One of the most famous faces on the internet at the momentbelongs to a taxi driver who has been exposed as a thief in a verymodern case of digital sleuthing that is helping aggrieved geeks andgadget owners to be reunited with their stolen goods.
From Surrey to San Francisco, software is doing the job of thepolice as vigilantes use tracking programmes more commonly seen inCIA action thrillers to locate missing computers and phones. InApril, the ex-England rugby captain Will Carling traced his stoleniPad to a block of flats in Woking. He knocked on all the doors - tono avail - then traced its movement through the town while detailingthe chase on Twitter. The iPad was eventually handed in to localpolice.
The guilty taxi driver stole a laptop belonging to Joshua Kaufmanin Oakland, California, last month. What he didn't know was thatKaufman had installed software that activated the machine's built-in camera. When police told Kaufman they didn't have the resourcesto find his laptop, he spent four weeks gathering photos andlocation data using a software package called Hidden. He presentedthis evidence to the police but got no reply so posted pictures ofthe thief staring at the screen to his blog, where they went viraland were viewed by millions. It wasn't until a US news showcontacted Oakland police to ask them about Mr Kaufman's post, thatthey sprung into action - more than 10 weeks after the theft.
"It's these kind of partnerships that make things happen," saidan officer to Mr Kaufman, glossing over the fact that their actionwas prompted largely by a national broadcaster.
Pioneering geeks realised years ago that remote access services -such as LogMeIn.com and Apple's "Back To My Mac" - could allow themto spy on the activities of the person who had connected to theinternet using their stolen machine; this idea was extended bysoftware such as Absolute's LoJack For Laptops and Orbicule'sUndercover, which made the process more clandestine, by regularlysending location data, screengrabs and webcam pictures.
Since November last year, owners of iPads and recent models ofiPhone have had access to a free feature called "Find My iPhone";after enabling it on the device, its location can be pinpointed bylogging into a website, and it can also be sent messages, lockeddown, or its contents erased completely. You may have preciseknowledge of where your laptop is, but if the police are too busy tofollow it up, your choices seem to be limited to knocking on thedoor yourself (inadvisable unless you're a former rugby player,perhaps) or turning to the media for help.
The publicity surrounding Mr Kaufman's laptop and, before that,Carling's iPad, has led to a surge of interest in Hidden and similarsoftware packages, which can only be a good thing; even if a stolendevice cannot be retrieved, at least data can be protected by remotelocking or erasing.
Absolute's LoJack software perhaps offers the most sensibleanswer to worries about misplaced heroics or vigilante action aftera theft; the company deals with the police on your behalf, anddoesn't tell you the location of the your item once it's reportedstolen.
"I read about a case recently where a person encountered someonewith an iPhone in the vicinity of where their stolen one wassupposedly located," says Absolute's general manager Dave Everett."They beat up that person and they ended up being prosecuted. Theyhad no idea of the forensics - but our tools are approved by ACPO(the Association of Chief Police Officers) and analyse the data ingreater detail."
The taxi driver in the Kaufman case would have been thankful forthis approach; he may well have purchased the stolen machineinnocently, but he's now been cyber-branded as a thief.
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