Thief Returns Stolen Laptop Contents On USB Stick 352
While it's true that Sweden is responsible for unleashing IKEA and ABBA on humanity, not everything they produce is terrible. Their thieves are some of the most considerate in the world. An unnamed professor at Umeå University received a USB stick with all his data after his laptop was stolen. From the article: "The professor, who teaches at Umeå University in northern Sweden, was devastated when ten years of work stored on his laptop was stolen. But to his surprise, a week after the theft, the entire contents of his laptop were posted to him on a USB stick. 'I am very happy,' the unnamed professor told the local Västerbottens-Kuriren newspaper. 'This story makes me feel hope for humanity.'"
Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of when a friend had their radio stolen from their car, however, the thief took the time slimjim the door rather then bust his window. He even locked it up after he was finish. Just because you're gonna be a thief, doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it.
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Funny)
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This happened to a friend of mine IRL..
They burgled his flat about 350 CDs but made sure they left the Simply Red one :-)
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Two behaviors: Trying to look good in front of the judge if they're busted 10 seconds later, and trying not to walk off with personally identifiable property.
The CD changer probably had no recorded serial number, but was full of your CDs, easily identifiable.
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Insightful)
See, I don't see that as any specific kindness. Honestly that sounds like the thief was less dickish than they might of been but there is nothing kind about stealing your property.
Now if say he broke into you car and all he took was the bag of groceries out of the trunk you were on the way home with well, we might say they must have been hungry and it was kind of them to do the littlest damage possible, I guess, but there is nobody who "needs" a CD changer, that is just theft and vandalism and I really don't feel much need to excuse the guy the perp.
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Interesting)
Thieves don't steal CD changers so they can listen to tunes: they steal so they can pawn/fence/resell the goods and get cash for drugs/HDTV/food/whatever. Who causes less harm to society: a thief that breaks into 10 cars for groceries or a thief that breaks into 1 car to get a CD changer with which to buy the same amount of groceries? IMO, the latter thief is morally superior because he caused less collateral damage in terms of damaged property and psychological stress on victims. Of course, if you're the victim in either of these cases, you KNOW that the first guy stole because of fundamental need whereas the second may or may not have bought groceries with the proceeds of his crime (in the real world: probably not).
Bottom line 1: a criminal who steals for fundamental need (food, medicine) is morally superior to one who steals for non-fundamental needs (recreational drugs, entertainment systems).
Bottom line 2: a criminal who takes some effort to minimize/mitigate the impact on his victims is morally superior to one who does not.
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I started looking at these, and realized, "why do I even need a CD player in my car anymore?". So I did another search and found there are a few models that have no CD player (or DVD) at all, and are just "digital media receivers". You'd think that these models would be cheaper, since they can dispense with the CD/DVD mechanism, but noooo, they're actually rather expensive compared to the models that play CDs, MP3 CDs, and have front USB ports.
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Often, the data on the computer is worth more to you than the computer. The data is irreplaceable, the laptop is just hardware.
As much as they stole his property, they gave him back the only thing he cared about. I'm not saying it was kind, per se, but it was fairly thoughtful (for someone who has just stolen things from you).
Wa
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I wish my experience was as nice as yours.
The last time I had a stereo stolen, the thief bent the hell out of the door frame to get the window out of track, then used a scissor jack to open the dash up in order to remove the 1 bolt holding the stereo in place.
$1000 damage for a $99 stereo.
Upside was that I got a scissor jack out of the deal.
Someone came back a few months later and busted a window to find that I hadn't put a new stereo in yet. Another $150...
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! I hear in downtown Baltimore, junkies will break car windows just to rifle through the ashtray for loose pocket change. Some people post signs saying "No valuables inside", but it doesn't work, or is viewed as an invitation (some thieves break in anyway, and leave their own sign: "You're right! But I checked anyway").
Best approach seems to be to just leave the windows open. :-P
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Funny)
One time I was at a restaurant in my hometown of Baltimore, and someone smashed the window in and stole my briefcase which I carelessly left on the back seat. Unfortunately for them, it contained nothing but 2 weeks of my student's homework and 2 textbooks.
I hope someone learned a lesson : )
-Dom
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:4, Insightful)
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I lived in Denver Colorado during the late nineties. I had a Jeep Cherokee which is probably the easiest car to steal so it was a big target for people that just wanted to joyride.
It was stolen/attempted 4 times in the eight years I lived there. Each time it was recovered usually within a day. The last time it was stolen I called my insurance company to file a claim. The guy asked me if I had locked the door. I told him no. After a bit of silence he asked me why. I told him I didn't lock the door because I
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One morning I came out to my car to find out it was broken into. I always lock my doors, but it's an 87 Civic and does not have an alarm system. The thief had got my door open and the trunk was also popped open. The trim around my deck was broken off, but everything (speakers, deck, faceplate from the glove compartment) was still there.
At first I thought that the thief got spooked by a car driving by or something and then ran o
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Unless you're from Wall Street.
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Insightful)
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This could also be serving self-interest of keeping a low profile. Smashing a window attracts a lot more immediate attention than fumbling with a lock.
It will be immediately obvious that the car has been busted, the police might get called sooner, resulting in a catch of the thief still nearby
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:4, Informative)
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Interesting. About two years ago, my car stereo was stolen. There was no broken glass, so I only assumed that I left my car door unlocked. The thief stole the stereo, and even reassembled the bracket - the stereo had an OEM mount that took some effort to reinstall, and he did so after it was removed. The real twist was that it was a lower end Kenwood deck I bought for $200 new. This guy took that stereo, but left my camera bag, which had a Canon EOS Rebel XT and a bunch of accessories. He clearly went throu
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of when a friend had their radio stolen from their car, however, the thief took the time slimjim the door rather then bust his window. He even locked it up after he was finish. Just because you're gonna be a thief, doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it.
I think it goes more like:
Couple arrive home from vacation to find their house was broken into and wiped clean. Thieves were nice enough to have left the roll of film from their stolen camera, and most of their bathroom toiletries. So the couple filed their police report, brushed their teeth, and went to sleep on the floor.
A week later after they got the film developed, turns out they had a few extra blurry pictures taken by the thieves of some toothbrushes jammed up someone's ass.
Re:Honor Amongst Thieves (Score:4, Interesting)
they literally stole everything from my downstairs while i was sleeping upstairs, i came down stairs and everything that could be plugged in was stolen, i am a photographer and they stole $3000 worth of camera kit, 2 laptops, my home server with every picture i had ever taken on it, its two monitors and keyboard and mouse, my 42 plasma TV and my xbox 360 and all its games and controllers; roughly $8000 was stolen from me while i slept. the cops came, gave me useless self defense tips and left me there. they had stolen my wallet,ALL of my car keys, house keys and a few folders from my desk that had all my back up ID in it.
BUT they had left my printer! and it had a scanner! and a copier! and plenty of ink and paper. so i went to hand writing descriptions of EVERYTHING that was stolen, giving serial numbers when i could and as accurate as possible descriptions. i made about 20 copies and got someone to watch the house while i was out, found a ride and canvased every camera shop, computer repair and pawn dealer in the area. if i couldnt get them a copy i called them with the things that would most likely turn up.
three days later, a camera shop about 20 miles away in the next state called me to let me know that the police had just arrested two men trying to sell my camera kit. This shop i had been to a few times that year, and i had called them with serial numbers and descriptions the day before! they are a reputable dealer and called the cops...the suspects were arrested in the spot. but they couldnt hold them despite the fact the one guy was on parole. they claimed that they got the stuff from their "cousin" and didnt know it was stolen. they also had "my" xbox in their car...
so about a week later, i got yet another call, a computer repair 4 MILES FROM MY HOUSE, one that i go to everyfew weeks that i had delivered a list of stolen stuff to personally had called the cops...this time the SAME GUYS (really) had my server. It was pretty clear why they needed to visit a computer repair. they had tried to wipe the BIOS and were successful (mostly likely to because they felt that would deactivate services like LoJack the live in the BIOS) but because of my very particular hard drive setup, it wouldnt boot into windows, and i guess they didnt want to commit piracy or didnt know want Ubuntu is so they tried to recover my windows install from the hard drive.
Long story short, they got arrested on the spot. this time in Illinois, where the guy was supposed to be on house arrest. funny thign was that the cops wont search the guys house on the grounds the "his mother is helping them out" although nothing else of mine has turned up. funny thing is that i know they at least still had my xbox because the one that the cops recovered only had my hard drive, so when the cops powered it up they say the profile i told them about and hence CASE CLOSED. it wasnt my xbox. Mine had HDMI, this one was older and did not. i told the police and they said "its your xbox, it has your profile". Microsoft also agreed and said that i you just cant move the hard drive around (Microsoft could also tell me where my console is if some has gone online with it, but they wont without a subpoena) . it feels alot like the movie Changeling...people trying to pawn of some other kid on me.
Also i just could have my server back, pictures weren't good enough and the needed something to present to evidence so they wanted to keep my server, of course, it was the only computer i had at this point, and it had everything i needed to keep my business up and running so i REALLY needed it. i asked if i could take its hardware and leave the case. so on a hot day i had to go to the county jail with my two kids, a philips, my multitool and a big box to the county jail and take my whole computer apa
Socialist dystopia at work (Score:2)
Backup ffs! (Score:3, Insightful)
This story makes me feel sad for humanity.
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I wish the thief would leave a newspaper-cutout note saying "Back up your data dude!"
Backup? Shoulda dropbox'd it (Score:2)
That's why I use Dropbox; not only is it saved to the ethereal cloud, but a hard copy of all my work is on my wife's computer.
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It's not unsympathetic when people do dumb stuff. I had a college friend lose all his work when his laptop died (HDD stopped spinning). I said, "I told you when you bought that laptop, make sure you get an external USB to back it up."
He wanted to hit me, but he should have been hitting himself.
Stupid is as stupid does.
Re:Backup ffs! (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations. You apparently have less empathy than a common thief.
To be fair, less empathy than a rather uncommon thief.
A pickpocket did something similar for me (Score:2, Funny)
He took the time to scan money he stole from me and provide me a convenient pdf file.
I feel so much better about humanity.
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LOL (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nope. Just lousy journalism. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the quote was used in the wrong context. He was not referring to his laptop/data but his calendar which was in the stolen backpack that was returned by the thief (backpack with calendar, other documents etc) a few hours later. Then, a week later he also got the USB with his work for which we simply know that it was not backed up well...
Way to go Telegraph. Read this instead: http://www.thelocal.se/29636/20101015/ [thelocal.se]
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He's hopefully learned something far more valuable than the cost of a laptop.
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Reminds me of what my old computer science teacher used to say:
Remember: Real men don't take backups. But they do cry a lot.
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I'm reminded of a little joke myself:
Once upon a time Satan challenged Jesus to a programming contest. Christ sits down to a Commodore 64 and begins slowly pecking out the beginnings of a "hello world", while Satan conjures up a super computer, grows extra appendages, and begins coding like an army of hellish fiends. After a short while, Satan begins cackling madly, certain he's won the contest, while Christ just muddles slowly through. Suddenly, the power goes out. When God comes to judge the contest h
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I blame microsoft for actively trying to encourage computer illiteracy in an attempt to create lucrative 'features' people are ever so grateful for but which actually provide less than what the user could have achieved themself with just a modicum of computer literacy.
Every time a new version of windows comes out, the folder structure changes. Fuck 'My Documents' and all it's ever shifting directory of welded into the OS subfolders right in the Goat-Ass!
Every time a new version of windows comes out, I ha
How many GBs? (Score:2)
Wait, what? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Hope for humanity... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that considerate, or really creepy ? First you get your laptop stolen, then you get proof that the thief was rifling through your data and evidently thought some of it was important enough to back up and send to you at their own expense. I don't know if 'hope' is the right word to express what I'd be feeling.
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Uh, that doesn't sound all that creepy to me. Yeah, someone who stole my laptop looked at its contents. Yeah it's an invasion of privacy, but you have to assume it happened regardless. Getting the data back at that point is pure positive IMO.
To make it more creepy to get your data back, it'd have to be something like all your pr0n, only sorted by type and quality or with photoshopped annotations. Or your non-pr0n data like your documents but with pr0n inserted into them. That'd be both creepy and poten
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just in time for my presentation to the reagents
I bet he'll get a reaction.
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In the form of an erection.
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Heh. Now I'm imagining him giving a presentation to an audience of beakers, one full of powdered sulfur, another with a 1-molar HCL solution, and so on.
And oh, Mr. Sulfur is very offended by the salacious content in this presentation! The good Professor won't be getting tenure at Schizo U.!
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I had a laptop stolen out of my garage that had about 6 months worth of work. I wish the thief had returned the data. I had a replacement laptop, better then the one stolen, by that afternoon.
It was a silly project (http://download.cnet.com/BabyCell/3000-10440_4-10578953.html?tag=mncol;1), but the work was starting to produce results and I had planned to go even further with it. Live and learn.
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It's equiv to getting your sons bloody shirt back from the killer, after your son's been murdered.
You just stand there thinking, WTF is WRONG with you?
No, it's actually the complete opposite. It'd be like having your son kidnapped, but then he's returned unharmed only missing his expensive shirt.*
Losing your material possession in the form of the laptop isn't cool, but it's ultimately just an annoyance.
It's the ten years of data that is irreplaceable. It's losing that data that would make the loss of the
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Perhaps one of his students' degree plans would have been messed up if this guy was fired or suicidal over losing 10 years' work, so said douche of a student decided to return the data so that he could finish his course.
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or perhaps one of the students degree plans would have been screwed up if the data wasn't changed, and he felt stealing the laptop was the only way to ensure that he had enough time with the data to find what needed to be changed and return it?
Just another unfounded guess to toss on the pile
-Steve
This almost makes up for Abba (Score:2)
Pretty cool story!
Something similar but creepier happened to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
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What makes you think the thief returned it? He probably took the cash and tossed it and some university groundskeeper found it in the bushes and returned it.
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That goes to show that we fear social networks sharing this same kind of pictures with the world, because it is like a one-way looking glass into our life for an interrogator's anonymous perspective.
A thief's anonymity protects them, while we feel compromised never knowing how this thief could return to our life, and how they'll exploit weaknesses found by their original break-in. That is the true reason why we reinstall Windows when spyware hits our internet connected PC's --er, besides the predominant "ma
Back up at LEAST once every year (Score:2)
I am glad he got his research back, though. Very kind of that thief.
Trojan time? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kinda makes me wonder if there's a rootkit on that drive for the purposes of emptying out this gent's bank accounts.
Also, wtf, no backups? ffs.
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Even turning off autorun isn't enough.
If you're interested:
http://windowssecrets.com/2007/11/08/02-One-quick-trick-prevents-Autorun-attacks [windowssecrets.com]
I set these registry settings on every family member's PC.
ABBA (Score:5, Funny)
I'm listening to Abba right now, you insensitive clod!
In Sweden, stealing laptops is The Name Of The Game! Obviously, The Winner Takes it All except he brings back some of it's MP3 on a USB stick to the Dancing Queen, who had been sending out an S.O.S. She then says to the thief Thank You For The Music, followed by Voulez-Vous?. At which point the story turns to swedish erotica which is not appropriate to relate here.
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your browser doesn't have that?
Hopefully he'll do backups now (Score:3, Informative)
Not everything the swedish produce is terrible??? (Score:2)
It's not prohibitively expensive, and quite good quality furniture. Plus, it's ridiculously easy to match ikea furniture with other furniture to create a room with a theme.
Okay, now that I've gotten that rant out of the way...
I'm sure that the police would want to examine that USB stick quite closely, as it could provide evidence of who the criminals were. Unfortunately giving it to the police would mean he would not be able to use it himself. If he withhol
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which scares me. basic IT != rocket science.
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Love thy thief (Score:5, Funny)
But that might be Stockholm syndrome speaking.
What's fucking wrong with Abba ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Genre bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's fucking wrong with Abba ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sweden gave us ABBA.
Canada gave us Celine Dion.
The US gave us Hanson.
England gave us Coldplay.
Everybody is guilty of incredibly annoying but not quite bad enough to stay off the radio music.
I lost all hope for humanity (Score:2)
Same in Germany for wallets (Score:4, Interesting)
In Germany, wallet thieves often take the valuables and throw the wallet (with ID card and whatever else) in the nearest post box and it gets returned to its owner.
Saves the victim a load of hassle at least.
Re:Same in Germany for wallets (Score:4, Funny)
For more on this idea, read Larry Niven's "Flatlander", originally published in the March 1967 "Worlds of If"
"See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?" She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. "Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It'll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too. Then the next guy who takes it can pull out the money and drop your wallet in the nearest mailbox -- no sweat. Otherwise you lose your credit cards, your ident, everything." She stuffed two hundred-odd stars in cash between her breasts, flashing me a parting smile as she turned.
"Thanks," I called. Yes, I did. I was still bewildered, but she'd obviously stayed to help me. She could just as easily have kept wallet and all.
"No charge," she called back, and was gone.
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The reason for throwing the wallet in the post box is that it prevents it from being found until the thief is gone. Post boxes are secure. It's nothing to do with ethics.
10 years on 1 USB stick? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Linguistics or such studies don't generate a lot of huge data types, but you can fit a huge amount of written text on a usb stick.
Wait... (Score:2)
Who steals a 10-year-old Laptop?
Grades? (Score:2, Insightful)
What he failed to notice is that the file where he keeps students grades have been slightly altered!
Are the "bad thieves" the ones we think? (Score:2)
I certainly would have been happy too. Sure the original act is bad blabla but hey, when you get 10y of data back, you're happy.
Thieves are stealing from people or companies directly, but they don't usually mean harm.
The lobbies, companies, government, etc, steal for people far larger amounts every single day - and they don't give you "your data back" all that easily either.
It's all a matter of perception and point of view. I'm all for respectful thiefs. Be it common ones or larger ones I wrote about. Since
10 year old laptop? (Score:2, Funny)
Ah Sweden... (Score:2, Funny)
What kind of moron... (Score:2)
The real Slashdot angle here? (Score:3, Funny)
Flash memory is so efficient that you can store 10 years of scientific research on one USB stick. Now, that's progress!
Sounds risky to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Contacting your victim sounds risky to me. Could report you to the police. Then the cops can put your fingerprints in some database. Then they can maybe trace the mail you sent, and start asking your neighbors about people who would fit the profile for doing this. (20s-30s, white, Swedish)
The laptop huh? (Score:3, Funny)
perhaps it wasn't the thief, but the recipient (Score:5, Interesting)
There are good people in the world. Whether you choose to be one of them is up to you.
Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
He had 10 years of his work on one hard drive and didn't ever do any backups?
Wow.
It seems you can be really stupid and still become a professor.
Re:Kinf Theives? (Score:5, Funny)
I have a feeling the RIAA lawyers will hunt down both perpetrators before the cops can finish their donuts.
That depends (Score:2)
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Genius detective work there.
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the thief is a student or a fellow teacher :)
Exactly. Someone he knows who was having trouble looking the guy in the eyes. Student most likly.
Re:10 years worth of data on a laptop (Score:4, Funny)
It sounds like the thief would have been kinder to steal a newer machine for the professor, preload it with his data, and send *that* back to him. :)
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I honestly know people that refuse to backup files that they NEED because they think of them like paper documents. "if it's still there today, it'll still be there tomorrow. it's in a safe place!"
I even have a friend who teaches that thinks that he can't backup student's submissions because, get this: he think's it's plagiarism. he feels that making copies of documents is like taking it for your own.
ever time I yell at him, telli
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You realize that the ENTIRE KING JAMES BIBLE is only 4.8MB in size?
Not everyone's research needs 40G of storage! How many lines of code can you write in a day? Maybe 10kB, if you're really good? 1000 days of work is just 10MB.
Let me ask you this, what kind of wasteful drivel are you producing that requires 40G per year?