Don’t Steal Computers From People Who Know How to Use Computers [LULZ]

[JFC]

Gotta love karma.

Story 1 - Part 1

Don’t Steal Computers From People Who Know How to Use Computers
By Adrianne Jeffries 3/21 9:51am

Two months ago, a thief stole a Macbook Air from Mark Bao, the 18-year old serial entrepreneur (he’s CEO of at least six companies), creator of the viral threewords.me site, and weekend New Yorker. On Friday, he discovered he could remotely access the browser history on the machine. Lulz ensue! “Wow. The first thing that MacBook thieves do REALLY IS take pictures on Photo Booth. I didn’t think they were that dumb!” he tweeted. Turns out the thief did more than take pictures–he took a video of himself dancing to a version of “Rubber Band Man” Tyga’s “Make It Rain.”

Mr. Bao also attained access to the thief’s Facebook page; he lives a few blocks from Mr. Bao’s dorm at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. Mr. Bao plans to report the thief to the campus police when he gets back from spring break, but not before some more public humiliation. “I’m too busy to stage any serious lulz, but don’t worry… lulz will certainly happen,” he tweeted.

Mr. Bao was able to get access to his Safari history using the cloud backup service Backblaze.

VIDEO THAT THE THIEF TOOK OF HIMSELF

FULL ARTICLE LINK - http://www.betabeat.com/2011/03/21/dont-steal-computers-from-to-people-who-know-how-to-use-computers-video/


Story 1 - Part 2

Dancing Thief Turns in Stolen Computer, Begs to be Un-Youtubed
By Adrianne Jeffries 3/22 6:16pm

The thief who stole a Macbook Air from hyper-entrepreneur, threewords.me creator and weekend New Yorker Mark Bao has turned the machine in to the police and sent Mr. Bao a note asking for forgiveness. The impetus is likely this video of the thief attempting to pop-and-lock to “Rubber Band Man” Tyga’s “Make It Rain” recorded on the stolen Macbook Air, retrieved by remote access and posted to YouTube, Vimeo and Reddit. “Can you please put down the videos you put of me,” the thief wrote in a note posted by The Next Web’s Courtney Boyd Myers.

Apparently not; the video is still up, at 376,838 views and counting, and Mr. Bao’s thirst for revenge yet unslaked. “Update on laptop: laptop recovered! Police were preparing a warrant, but the guy was smart and just turned it in. wish I got more lulz in,” he tweeted.

FULL ARTICLE LINK - http://www.betabeat.com/2011/03/22/dancing-thief-turns-in-stolen-computer-begs-to-be-un-youtubed/



Story 2 - Part 1

Don’t Steal Computer From People Who Know How To Use Computers – Part Deux!
By Ben Popper 5/13 12:35pm

Betabeat is back with another edition of modern justice. Back in March we brought you the story of Mark Bao, the serial entrepreneur who tracked his laptop thief and released humiliating videos of the culprit doing the rubber band dance on Youtube.

Last night a live drama played out on Twitter, as Sean Power, a tech author and consultant, used the free software program called Prey to track his stolen laptop, which had been taken along with a birth certificate,  health card, cell phone and cash.

Power was in Canada on business, but watched remotely as the thief took a photo and uploaded it to Flickr. That helped Power figure out his name and location, Oficina Latina in Nolita [in New York]. Twitter followers watching powers tweet about the drama figured out the culprit was actually a part owner in the establishment.

Power tried to sick the cops on the crook, but they refused to respond without him filing an official report, which he couldn’t very do from Ontario. Several online watchers offered to help, but Power begged them not to. “Please please please don’t get directly involved. I don’t want any of you to get hurt for a stupid laptop.”

Now a Twitter follower was staking out the bar and the story had broken on several blogs, although the thief was still blissfully unaware. Power continued to share photos of the thief that he was taking with the laptop camera and posting on the website Imgur. In an ironic role reversal, Power was able to watch as the thief logged into his Chase bank account on the stolen computer.

By this point the dramatic narrative had jumped the shark for some followers, who began to tweet that Powers was probably part of viral stunt to promote the Prey anti-theft software. While friends jumped in to defend his honor a twitter user named Nick Reese and a mysterious hero known only as the girl in the purple sarong confronted the villian, who gave the laptop up without a fight.

A freelance writer named Brandon Ballenger captured the entire real time drama through a very creative use of the Storify platform, a tool for quickly creating journalism based on social media streams. Powers was so happy to have his property back he actually reached out to the various journalistic outlets that covered the episode and asked them to remove any identifying information. “Paolo freely gave it up. I’m not about to accuse anyone of anything. I’d rather forget that that place exists and just move on.”

FULL ARTICLE LINK - http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/13/dont-steal-computer-from-people-who-know-how-to-use-computers-part-deux/


Story 2 - Part 2

Laptop Thief Found With Security Software, Confronted By Twitter Samaritans [TWITTER SLIDESHOW]

FULL ARTICLE LINK - http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/13/laptop-thief-found-with-security-software-confronted-by-twitter-samaritans-slideshow/#slide0

[kuro808]

It shows that cars are not the only one watching you

[LaJon]

Well played