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Burglar Nabbed By Backup Program

Posted by samzenpus on from the stupid-is-as-stupid-does dept.

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."

7 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Getting to be a cliche by gbulmash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How many times do we have to see this story? There's the famous stolen SideKick from June 2006, then a few months later there was this story about a stolen phone that automatically mailed pics to Flickr, and on and on and on. This is becoming a cliche "stupid thief" story.

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    Start a happiness pandemic
    1. Re:Getting to be a cliche by Nick+Ives · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Amateur criminals will always be funny. The real joke here is that the thief didn't pass the laptop onto a fence straight away, keeping and using things you've stolen is the dumbest thing to do if you're a thief!

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      Nick
    2. Re:Getting to be a cliche by somersault · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, murder, rape, war, bent politicians, celebrity news etc are all pretty cliched too but the media outlets insist on reporting on them day after day.. and that's why I am not interested in most so called "news". Slashdot is usually fairly interesting, and this is in idle at least.

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      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:Getting to be a cliche by ae1294 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      keeping and using things you've stolen is the dumbest thing to do if you're a thief!

      Honestly not really man. Leaving all of the serial numbers and not doing a full wipe is dumb. Trying to find someone to fence your stolen equipment too can really backfire on you not to mention they take a huge cut. The fence isn't going to be any brighter than you and when the cops grab him you can expect to be next...

      Moral of this story is steal stuff that you understand well enough to insure it can not be traced back to who you stole it from. And remember children not having a receipt for something doesn't mean you stole it. Missing serial numbers don't mean a thing unless it's a car or a gun. And always know your rights and the laws you are breaking before hand.

  2. Which backup program by cerberusss · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To make this idle thread slightly more interesting, can people recommend some backup programs? It should work on my GFs Vista desktop and should upload the backup somewhere offsite, preferably my own SSH-enabled server.

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    8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  3. Oh come on by Bigbutt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Look, if it was one of _our_ laptops, the crook wouldn't be able to log in to take pictures. I know my Windows (and Mac and Linux and BSD...) systems have login prompts of some sort and guest is disabled. The crook would open it, turn it on, see a login screen, try a couple of things, bang his (or her) fists impotently, and then sell it to someone.

    [John]

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    Shit better not happen!
  4. Re:A product here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    you don't "install" anything at the bios level. If it's not already built into the bios you can wipe it clean.

    "Even if you replace the hard drive, it reinstalls itself."

    Bullshit. Unless it's pre-embedded into the bios, there's nothing that you can install that would accomplish that.