Burglar Nabbed By Backup Program

Bruce Perens writes "A Berkeley, California, burglar engineered his own arrest, and that of his girlfriend, when he stole a laptop and used it as his personal computer. He didn't realize that the laptop had an automatic backup program, and that the photos he took were being copied to his victim's backup repository. Berkeley police recognized him, and his location, from the photos."

Comments

Re:Getting to be a cliche

[rarel]

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the dupes come from the backup repository every few month automatically.

You mean the ski mask doesn't work anymore?

[Bob_Who]

I don't see how the cops could recognize him with the ski mask on... Oh yeah, the fuzz can see right through your cloths now. He better wear metal armor next time, or an aluminum foil hat..

Re:A product here?

[HydroPhonic]

You don't need a backup to facilitate recovery- just transmission of the fresh data. If my girlfriend's laptop ever disappears, the keylogger I've conveniently installed on it might be enough :)

The AntiVir and Spybot installations on this machine are configured with exceptions for this exact product, and it will reliably send me keylogs, web histories, and screenshots every 20 minutes (or whenever it finds a connection). But it doesn't capture from the webcam....

Re:one douchebag down, a billion to go

[interkin3tic]

A billion? My God, then one out of every 6 people has stolen a laptop!

Re:Getting to be a cliche

[rackserverdeals]

I mean, how hard is to reformat a pc?

And how was he going to get windows back on it? Just because he's a thief, doesn't mean he's a pirate. :)

Re:Getting to be a cliche

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Note to self: steal the OS install disk too.

Re:A product here?

[Joebert]

The guy calls himself "HydroPonic", I'm guessing there's a lot of things she doesn't know.

Re:A product here?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it doesn't capture from the webcam....

Thanks for clearing that up. She was afraid you put something on her computer and stopped using her cam. It'll be great to be able to see her boobies while I'm out of town again.

Perfectly theft proof

[TiggertheMad]

can people recommend some backup programs? It should work on my GFs Vista desktop

If you are hoping to be able to re-create the scenario described in the article, you have nothing to worry about. Putting Vista on your girlfriend's computer has just insured that NOBODY will ever try to steal it...