Slashdot Mirror
How Not to Steal a Sidekick
timmit was one of many readers to point out the story of a stolen Sidekick, writing with this excerpt from the site: ""When my friend realized that she had left the Sidekick in the taxi she asked me to immediately send a message to the phone saying that we would give a reward for the phone. There was no response. After a day of waiting, she had to go to the store and spend over $300 on a new Sidekick. When she put her SIM card in, she saw that the person(s) that had taken the phone had not only signed on to AOL leaving their name and password in the phone, but they had taken pictures of themselves." I can sympathize, after someone with the address Rmluckyguy@aol.com tried to sell me back the Visor Deluxe stolen from my car last year in Philadelphia. I hope Evan has better luck.
Did a subscriber get a look at the page?
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Were the pictures nude?
Palm trees and 8
Since when is stupidity news?
Oh, wait.....
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but diggers can beat the rush and see it early!
Well ... Sounds like somone is on a Personal Vendetta... I say post all the creep's info.
About the same time that being perfect will be.
Those Silly Hiltons! Oh what will they do next!
This seems just as stupid as hacking a webpage, just to put your familypictures in the index.html. Crime 101: Don't leave clues by choice. Unless you've been living in a cave, you'd know from the TV that the bad guys always get busted if they try to pull an Dr. Evil or Murdoc-plot. If you get caught, then you haven't watched enough CSI. Seriously, who steals such an item and starts using it? Wouldn't selling it seem like a better idea?
I'm not sure where the SideKick is, but the fat dude in the pictures needs to hop on that exercise bike out on the porch.
EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
Posting rmluckyguy@aol.com 's email to the front page of slashdot is one way to get revenge I suppose. My guess is that email address just became unusable.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
UPDATE #2: Some people are asking how we have their pics and AOL name. The way a Sidekick works, is that when you use it, all the data on it get's uploaded automatically to the T-Mobile server. So pictures you have taken, AOL names and passwords u have used, etc are all on the server. So when my friend turned on her new Sidekick and put her new SIM card in, all the data downloaded on to her phone. And that's how we have everything.
Now, that's a great thing so you really don't lose anything....but with alot of information been getting, um, lost lately in the media news, I dont know if I like things like that located centrally somewhere. If I lose something like that, I perfer it to all be lost and I have to start from scratch. Just like a hacked server. You don't just do backup restores, you reload from scratch.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Neh, a few portraits, one of her backside, and one of some dude in a sofa. None of them qualify as nude.
at its finest. "i got ball this is my adress 108 20 37 av corona come n do it iam give u the sidekick so I can hit you wit it" awesome.
Oh, grow up. This is an interesting, useful story. Even if it were just about stupidity, it would be worth reading — there's an art to dealing with stupid people. Besides, the story is also this guy's attempts to pressure the Sidekick's new "owner" to give it back — and it's unexpected conseequences.
Whether or not they stole the phone or not, possession of stolen property is just as much a crime as the actual theft. Thieves like these people need to be sent to a country where the crime of theft is a loss of extreminities. I for one am tired of working 9-5, 5 days a week, only to find that some jask*ss wants to spend 35 seconds throwing a rock through my car window to steal all they can and destroy everything they cannot. I hate thieves just as much as I hate the government... oh wait, they are the same thing, right?
Ok, let's give the alleged thieves the benefit of the doubt. No matter what their story (and isn't it interesting to see how their stories change), it should be quite clear to them now that the Sidekick does not belong to them, and whether purchased from someone or found, they now have an object that has been reported stolen, making them accessories, no matter how you cut it. IANAL, but it doesn't take a shark to smell blood.
What makes this truly outrageous is that it doesn't occur to them that they've been found out. Thanks to Evan's website, everyone and his uncle knows about this:
From the web site:Update #12: June 7th, 7:00 p.m. eastern Sorry for the lack of updates...I answered emails till 1 p.m. and then had to leave to work...But I made it a short day so I could come back and give everyone an update..Wasn't that nice of me :-) Anyways.... I see that I have over 900 emails since 1 p.m. I will try and answer as many as I can. I will also add all the links you sent me to the ones below...I quickly scrolled though and must have counted at least 100-200 new links. I also have received emails from people offering me ISP hosting...As of right now, I should be good. I have unlimited bandwidth with this company...and so far I have not gotten the "digg" effect.(almost 3,200 at least count!). I have also talked to some radio stations. New York's 1010 WINS being one of them. Interviews are being scheduled for this week.
They might have been able to save face once they were "caught," but now it's going to be impossible. What's worse, they're stupid enough to keep using the thing, compounding their trouble!
It goes to show the power of the Internet though; once something is out there, the information is global in minutes. And there are pictures! These folks are not going to be able to hide for a long time... unless they wind up in a penitentiary somewhere.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I love how this goes to show how easy it is for anyone to find out information about you, and the people you know with social networking sites. You had better think twice about creating a myspace page if ever engage in any kind of criminal activity no matter seemingly small or insigificant it is. Granted the people who were involved here were exceedingly stupid. Cue up the "stupidity of people on myspace" jokes....
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -Hunter S. Thompson
So, I suppose this isn't technically stealing, but it could be if you find something and keep it. So with the pictures being on the thing, why not go to the police and tell them the story and fill out a report? Apparently all the information is there.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Z.
It was still up thirty seconds ago (come on, laugh, it's a joke).
I have a few random thoughts, but don't take these too seriously, because really, I don't care. From Evan's bio on the site: "I have no shame in my game." Granted, he did stop short of posting pictures of the lady's baby, but I'm not a big fan of vigilante justice. Couple the first statement with the utterly lame flash intro, the javascript disabling of the right-click menu, and the fact his website is written in ancient HTML 3.2, and I think it's obvious this is not a clear cut case of good versus evil. On an actual serious vein, perhaps someone can explain how finders keepers fits into this legally. Sure she didn't intend to leave it in the taxi, and clearly from an ethical standpoint the finder should make a reasonble effort (as in paying attention to the "reward for returning this" messages she sent) to return it, but could it be considered abandoned? Do taxi or other service companies have any special obligations regarding their customer's empty-headedness?
I was watching a police videos show the other day and they had a segment on a copuple of teens who were drving around some town at night with paint ball guns and doing "drive bys" on unsuspecting pedestrians. And to top it all off they were video taping the whole thing and had lots of colourful narrative to go with the action.
This all came to an end with their last victim who they "shot" in full view of a police cruiser (which you actually see on the tape)
Man my jaw dropped. I was astounded at their level of stupidity.
Mind you the Dumb and Dumber bank robbers in Denver made me laugh my ass off as well. Although not in this article, I do remember that they were caught with pictures of themselves in "gansta" poses hlding their "loot"
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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Good point, but since the phone was tied to that subscriber's account, it would at the very least be theft of service. Now if the phone is actually owned (contractually) by the service provider until the contract is fulfilled, it could possibly be theft of the device if you refuse to return it upon request.
Yes, stealing someone's cell phone is very wrong. Obviously it needs to be returned to its rightful owner (ie. the person who bought it.) and it's strange that the thief hasn't just admitted it and taken the cell phone over to the owner.
However, it looks to me like the young girl in the pictures may be somewhat innocent. Let's call them Mr. Army and Ms. Booty, just to make it easier (any similarity in naming between real life and the monikers is purely accidental... no really.) Mr. Army says, ostensibly, that a cabbie sold it to him. I doubt that's true. They also say that Mr. Army gave it to Ms. Booty as a present. That's probably what happened. And she got a SIM card and took some pictures and logged onto her AOL and now this guy takes her and shows her to the world as if she's a monster. The person who deserves the world's ire is the thief, Mr. Army.
He really needs to own up to the situation. If he bought it from a cabbie, he had to know it was stolen. And if he stole it himself, well... the best thing he can do now is take the phone back and apologize. Anything else is just prolonging the inevitable, and possibly getting him a larger sentence, should Mr. Shamer choose to press charges.
I feel like Ms. Booty is at least somewhat innocent. As it stands now, it would appear that she knows the phone is stolen, but obviously she's young, and judging by the fact that she has a child, probably none too bright, and easily swayed by Mr. Army's persuasion. This is a black mark on her life that will follow her around for many years to come. I'm sure she will have to endure some harsh judgement from her peers at school, and I'm not absolutely certain she deserves that.
And now that Mr. Shamer has rejected offers for free webhosting 'gone over his current provider's bandwidth cap' and put up a donation link, it amounts to little more than a cry for cash.
I feel sorry for everyone involved.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. . . . . . . .
As long as he never catches up to my favorite phone thieves of all time.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
This article actually says: if you need to steal a sidekick, please follow a good procedure not to be tracked!
Very, very smart!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
censored and/or removed...no fun.
That's the first thing I thought of... you have to wait for the nude pics before you demand the sidekick back. Talk about leverage...
My SO had her laptop stolen last year, while on a trip home (to a country far from the US, where we currently live).
Several months later, we hear from the police to say a) that the burglar is in prison awaiting trial and b) they have her laptop. Her sister picked it up, and discovered that it was full of home made pr0n, and we briefly thought of posting some of the highlights on the web. However, the burglar was sitting in prison (and remains there to this day), and we couldn't be bothered humiliating him further, and we had replaced the laptop and restored almost everything on it from the back-up. So I sent the system disks home, her sister did an erase/install, and then sold it on our behalf.
However, this morning I came across this -- not exactly our story, since in this case the perp. has avoided legal trouble (thus far) and the ripoff was via an internet auction, rather than "breaking and entering", but it makes me wonder whether our burglar shouldn't also be the star of his own internet site. Too late now, though....
http://www.amirtofangsazan.blogspot.com/ [not completely work safe]
Honestly now, what do you expect? /*ducks
Lots of baby-mamma-drama going on there.
Format the page, please Evan.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
IANAL, but I believe (at least in the U.K.) this does count as theft. You need to take reasonable steps to return any property you find like this - e.g. hand it in at a police station.
1. Find some partners to "steal" your sidekick.
2. Create a story about how they are ethically challenged.
3. Crow about how you had to buy another one and these people are bad.
4. Reluctantly put up a Paypal account to collect money for "incurred costs".
5. wait for the naive techno fans to queue up to "help the cause".
6. Profit!!!
Assuming 2000 people give her $1 and 6 other people involved, now everybody has free sidekicks!
Hey, that's better than most mid 90's internet startups!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
I find it amusing that she absolutely had to a buy a new sidekick within 24 hours. Can't live without it. No doubt that is good for the economy.
Anyway, how is stealing a sidekick different from stealing anything else and why does it deserve a story ? The phones of several of my friends have been stolen of the years. I had my car CD player stolen a couple of years ago, but you don't see me bitching about it on Slashdot (oops, now you do).
Check out the MySpace account they found:
s er.viewprofile&friendID=78722066
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=u
The goggles they do nothing etc. Worst site I have seen in a while.
More seriously, it erodes your belief in the basic goodness of people, and hardens your attitude to certain classes of people, when you see such poor specimens of human beings as these.
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
FTA: I also don't condone uploading videos and pics onto websites like youtube.com and sending the links to me. This is a very bad thing to do. Naughty naughty....Buttttttttttttttttt since youtube is a public website I will post any video that is on there....of course if there was a issue with the legality of the video, then that would be youtube's responsibility to remove.
Uh... so you're not sure if the stuff people are sending you is legal, but you're posting it anyway?
That's definitely not legal in the US, and even in Sweden it could cause you a lot of trouble. Just ask these guys.
Some people just don't know when to quit while they're ahead.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I've been following this since the day it happened (not long ago anyway) and I am beginning to suspect that this may be a fake, and even if it isn't, Boy what a great con idea.
Hear me out
The guy continually writes that he's not looking for fame and fortune, but goes on to list all the people who have pointed this out and what news outlets are looking to interview him. Bemoans the fact that he isn't on TV yet, and says he's not looking for fame in the same breath. Hmmm...
He then goes on to state over and over that he's not looking for money. That people suggested putting up a donation link, but he won't do it.... yet he doesn't hesitate to supply information regarding what everything costs over and over. Now, finally, that the number of people viewing has grown large enough he springs the 'Okay, you can donate, but only if you can afford it.'
Maybe I'm too cynical, but what's to stop someone living in corona (maybe it's the girl in the pics!) from pulling something like this? Set up a few phony myspace accounts and boom, good to go. You can make thousands off of the internet donation effect... why not?
I had my laptop stolen last year. It was sold to someone who never took AIM off and it was set to login on startup. A few court orders later, we (the cops) took the IP address of the user and got the phisical address from the ISP. They recovered my laptop but botched up and didn't make any arrests or get my other items back. They wouldn't even have done that if I hadn't layed it out for thenm step by step. Thanks Lexington, KY police!
Since the SK is a GSM device it'll have an International Mobile Equipment ID (IMEI). This is different than your IMSI (Intl Mobile Subscriber ID), in that the IMSI is tied to a subscriber and account, and the IMEI is tied to a device. Report the device stolen (your carrier will have the device IMEI if you bought it from them). As soon as someone slips their own SIM into the device, or tries to use your SIM, the carrier can track down many things about the user. In the case of their own SIM, they will know who the user is that is associated with said SIM. If the person is using your SIM, they can still track the user based on calls (after all, it is your account you can authorize them to track this info) as well as distance and angle (which directional antenna). Additionally, there is an international registry of stolen IMEI's, so if someone takes your device to another country, chances are it won't work if it's on that list.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who might be a little too cynical
I smell a phony
If the army soldier WarriorPena84@aol.com did in fact write and send this, he is going to be attending the UCMJ School of Hard Knocks, and that is going to suck:
"listen you dumb mother fucker my sister bought that phone from some cab driver so what the fuck do you want . shes not going to return it if she bought it, and am military police so dont give me that bullshit about you going to the cops over a lost phone the nypd has better things to do then to worry about your friend losing her phone. you better stop harrasing my sister or you'll have to deal with me and you dont want that"
Shows a lack of impulse control, immaturity, and absence of sound judgement: given the mutlple recent international incidents our military has been involved in, I truly hope they take away his weapon privileges, and soon.
I am not a JAG, but, there are about a dozen things they can charge him with there, from 'conduct unbecoming', to making a threat, conspiracy, etc. Not good.
They should turn him over to the grammar and spelling Nazis too....
Where's the crime here? Nobody stole anything, the girl FOUND the sidekick in a taxi. Last time i checked finding something that somebody else lost isn't a crime.
are u kidding, they're not giving your sidekick back after it's been this long, it's just plain time to get some sweet revenge, they deserve it!
1. get some super glue
2. late at nite super glue their car's:
a. windshield wipers
b. tire air holes
c. door locks
d. window seals
e. and draw a little smiley face on their windshield where they normally would look out while driving
done deal, what u lost in device, u gained in pleasure.
"I was immediately told that my white ass didn't deserve it back."
OH! You De-dnt! (two snaps and a circle) You and your boi-frieeeend with rough neck gangsta wannabe outfit like "oh i'm finally out of my grandma's basement" with his raggidity looking pimp squad can kiss my black ass of sweetness.
Bring it oun, bitch!!11!1! I'll squash you whore like a spanish fly and sting your stank whore ass like Queen bee.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
It seems like a new trend to get things like this "public" in order to get back to the offenders, using the open and more and more community-like nature of the internet.
I wouldn't be surpriced if in a while these you-are-a-criminal-bitch! webpages start popping up plentyful as people seem to feel they "can do something" and hunting the offenders down, having direct result as it exposes them in their own social network (blog/myspace/...) having a bigger impact (a "most in my direct environment and social network dissaproved" vs. "some stupid cop 'caught me'") or perhaps, for some, it's way to be able to mock someone. It's fascinating to see it resembling an old custom where criminals were publically humiliated and displayed on the townsquare for everyone to enjoy.
The guy with the laptop distressed me and I felt relief him getting exposed in his questionable activities. It really looked like the guy explicitely intended to sell some broken laptop and profit off of it. Judging from the pictures though, this girl seems to be rather young and lower class, just wanting to get in on the whole technology gadgets-train and saw an opportunity. I don't approve of it, and think she just should've given the sideKick back without going all racist and intimidating over it. But it seems less of a threat. Although, it appeared she felt "untouchable" by the way she communicated back. I suppose being critisized by a wold-audience personally adressed to you will do more then a criminal record which means in certain circles how "tough" and "gansta" you are.
I do wonder what the long term damage will be as many companies track your name on the internet before hiring...
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
this whole story was linked to on the front page a few days ago.
.. unless I'm getting my news websites mixed up.. :P
023AD01("Child", "Evil");
Oh boy, another /. lawyer.
For once common sense and the law align. The phone is stolen. And the person who took it is still a dick.
-h-
Yeah, sorry you left your $40,000 Mercedes in the parking lot outside. You must be dumb for abandoning it like that. LOL.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
and started a killing rampage to feed his nine children.
Did he get enough meat off those starving Iraquis to feed his nine kids? Or is this about some kind of bounty paid for dead Iraquis? Let us all know, as many here are looking for unique investment opportunities like these.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If you RTFA, you'd see that there are no ads and that there is no PayPal link, and that the author claims that he doesn't want to set one up.
It would appear that the author is not motivated by money, at least not yet.
IANAL, but the law makes a distinction between lost, mislaid, and abandoned property, which happens to have a convenient wikipedia entry. Stuff like this is obviously difficult to enforce, but generally you can only walk off with something you find if it's readily apparent that its owner had no intention of ever recovering it. Car pushed into river = abandoned. Phone left in taxi = not abandoned.
I suppose it has never happened to you? I've left my laptop in a restaurant more than once... have a drink or two and just have other things on your mind -- it can happen if you aren't careful. That's no reason to fuck someone over. Some morality on your part.
Regardless of how they got a hold of the phone, they're now in possession of stolen goods and should return it, or face possible criminal charges. Otherwise you can just claim you "found" anything you stole and it would be ok...
As if the Iraq invasion or electing that tyrant of yours was less stupid than forgetting a cell phone.
I'm rather surprised that you managed to turn a computer on.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
Thank goodness. Let's hope it stays that way
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
"The whole world now knows... my sidekick was kidnapped, for ransom, three days ago. This is a recent photograph of it. Sidekick, if you're watching, we love you. And this... well, this is what waits for the man that took him. This is your ransom. Two million dollars in unmarked bills, just like you wanted. But this is as close as you'll ever get to it. You'll never see one dollar of this money, because no ransom will ever be paid for my sidekick. Not one dime, not one penny. Instead, I'm offering this money as a reward on your head. Dead or alive, it doesn't matter. So congratulations, you've just become a two million dollar lottery ticket... except the odds are much, much better. Do you know anyone that wouldn't turn you in for two million dollars? I don't think you do. I doubt it. So wherever you go and whatever you do, this money will be tracking you down for all time. And to ensure that it does, to keep interest alive, I'm running a full-page ad in every major newspaper every Sunday... for as long as it takes. But... and this is your last chance... you return my sidekick, working, with batteries, I'll withdraw the bounty. With any luck you can simply disappear. Understand... you will never see this money. Not one dollar. So you still have a chance to do the right thing. If you don't, well, then, God be with you, because nobody else on this Earth will be."
TFOAE
So would you say they are non-nude? 'Cause that's cool too.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Yeah, because you're perfect and have never done anything wrong or by accident. Tell it to the monkeys, pal.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
"Well geeze officer, what do you mean murder? I mean, they didn't move out of the way of my bullet, they saw me with the gun and I told them I was gonna shoot. How can it be my fault, they got what they deserved by not dodging."
If the above story actually happened, you could start your career as an amateur lawyer.
Some thieves stole a camera, among other things, and spent the rest of the night taking pictures of themselves
committing other crimes.
One of them was caught a few days later, with my camera. The police returned my camera, and when I checked the memory card, I found that it contained a number of pictures of the two guys who had taken pictures of each other, breaking into cars and houses, all very clear and recognizable. It was obvious that the police had not inspected the camera memory.
The guy that was caught, had tried to claim that the camera was his, and when they pressed him with the evidence they had, he eventually admitted to one car break-in, and insisted he was alone. The date-stamped images on my camera told a different story. It was actually very satisfying to show this stuff to the detective. But, he made it clear to me that thieves doing stupid things is not at all unusual.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Isn't posting these pictures without permission strictly speaking a copyright violation? I mean, they're not his photos ...
Although fair use, I guess, could be argued, and damages (if any) would be minimal. Plus, of course, the guy could cross-sue with all sorts of neat stuff ...
But even so, technically ... isn't this arguably a violation?
He CLEARLY states that it was his BLONDE friend... ...case closed.
My
Reminds me of a story where a former IT guy stole a laptop. Of course the company wasn't aware of it until a few years later...when it showed up as evidence. Turns out this IT guy was into child porn and landed himself in court.
The next time your phone or wallet slips out of your pocket while you're in a car (that never happens! duh!)...I'm gonna come over to your house and beat the shit outta you for being such a goddamned moron. You effing idiot you. You deserve to be slapped in the face with a slightly wet open palm.
Why doesn't the vendor have some authentication and location system for phones that are reported stolen? It's not like T-Mobile doesn't know exactly where the device is located.
Oh wait...this way they get to sell another phone. Question answered.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
ahh who needs a cheap Mercedes anyway
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
Err, you want to travel in the neighborhood they live in, AFTER DARK? You sir, are brave indeed.
If I drop a dollar on the side walk and then come back an hour later and its gone, I don't consider it stolen. I consider the dollar lost.
"judging from the pictures though, this girl seems to be rather young and lower class, "
They young part I will give you but she seems old enough to be a parent.
Are you saying that because of her class and or race she isn't capable of knowing right from wrong?
If it was a white kid in the burbs would you judge them by a higher standard?
This person has a stolen phone. They know it is stolen. They don't need it for survival or to feed their family. They have enough resources for a computer and Internet access.
Maybe the world needs to see that being a thief doesn't pay. Just think how different the story would have been if they had just returned it. They would have gotten a reward and could consider themselves honest moral people. Now the would sees them as stupid dishonest thieves and that will follow them for a long time to come.
A great man once said, "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
Let these people be judged by the content of their character.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
There are a number of companies that, for a small fee, will work with the provider and give you a by-the-second trace of the phone's physical location as triangulated by the cellular network. You can pinpoint the location of the phone within a dozen meters or so.
Heck, T-Mobile might do it for you (or the police) for free if you asked nicely.
Go one! Throw it a peanut! But don't get too close to the bars or it might reach into it's bottom & throw poo at you!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Wow deep deep post there, really pulled at my heart strings...
Little news flash for you sparky, when people take your things that's illegal. I suppose you won't mind if I steal your car because you can just buy another one, or get a bus pass, or ride a fecking bike.
Remove head from ass then post jackass...
I Like Pie...
Kind of like a woman is dumb enough to dress in a short skirt and be out at night and she is raped she got what she deserved?
Sorry but have a phone fall out of your purse or your pocket is an accident. Keeping one that you know isn't yours is theft.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Um ... I see an offtopic mod on this comment. WTH? Offtopic?
A question about the legality of pictures on a revenge site is offtopic ... how exactly?
Perhaps I'm missing something here but something in this article doesn't make sense. Supposedly, the person left their sidekick in a taxi and eventually had to go and buy a new one. Then, when they put their SIM card in, they noticed the person was signed in to AIM and had taken pictures of themselves. This is where I have some questions: 1: AIM signins are saved on the phone signing in. Signing in from another phone would not tell you someone was logged into AIM under another name because there would be no signin data on the new phone and new SIM card. 2: Pictures are saved on the SIM card or on the phone on which they are taken. They would not be available on the new phone and new SIM card. Unless I'm missing something here, this story sounds fishy.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
That's an interesting legal question. If you create a work with someone elses stolen property, who owns the work. If you steal my camera (and film) and take a picture, do you get to keep the pictures, or are they also mine when/if I get the camera back.
To extend that out, does a music recording made with a stolen guitar become the players, or the owners?
In this case, though, since the photos are uploaded as part of a service (T-Mobile) and that service belongs to the legal owner, I would think the EULA and TOS of T-Mobile would apply. I wonder if those would shed a better light on it.
Or it may be even easier to answer. The service copies the works to anywhere the legal user of the service wants, so in effect, the one who took the pictures has given copy rights to that legal owner, I would think. Even if they didn't know the TOS, i don't think they can claim exception to it by another crime (their theft). Just as you can be help responsible to crimes you commit while under the influence of a drug.
Does that make any sense?
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
Already three forums have been overflowed by the traffic. I made a Google Group that definitely can handle the load:
http://groups.google.com/group/stolensidekick
Please mod up so people will become aware of this. I've already sent Evan an e-mail.
...was to never use a T-Mobile Sidekick. T-Mobile doesn't seem to have the ability to immediately deactivate the device from their network. All I kept thinking as I was reading it was, "report it stolen to T-Mobile and get it deactivated."
In the UK this is definitely theft, unless you make a real effort to return it and are genuinely unable to - hardly applicable in this case. More reasonable if you find a tenner on the steet or something. If you take property from where it's owner left it, intending to keep it for yourself that's theft, even if the owner left it somewhere stupid by mistake.
>We need to know where the guys pics are located, where this happened etc, so we can geek band together and hunt this person down
c orona+NY&ll=40.75393,-73.8612&spn=0.001445,0.00339 &t=k&om=1
Have you checked the address?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=37th+ave+
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I'd drive that like a truck.
+++ATH0
The dollar would be "lost" because the person who found it has absolutely no reasonable way to return it to its owner. A sidekick, or other similar device, is another story. Upon turning it on and finding that it has service, it's obvious that someone, somewhere is paying for it. That someone is not you. At that point, the reasonable thing to do is to hand it to the cabbie and say "someone left this back here." By taking it and using it, you are not only stealing their wireless services (by knowingly using a service you know you're not paying for), you are also retaining possession of an item that you know belongs to someone else. That's called possession of stolen goods, which actually is a crime (whether you're the person who stole it or not).
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
Fair enough... I see your point.
Hi -
Wow, I would hate to seem prejudiced, but what horrible behavior by the apparently black woman and the Hispanic guy....
AC
they're not his photos
In what way are they not his? They were taken with his camera, uploaded to his account via his subscription. There's an old saying that possession is 9/10ths of the law, and at no point were these photos not in his possession. The camera was not in his possession, though it still belonged to him. But at no point were the photos, which are not physical objects, taken by or stored in any device not owned by him. They are his.
I, ANAL
http://publicvoidlife.blogspot.com
Has he heard of the Google cache?
Does he know about the Wayback Machine?
Putting up a "public humiliation" web site is an irrevocable action. All it would take would be one post on those boards and there could be a "flash lynch mob" of people angry about having lost their phones and this vigilante "shamer" would have no control of what that mob would do. The people depicted, their families, friends, and neighbors are all going to be affected by this and it isn't going to go away even if the shamer begs people to stop harassing them.
That's what happened in China just a little while ago. A guy got mad at a student whom he suspected was fooling around with his wife. The student and his whole family were harassed to the point where they just hid in their homes. The wife was harassed too. Threats came from people who had read postings about the postings about the shamer's site. The shamer replaced his page, begging that people would just forget about it and leave them all alone... but apparently nobody was even reading his original site any more.
I think that such "shamers" are irresponsible and dangerous. Putting up a site like that is akin to inciting riot.
Many things are criminal, many things are morally wrong; the GP is commenting on how to prioritize between them. In my view, he is right to some degree: this recent trend of vigilante punishment through mass shaming via blogosphere certainly does come with a lot more sympathy for the upper-class gadgeteer who lost their gadget in some (admittedly unfortunate and criminal) event than is actually deserved. (For the Rand fans who walk prominently among us on Slashdot, it should also be noted that that sympathy seems to carry over into monetary donations.)
But if someone found a dollar, how would they return it to you without any identification?
Live forever, or die trying.
If that sidekick had belonged to Chuck Norris, it would have ceased to function in the hands of a mortal, particularly a thief. It would also have automatically summoned Chuck to the thief's real location, where Chuck would have traded him one sidekick for another.
Karma ia a beautiful thing. Best story I've read in a long while. It will be interesting to see how it all winds up.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Of course, as others have pointed out, it's definitely legally theft, especially after the rightful owner has contacted you and asked for it back. The idea that we should all have to keep our property within arm's reach lest it be repossessed by some lucky "finder" is not that far from the idea that anything that's "easy" to steal should be legal to steal.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
The problem is that somebody has no shame. Plenty of people get away with this sort of shit, and happily go on screwing others for the rest of their lives because in the grand scheme nobody notices or cares. Now maybe if those people realize that others are watching, and judging, perhaps they'll start acting more like decent human beings.
The other side of the false accusation also falls under law, and there plenty of both legal and social repercussions for that, as well.
The subject is now in jail with 2 felony charges and some misdemeanor charges.
Here's how it went down. A week ago I was at a gas station talking with my fiancee in the car while the tank was filling up. My phone was on the sidepocket of the door (the armrest thing on the door) and the door was open. I know, stupid move. But I had been really paranoid about losing it cause I had just bought it so I was checking on it every 30 seconds ago so I figured it was safe enough. The tank finally finished filling so I exited the car and that's when I noticed that my phone was missing.
I did that whole thing where you check the ground and your pockets and begin to freak out. Then I remembered some dude had walked right by our car maybe 30 seconds before I saw it missing. I looked on the other side of our pump and there was this 40+ something Hispanic gangsta dude with tattoos all on his neck asking some people for money for his "Car that broke down."
In his breast pocket I could see what appeared to be the outline of my phone. He saw me looking at him and approached me and gave me some cockeyed story about how he ran out of gas and if I could only spare a dollar or so it would really help him. I told him I was busy at the moment if he would wait for me "over there" (out of earshot) I would be with him and maybe I could help him.
I looked at my fiancée and said, "Call my cellphone."
She asks what's going on.
I tell her just to do it.
So she calls my phone.
As I approach the guy I hear, clear as day, the techno ringtone coming from his breast pocket.
Damn I love how loud that thing is.
I get in his face and tell him to give me my phone back.
He looks confused.
I point at his pocket and say, "You stole my phone, give it now."
He pulls it out of his pocket, gives it to me, and says, "Oh no man, I found this over there." (points to the opposite side of the gas station).
"No you f*cking didn't. You stole that phone from me asshole. Don't play stupid fess up."
"No man, I don't know what you are talking about. Look, can you spare me some money or what?" [he's trying to avoid the discussion]
"You just f*cking stole my cell phone. You know how much that thing cost me? What, you think I'm rich or something?"
At this point everyone in the gas station is looking at us cause I'm berating this punk and getting ready for a showdown.
"Dude, if you don't want to help me that's fine."
He starts walking across the street to another gas station to evade me.
I look at my fiancée and say, "Call 911."
I chase after the guy and call 911 myself and explain to the dispatcher what is happening. I'm no more than 5 feet behind this guy at all times while he's trying to evade me and people are wondering what's going on. At one point he comes at me in a threatening manner saying, "Man- Who you on the phone with!?" I tell him I'm calling the police.
The dude runs back across the street and I run back after him weaving through traffic. He gets in a nice newer Nissan Maxima and I jump in front of the car and read off the plates to the dispatcher. The asshole tries to run me over with his f*cking car, peels out, and speeds away.
By this time everyone in the gas station is in total awe looking at what unfolded before them.
It takes forever to get the Sheriffs there but I'm pleased with the way they respond and handle the situation. They take a report from myself and witnesses. They later call me and tell me the license plate was registered to this guy's daughter. They went to her address and she told him to check at the ex-wife's. When they get there they find the dude. They discover heroin paraphernalia in his vehicle.
They book him with Theft, drug, and assault with a deadly weapon (his car).
What a day.
The dude picked the wrong guy to f*ck with. In two weeks I'll be in police academy.
Watch out for your stuff people. People are not always as they seem.
The other girl refused to return the item after she was informed that it didn't belong to her. This is theft.
Aside from her losing it not making it stolen, that is.
Here's how it would play out.
She leaves her phone in a cab. Someone uses the phone to sign into AIM and take a couple pictures. Those pictures and that password are stored in the phone or on the SIM card in the phone she lost. Unless given back to her, she wouldn't have the pictures or that info because she doesn't have the phone or SIM card.
This is on par with me losing a digital camera, buying a new one, popping in a new memory card, and having the pictures the "thief" who found my prior camera had taken after I lost it.
The SIM card outside a phone isn't going to be able to send info to a new card, and right now the info on SIM cards made for Sidekicks (through T-Mobile only right now, unless I'm mistaken) can't be transfered from one card to another anyway by any means on the market.
A more believable story would be that she checked to see what calls she was billed for and tried calling whoever the finder called.
It's a girl!
My understanding of the copyright law is that the PHOTOGRAPHER, not the owner of the camera, is given automatic copyright to the pictures. Either her or her friend owns the copyright to her pictures. If he published them, without the photographer's permission, then he is in violation of copyright law.
There is also the complication of her being a minor. Not only would the photographer need her parent's permission to publish a minor's photograph, but the actual publisher would as well.
Even if, through some loophole, the pictures belong to him...parental consent still applies for publishing since 1)these pictures were not taken in public and 2)the girl had a reasonable expectation to privacy.
There is definitely a foundation to sue over the pictures being published, unless he received consent from her parents.
Hiptop Forums picked this up, evan posted a couple replies there:
"And yes, my friend DID lose the Sidekick. It was her fault for leaving it in the taxi. But I don't know ANYONE that wouldn't return a phone they found in a taxi to the owner. And we DID offer these people a reward if they returned the phone...They decided to start the racial slurs... they decided to act all tough and mighty... Now it's my turn. "
http://hiptop.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44756
If you come across something, then the orignal owner contacts you asking you to give it back, you're obligated. In the case of using their service on the sidekick, then you're stealing from him 2 different ways. Then threatening him and having other people threaten him just really puts icing on the cake. Before they went and threatened him, they could have just dropped it off at the nearest police station, said they found it, then e-mail the guy and tell him it's in the found property bin at the PD. So if you find something and the owner comes to you with proof and asks for it back, you are obligated to return it, unless there's other legal precedents, say you legitimately claimed salvor's rights to something you found at sea, etc.
From the main google groups page:
too funny.
Yeah, we've had Dog Shit Girl and The New York Subway Wanker (and another similar).
It's going to get more and more common. Everyone ought to read David Brin's The Transparent Society.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Those pictures and that password are stored in the phone or on the SIM card in the phone she lost.
Well, on my phone there is the option of storing information in three places and IIRC you can set the default location as well. Those three places are:
1) Phone's internal memory
2) SIM Card
3) "My Online Album"
I think another poster here (and I think the author of the "revenge page") explained as much. The wireless service provider has central storage servers for its subscribers (given they pay the approriate fee or sign up on certain plans). On the upside, you can access the data from your "online album" from your PC's web browser, there is more capacity than available on the device and SIM card, and your data is not lost if you lose your phone. OTOH, you lose all your privacy...if a phone company will turn over phone records to busybody G-Men without a warrant you can bet they'll turn over address books, pics, videos, etc. at the drop of a hat as well.
Actually, the pictures have never been in his possession. The pictures were not taken when the device was in his possession, they now reside on a server that does not belong to him, nor is the server in his possession.
... unless, of course, it's a work for hire.
... is there case law? Precedent? Is there a section I've not read that covers copyrightable works created using a stolen medium? You'd think it'd be something of a rarity, but I'm sure it must have happened before.
... well, the thieves probably didn't agree to anything when they started snapping away, so an EULA wouldn't apply to them. This means they're probably in violation of the TOS so the service provider probably has a case against them, but I don't see that this in anyway gives the original sidekick owner copyright.
All the copyright law I've read (not huge lots, just the usual stuff. IANAL) is very clear - the owner is the person who originated the work, not the person who owns the medium
That's why I was wondering what the situation is
As to EULAs and agreements
He called the right number - 911
911 is for "real time" situations. You should call well before it becomes a life-threatening emergency.
In my district, you're not only supposed to call 911 for a fleeing thief, you're supposed to call 911 before they become a thief and flee. I can tell you with certainty that my local police commander would have encouraged people at that gas station to call 911 with a suspicious person report before he stole anything. Think about it, does the guy's panhandling story make any sense (unless it was a bus terminal)?
It's Jabba the Mutt that stole the phone. O_O
And he's hiding it in his rectum
http://www.myspace.com/gordo718
Just look at that picture, at the guy's facial expression. Obviously he has an item stuck in there that shouldn't be there.
...about the 27, 8x10, color, glossy photos with the circles and the arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining they were to be used against them.
Timothy was still using a Handspring Visor Deluxe in 2005? Golly!
|/usr/games/fortune
Yesterday in the local paper there was an article about a woman who's house was broken into and a lot of stuff stolen. One day she came home and her neighbor was having a yard sale, SELLING HER STUFF.
Yeah, there are some really less than bright individuals out there.
MOMMY, MOMMY, Can I feed the racist???? No dear, racists need to die a slow painful death of starvation for being the hairy pimple on the ass of humanity.
I'm not in a position like yours but I'm curious about what your backup plan would be. Do you have a second phone that you could activate in case of the first one failing? or would you simply run out to a store and buy a new one?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I have curiosity and a screwdriver. The phone goes to phone-heaven, fast.
If I find a phone, I figure:
a. using the service is fraud
b. the physical object is mine
c. a phone without service is spare electronic parts
If you lost your phone, you probably discontinued service and got
a new free phone already. If the phone mattered, you wouldn't have
lost it. Maybe the phone was already broken and you were littering.
It's not as if I can test the phone without committing fraud, hmmm?
Using your phone service to contact you would be theft.
So, out comes the screwdriver. Oooh, educational!
I immediately thought Arthur had been whisked away!
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Comparing a dumbass carelessly leaving their phone in the back of a cab to grand theft auto. Great analogy! Your head may not be in your ass, but it is definately up someone's ass.
I think the idea is that we should spend our time focusing on REAL problems, not one tards quest for revenge over what is in reality a pointless endeaver that only effects himself and no one else.
Who in hell works 9 to 5. If you take an hour lunch, that's 35 hours a week. Slacker.
I'm don't know anything about common law, I'll admitt it. But occasionaly, I do look up actual hard-written laws when I'm curious about things. In North Dakota, where I live, this is covered by NDCC 60-01-34 through 42. Here is a summary of this section of legislature:
As soon as they picked up the phone they became responsible for it's care and legally bound to search for the owner. No, they aren't nessicarily bound to put up flyers but I'm sure it would require them to take it to a TMobile shop and have them find the person who's account is electronically bound to the device, or hand it over to the police. It's not like this was an unmarked sweater that would be difficult to asscertain ownership of.
In any event they definately suspected who the owner was since the person was text messaging the phone saying "I lost this found, return it and recieve a reward!" Had they responded to the text message and said "Hey, I found your phone" they could have demanded a reward, legally, even if the owner hadn't been offering one. Now, however, even though the owner was offering a reward they have no claim to it and are responsible for damages should something happen to the phone, especially since it was obviously in working order when found as they used it to take pictures.
And of course, IANAL and I don't know about NY Law. The above legal quote was from animalaw.info because a trip to the library is a little difficult at 12:30 am.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
quote:
"I am not going to go to the address posted above, because a.) Not going to waste my time going to a probable fake address b.) If it is real, there will be a physical altercation and I would probably wind up arrested which would do no good to anyone."
and I suppose it has nothing to do with 300Kg guy in a photo?
I know it's posted in other places here, but people are still asking for the address, so here is what I know: People have narrowed it down to the following: Jose Herrera 10820 37th Dr Corona, NY 11368-2033 (718) 478-4632 This seems to also match the original comment made by 'Sasha'...
so i saw sum otha guyz doin dis so leik i copies dem and so wen wii all tawks liek dis lawl
What with the enormous amount of hits the website has gotten in so short a span of time, maybe incidents like this will spark a trend and soon be The Internet's Reality TV.
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes: Open, locks, whoever knocks!
NM
www.qsopht.com ~q
I think I see a dropped sidekick on the road in that picture!
So if I'm writing this reply on a stolen computer, is it still my comment?
If you hear of somebody getting killed this way (and it does happen a lot), you can go to his funeral and say, "Hey, at least he stuck up for himself." But I don't recommend it.