly stolen) laptop. Buyer beware; they should absorb the loss and give it back (assuming the facts are as they seem, and it's not just one big astroturf).

So these people are now aware that they are in possession of a stolen laptop. Are they going to give it back? Will they cooperate with the authorities to track down the thief? For some reason I find this whole situation really interesting and I hope Dom gives some updates.

Other post answers this:

http://laptopiniran.tumblr.com/post/47772239088/further-news

Maybe I'm just of a different mindset but if they offered to return my laptop I would have gladly accepted.

For it to be such an issue in the beginning and then not-so-much in the end is suspicious.

The storyline is:

Laptop stolen, police report filed, laptop shows up in Iran, owner shames the people in possession of laptop, owner realizes he attacked the wrong person when readers and commenters pointed it out, owner realized the people in possession of the laptop are nice and now fells guilty, owner decides to give laptop to them as a nice gesture for the Internet to see.

The part that's not mentioned: how much compensation he received from the company that runs the tracking service. If its more than the laptop cost, the owner is still net ahead.

> compensation

Does the service have a replacement guarantee or are you implying that this was a brand deal and he's being paid for the posts?

The latter (and if I were the CEO of that company, I probably would give the guy a new laptop, especially if the posts resulted in an influx of customers)

I think of myself as tending toward the cynical but this goes even farther than I would. Is there any reasoning behind that belief or just general cynicism? (for example is Dom somehow involved in marketing or advertising?)