Thursday, March 31, 2011

Security Tip - $5 p/m Stolen Laptop Solution

Eighteen-year-old "technology entrepreneur" and Bentley College student Mark Bao had his MacBook Air stolen in February. Unlike other bright-eyed college freshmen, Bao didn't write his laptop off as gone forever (ok, maybe he did--he went out and purchased another laptop the very same night it was stolen), he set out to find the thief.

Using online backup software BackBlaze that he'd installed on his laptop, Bao was able to see the machine's browser history and track any hard drive updates.

"Woah. Thanks to @Backblaze, I think I might be able to figure out who stole my MacBook Air at college. Creeping through the Safari history!" Bao Tweeted on March 19.

(D'oh!)
Apparently the first thing the thief did was take a photo of himself using the laptop's Photo Booth program... After discovering the photo, Bao discovered a video the thief had taken of himself dancing to Tyga's "Make it Rain." Bao uploaded the video to Vimeo, managed to hunt down the guy's Facebook page using the aforementioned Safari history, and then turned everything over to the police. 

Bao told the Daily Mail that he holds no grudges against the thief, because "I don't have time nor patience to. There are more important things in life." Mark no longer has any use for his old laptop, so he's selling it and donating the proceeds to the Red Cross Japan fund. (more)