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Stolen Laptop Owner Outwits Mugger, Police, and the Media
An anonymous reader writes "What do you get mugged in Central London and the local police are too incompetent to find a mugger even with his address and photograph? You may not be able to get to the laptop, but you still own the photos and data on it, so you set up the NSFW Plumpergeddon blog which gives details of the subsequent 'owner's' 'Brick House Butts' fetishes. Now of course later the IT media might get interested and offer an interview with a promise to let him review the article and keep his name secret. luckily our hero is not so innocent and demonstrates the value of using a false name on the internet as well as planting your own monitoring software on your laptop."
This is the stupidest shit ever.
All our informant remembers is waking up on Oxford Street when the sun came up to find his Macbook Pro had gone, along with his credit cards, which were subsequently to used to run up a £7,000 bill.
A fucking Mac was stolen from a game designer: "He's f*cked with the wrong nerd", so now this moronic game designer is spying on some clueless fellow who likes chubby girls (which need love like anyone else, I might add).
So, imagine your friend of a friend's acquaintance doesn't want his laptop anymore, and sells it to you for a really reasonable price. Now you're having your character assasinated by some hipster indie game dev fuck who thinks he's the digital version of Super Man. Oh, and even if that guy is the actual mugger, he can say he's the one who got it from a friend and now he gets off free: It's his word against yours -- "Are you sure this man mugged you, or did you just SPY ON HIM so many times that you think he's the one?"
Stupidest. Shit. Ever. You call the cops. If they tell you to piss off because bigger shit than stolen laptops is going on in the world, then you fucking piss right off, dork. It's called "insurance", if you care about shit you get it insured. The police report is a formality to make it less likely you're trying to defraud the insurance company... Not because the cops are breaking out the drag-net to hunt down the dude that YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE stole your laptop. Hell, for all we know you got drunk and gave it to him.
Despite the uncertainty as to exactly how "Plumpy" might have come into possession of the laptop, the author is unapologetic about the blog, which he now plans to expand with video content of the unwitting subject.
“My plan was always to go public with this if the police failed to act. I don't feel a connection with him as such but I am at last feeling some closure. And it's a lot of fun.
That's right. It's a fucking excuse to fuck with some other sad fucker -- Hey, guess what? I feel sorry for the fucking guy now. He clearly needed a laptop or else he would have sold it for smack by now, right? The owner was being a careless self entitled prick with it anyway. Hey, here's a fucking Idea. You've got the guy's address then why not send him a letter or ring 'em up and ask for your shit back, like a fucking HUMAN would.
Having read the article, there is no bones about it, most of us would be devastated , by the loss of our computers...and its not about the hardware which can include memories, videos or life changing moments (births deaths marriages), months or years of work...a whole host of personal information. If this story would have helped bring a little justice...or helped recover the laptop, It would have been a nice story.
I would be astonished if this is legal (its ethically wrong), as notices normally have to be shown...although are often small; hidden in reality. This opens the doors for people leaving usb pen drives in the street, lending computers to friends...or hell just buying someone a usb camera.
Most here service other peoples machines at one time or other, and have the opportunity to be invasive, but do not do so because we simply recognise it as morally wrong, even if I think "fucked with the wrong nerd", and all here are pretty careful of "not finding" anything we find, because we *understand*.
I won't talk about the whole waking up in central London with a laptop missing. His house was not even broken into. He should take some responsibility for his own actions.
I'm struggling to identify the hero of this story...everyone is a victim.