
Mark Bao tracks down his stolen laptop and has the last laugh - biggitybones
http://www.switched.com/2011/03/22/mark-bao-tracks-laptop-thief/
======
biggitybones
"The thief has since returned the laptop, in hopes of clemency in the form of
the YouTube video being pulled. Bao has indicated, though, that he's not
interested in cutting a deal. Instead, he's content using backup service
Backblaze—which syncs changes made to the laptop in the cloud—to find access
the guy's Facebook page, dig up PhotoBooth pictures he took, and generally let
him stew in his internet humiliation for a while." \-
[http://gizmodo.com/#!5784633/laptop-thiefs-ridiculous-
dance-...](http://gizmodo.com/#!5784633/laptop-thiefs-ridiculous-dance-video-
posted-by-tech+savvy-victim)

Now he's just turned it into a plug for his startup. Smart guy.

~~~
ugh
Doing that would be very much illegal in Germany. Isn’t it in the US?

~~~
scott_s
Even if it was by the letter of the law, it wouldn't be by the application of
the law. What's on the books is not what matters in practice. You need a
prosecutor willing to press charges. Considering the circumstances, I doubt a
prosecutor would press charges.

Of course, the thief could always sue, but even that's a hard sell.

~~~
ugh
Why would the thief suing be a hard sell? If it’s really becoming a problem
for him paying a lawyer some money to file the necessary paperwork would be no
problem.

~~~
scott_s
It would be a hard sell to a judge or jury. A prospective lawyer will know
this, and may not want to sink time (and/or money) into it. You can sue
someone for just about anything, but that doesn't mean you'll win.

~~~
ugh
But why? That would never be the case in Germany. A personality rights
violation is a personality rights violation. A thief doesn’t lose those rights
just because he is a thief.

I cannot for the life of me imagine that the US judiciary is that
unprofessional.

~~~
scott_s
First, I don't think there was any violation of this person's rights by US
law. Second, judges and juries are people, not automatons that blindly apply
law. Considering the circumstances, I have a hard time believing a judge or a
jury would think that the thief deserves a monetary reward.

~~~
ugh
Nah, not a monetary reward, just getting the video taken down. I don’t think
the thief would get some sort of monetary reward in Germany, either.

~~~
scott_s
That's the only tangible outcome that would come from suing the person who
uploaded it. Getting money for "damages" is the only reason to sue the
individual, in this case.

If you want the video taken down, it would be more direct to go after YouTube.
In this case, the individual isn't really the "publisher," YouTube is. You
probably wouldn't even need to sue YouTube, you could probably go through the
"inappropriate content" channel.

~~~
loumf
He can probably just do a simple DMCA takedown. He made the video, so he owns
the copyright. Even better -- just turn on monetization and buy a new laptop
in a week.

~~~
SiVal
He doesn't necessarily own a video he made using someone else's equipment,
especially if he didn't compensate the owner of the equipment for its use. If
you don't produce intellectual property on your own time and with your own
equipment, your full ownership of what you produce is not a given.

------
garyrichardson
As someone who's had plenty of things stolen in the past, these stories make
me happy.

The vengeful part of me hopes this jerk gets laughed out of every job
interview he ever has for being the guy who stole the computer and had his
dancing video put on youtube.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I didn't dig deep into the story, but I'm guessing that a guy who records
himself dancing around like a jackass probably doesn't have too many job
interviews - and the ones he does have are probably not with people who read
about news items like this.

~~~
nakkiel
What kind of unnecessary elitism is this exactly?

~~~
forensic
Dancing is for unemployed people!

------
noodle
as an update, he got his laptop back (thief turned it in, perhaps because he
knew he was caught). because he now has 2 airs, he's going to auction off the
original and donate proceeds to japan efforts.

------
blhack
I absolutely hate this sort of vigilantism. How does anybody know that the guy
in the video is actually the guy that stole the laptop? How do we know that he
isn't just some guy who bought it on craigslist?

~~~
uxp
I'm obviously biased by visiting HN, but buying any computer used that has not
been wiped is a sure indication that it is stolen. I'd like to give the guy
the benefit of the doubt as well, but there is ample indication in this
article alone that he either has no clue about technology and the
responsibility of buying one used or was the one that stole it.

If it turns out he bought it legitimately without knowledge of it being stolen
that's fine, but he still should have been turned on to the fact it's filled
with someone else's crap and the username is not his. Ignorance is no excuse,
even though it may be commonplace.

~~~
klbarry
I've sold two (broken) laptops and didn't wipe anything, and sold a working
iPod Touch without deleting anything. Also, in most of my experience with non-
technical friends, they usually don't wipe their computers. So no need to
assume...

~~~
billybob
Really? Did you sell them to people you trust?

Personally I just don't sell hard drives. They get destroyed. I don't have
anything illegal or immoral on there, I just figure, I've had financial info
on there, pictures, etc, and who knows what somebody else might do with that.

~~~
klbarry
Nope, just strangers. I'm very trusting, though of course I deleted internet
data.

------
Stormbringer
On the stolen laptop theme, I recently saw a youtube video by an Australian
chap which went like this:

Tenant/house-guest (who is wanted for fraud in several states) ran off,
leaving several thousand dollars in rent in arrears and in the process
stealing three laptops.

FAB (the victim) gets some reports from friends a couple of weeks later that
the perp is staying in a nearby motel. FAB goes around early-ish in the
morning, knocks of the perps door, and the perp opens the door and the
discussion gets heated. FAB is 'forced to defend himself' _cough_ and after he
finishes bouncing the perps head off the walls and is waiting for the police
and ambulance to arrive (perp is un/semi-conscious), eh enters the motel room,
recognises the three laptops, and puts them in the boot of his car.

Police arrive. Ambo turns up and hauls perp off to hospital. Police insist
that FAB give the laptops to the motel manager, and they tell the motel
manager to await further instructions.

Later that day perp checks himself out of hospital, goes back to motel, asks
for laptops, manager gives them to him, and then high-tails it off to Victoria
(the other end of Australia).

Moral of the story: police are useless no matter what country you are in.

~~~
Andys
As an aussie I can't say I'm surprised. The police hardly have time for a
stolen car anymore, let alone a laptop.

------
dstein
Mark should try to hack it so it broadcasts live without the thief's
knowledge. It could be a huge inside joke where nobody tells him, kind of like
The Truman Show.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder what the legality of profiting off something like that would be.

~~~
geoffw8
donate to japan

------
gojomo
Ultimately, the same sort of self-help Mark has used for recovery could be
used by criminals for identity-theft against others.

How? Preload a cheap laptop with software to let you monitor it. (This could
be made way more sophisticated, and hard to eradicate, than a online backup
subscription.) Leave it somewhere to be stolen. Monitor its later use for
information that could allow stealing many times the initial laptop value from
its later users. (Those later users may in some instances be the laptop thief,
but could more often be others who thought they were buying a cheap used
laptop.)

This is a good reason to beware deals that seem too good to be true, when
purchasing used computer goods.

~~~
mnutt
This doesn't make much sense. Why not just sell the laptop, instead of
allowing it to be stolen?

~~~
gojomo
If you sold a bunch of laptops like this, and _every_ buyer gets their
bank/credit compromised, you'd be found.

Allowing them to distribute via theft gives superior untraceability at scale,
though it means the people receiving the laptops might not be as 'fat' targets
as people who buy laptops through traceable transactions.

~~~
lwhi
Actually, I think this describes the business model behind many of the
software products that are pre-loaded onto laptops before they're sold. I.e.
bloatware.

------
charlief
The detective work reminds me of an old great (p-p-p-powerbook):

<http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/>

~~~
chaosmachine
Unfortunately, that story has a rather bad ending[1], but I guess most people
don't read that far.

 _"Finally, and most disturbingly, Jeff was not heard from again. I personally
e-mailed him for permission to run his story on ZUG, but after an initial
response, I never heard from him again. All of his Web sites have come down,
and he is nowhere to be found."_

[1] <http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/index04.html>

~~~
evilduck
It appears that he's alive:

<http://www.myspace.com/iameljefe> <http://twitter.com/mynameisjeff>

~~~
bcrawford
Being on myspace hardly qualifies one as "alive" ... it may even indicate the
contrary.

------
pmikal
I tracked down a stolen laptop using Prey (<http://preyproject.com/>) and Live
Mesh's remote desktop. Upon having the laptop stolen, Prey notified my it was
online. I remote connected, installed a keylogger and used that along with
Prey's camera images to identify the thief and have the person arrested.

------
thematt
This is the perfect situation where Prey (open source), would have come in
handy: <http://preyproject.com/>

------
pedrokost
I preferred the story of Zoz. He provides a detailed explanation of how he
recovered his lost Mac. [http://hackaday.com/2010/12/25/a-hackers-marginal-
security-h...](http://hackaday.com/2010/12/25/a-hackers-marginal-security-
helps-return-stolen-computer/)

------
mklappstuhl
Am I the only one that thinks that this could be a contrived story?

~~~
fuzzmeister
As I said above, I can absolutely vouch for the veracity of this story. I
talked to Mark the day he got his laptop stolen, and I was talking to him when
he realized that it was still backing up to Backblaze.

------
alphadog
Mark needs to do my PR. He always seems to find a way to get into the news.

------
AbyCodes
Here is a similar video cum presentation ( and its better in my opinion ) :

Defcon 18 : Pwned by the owner - What happens when you steal a hackers
computer -- zoz part <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo>

The Presentation is really funny, but some may find the "invasion of privacy"
a little disturbing. Its kinda on the extreme side ( warned! ) but is very
informative and funny nonetheless.

~~~
geoffw8
I've seen this before, epic, well worth a watch. man likes booty

------
SriniK
Why is it #1 HN entry? It's a sincere question.

------
nakkiel
"Don't steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers"

Implying using a data sync service turns one into one of the chosen few who
"know how to use computers".

------
huhtenberg
It'd be nice to know why the guy captured on video is in fact the _theif_ (and
say not someone who got the laptop off Craigslist).

------
mncolinlee
Best cloud backup sales pitch ever! Then again, I wonder how much data gets
stolen from badly-designed cloud apps.

------
esad
I'm not sure Mark is the smarter one in this one. If the thief has been able
to auto log-in as him and fill his browser history, this probably means that
he can also read Mark's history and the rest of his home directory is lying
there unencrypted, with his identity wide exposed.

------
rgbrgb
This happened to me with a cabbie! I tracked mine down through web history as
well.

A friend made a short radio story about it:
[http://thebarkandthebite.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cab-
for...](http://thebarkandthebite.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/cab-for-web.mp3)

------
techiferous
"The best part is that the person currently in possession of Bao's machine has
no idea that the victim has access. For now, Bao's just having his "lulz," and
doesn't seem terribly concerned with reclaiming his property."

This is not true.

The thief has offered an "apology" of sorts:
[http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/23/dont-steal-a-
computer-f...](http://bostinnovation.com/2011/03/23/dont-steal-a-computer-
from-a-nerd-and-record-yourself-making-it-rain)

And Mark Bao has his laptop back and "plans to sell the returned Apple and
donate the proceeds to the Red Cross Japan fund."
[http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/22/to-catch-a-
co...](http://blogs.forbes.com/kashmirhill/2011/03/22/to-catch-a-computer-
predator/)

------
markbao
What the hell. I was hoping that this wouldn't hit Hacker News and was
satisfied until I woke up this morning. :p

I'm actually slightly embarrassed that this is on Hacker News right now.

~~~
bendmorris
Yeah, after you posted a video of the guy on YouTube, you're the one who's
embarrassed. You hate publicity that much, huh? Does anyone else not buy this?

~~~
markbao
I'm embarrassed because this is the second time that I did something that, to
me, was trivial, and it gets a bunch of press and hits Hacker News.

I'm embarrassed because there is a disproportionality between {interesting
things that I do} and {dumb things that I do that somehow get a ton of press}
and I feel like doing the stuff in the latter category (and getting publicized
about it on HN) bins me in a category of people who do trivial and
noninteresting things.

And I'm embarrassed because an article about PG is currently second to this
one.

I don't hate publicity. I only do when it's for stuff like this and it's on
HN, which I think should be for more intelligent news than this.

~~~
david927
It's a funny hacking story and perfect for HN. Plus, as you can see with that
your name is written out -- it's about someone most of us here know, or at
least know of.

Mark, you've got a star over your head. That's a great thing to have and this
kind of thing is something that comes with it, so start learning not to sweat
it.

~~~
pgbovine
yes, but look at how many people on this thread have accused Mark of being a
fame-whore and maybe even faking this whole incident just for publicity. I
can't speak for Mark, but I doubt that this is the kind of publicity that he's
looking for.

------
albahk
This is way overblown. A guy steals a laptop and gets caught red-handed so you
post a video to embarass him.

He's lucky he didn't get his hand cut off like in other countries.

------
johanh
Swedish thieves send you a backup. <http://bit.ly/ha6dmq>

------
teyc
Why is it that the last comment on every blog that features this story calls
it a hoax?

------
klbarry
Mark Bao has really not made a single mistake in his PR execution. I have to
congratulate him and learn from him, as others here have also said.

------
montydad5000
That is some epic revenge there. Kudos to the victim!

------
JacobAldridge
Three words for the thief: Wrong victim. DANCE!

------
alias8
The thief could also very easily find Mark, punch his face out and see who has
the last "lulz"

~~~
acangiano
And then go to jail for even a longer time. I don't doubt that it could
happen, but it would be a pretty stupid plan.

~~~
gcheong
Criminals aren't usually known for their intelligence and foresight and by
definition they don't operate under the same code of ethics as most people. I
imagine also in some circles your first trip to the joint is a rite of
passage. So unless you know who you are dealing with it makes sense to take a
cautious approach to any response to criminal behavior you make on your own.

------
philthy
when i told a friend about this he said

"35 pass erase followed by OSX on a portable drive, resell immediately at a
good distance for a good keep quite discount"

when i responded with

"what about some kind of advanced government software or computer forensics
kit"

his rebuttal

"only going to get you if its laden with child porn"

i chuckled

