Ride the Lightning

MAC NABS CROOKS WITH BACK TO MY MAC AND PHOTOBOOTH

May 29, 2008

A new twist on electronic evidence: Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that a stolen Macintosh computer helped solve a burglary of a New York City apartment. The thieves stole many items, including TVs, iPods and DVDs, along with a laptop belonging to Kait Duplaga, an Apple store employee. The police were having trouble coming up with leads when Duplaga got a message from a friend saying that she was showing up as being online. She turned on the Back to My Mac feature installed on her Mac from another Mac. From there, Duplaga could operate her computer remotely, so she used a standard Apple program called PhotoBooth to snap a picture of a gentleman who was using her computer. The computer shows a “click down” when a photo is being snapped, which the perpetrator figured out, but he raised his hands to cover the lens too late. He was recognized as a guest who had been at a party at the apartment some weeks before. The photo led the police to arrest two suspects and recover almost all of the stolen property.

Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.

The full story may be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/nyregion/10laptop.html?_r=1&ref=technology&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

E-mail:    Phone: 703-379-0700