To Track My Thief

[Hum]

When I boarded an Amtrak train this summer, I had no idea what kind of ride I was in for.

Upon arrival at my home stop in Connecticut, I realized that my iPhone was missing. I still had hope, though. Apple's free Find My iPhone service uses GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular information to locate lost i-gadgets on a map. After a couple of days, Find My iPhone e-mailed me to announce that it had found my phone?a map revealed it to be at a house in Seat Pleasant, Md.

Well, great. How was I going to retrieve a phone five states away? On a nutty whim, I posted a note to my Twitter followers about my lost phone. ?Find My iPhone shows it in MD. Anyone want to help me track it down? ADVENTURE!? And I included a map showing the green locator dot over a satellite image of a nondescript house.

Within an hour the quest to recover my phone was on blogs, Twitter, and even national newspapers and television shows. ?Where's Pogue's phone?? became a high-tech treasure hunt.

Using the address provided by Find My iPhone, local police got involved. The homeowner confessed to stealing the phone?no doubt baffled as to how the police had known exactly how to find him. And a day later I had the phone back. (I decided not to press charges.)

To me, that was that. Modern tech + good old-fashioned police work = happy ending, right?

Not for everyone. Lots of people were disturbed by the affair. They saw my posting the thief's address as a gross violation of his privacy.

full story

[f0rk_b0mb]

Nice to hear that! :)

[link6155]

He should had put this in the police hands, not the public.

[strekship]

The guys right to privacy went out the window the moment he stole the phone.

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

i would have directly contacted the local police once i found the location of the phone not posted it online. However, at the end of the day with all the people complaining about privacy. I think when you commit a crime you are giving up some of those privileges (privacy is a privilege not a right). Also at least the victim decided not to press charges so i am not sure what everyone is complaining about. It could have ended worse for the thief.

[Hum]

Cool story. Shame more stolen property can't be easily tracked. :laugh:

[Growled Member]

Ain't technology wonderful? :)

[Detection]

I'd say the people complaining about the thiefs privacy are likely theives themselves, only reason I can think anyone would complain about it

[moloko]

He should had put this in the police hands, not the public.

The police would of done nothing. They only did it this time because of the national attention.

[Dick Montage]

The guys right to privacy went out the window the moment he stole the phone.

And had the phone reported the address wrong and showed up the neighbouring house?

[Japlabot]

He didn't make the thief's address public, he made his phone's address public. It's his phone and he has a right to publicise the location of his property, as long as he didn't make any accusations about that property also belonging to a thief without evidence and just keep it to the facts, then there is nothing wrong about what he did.

[Hum]

And had the phone reported the address wrong and showed up the neighbouring house?

Then the SWAT team might have got an eyeful of grandma in the bathtub ... :shifty:

[abandonedaccount]

How come you didn't press charges?

[blade1269]

The guys right to privacy went out the window the moment he stole the phone.

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