Filed under: Odds and ends, .Mac
Back to My Mac saves a stolen laptop
A clever Mac user helped police recover a stolen laptop using Back to My Mac's screen-sharing feature.
After her apartment was burglarized, the victim received a call from a friend while she was at work (conveniently enough, at the Apple Store in Westchester, NY). The friend noticed her stolen computer was online. The victim then quickly used another Mac to connect to the stolen laptop.
The article doesn't mention the technical details, but I reckon she activated screen sharing, and started Photo Booth (or another app that activates the laptop's built-in iSight camera). After a while, the perps showed up, and the victim's roommate recognized one of them as an acquaintance who had attended a party at their apartment some weeks before.
Armed with names and photos of the alleged thieves, police quickly arrested two men, who were in possession of most of the property stolen in the burglary.
If that isn't worth her year's subscription to .Mac, I don't know what is.
(Update: The New York Times has a story with some more details. She used Photo Booth, too. Who called it, baby?)
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Gareth said 3:05PM on 5-09-2008
Cool! Now if only I could get back to my mac working on MY mac.
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Beanie said 3:34PM on 5-09-2008
Yeah, that must have been the only time it worked, it usually works out that way. I still can't get BTMM to work correctly.
FoundInTheFlood said 3:14PM on 5-09-2008
Hm, for real screensharing doesn't the other side have to accept it?
Isn't it like in ichat?
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Dom said 3:19PM on 5-09-2008
No.
brettt said 5:36PM on 5-09-2008
Think about it for a second and you'll guess why not :-p
Aloysius Snuffleupagus said 3:15PM on 5-09-2008
I've got an Airport only wireless network setup and Back to my Mac has never ever worked for me.
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Adam said 3:15PM on 5-09-2008
"If that isn't worth her year's subscription to .Mac..."
Or just get friends that don't burglarize homes.
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Dan said 4:19PM on 5-09-2008
The article clearly said acquaintance, it does not say the criminals were long time friends. Whenever you throw a party theres always gonna be chance that other wil tag along that you will not know but your friends do. Luckily they were able pinpoint them down.
Adam said 4:34PM on 5-09-2008
Perhaps. But these were also people that knew where they lived?
Time to get new friends or don't put your address on myspace.
brian said 3:32PM on 5-09-2008
Or get this:
http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/
$50 to cover one Mac or $60 for five, works like the above only better because the thief is totally unaware that it's running (as opposed to "Hey! Why did PhotoBooth launch itself?") and you don't need to be awake and online 24/7 waiting for your missing Mac to show up on your buddy list.
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Bryan T said 6:11PM on 5-09-2008
Heard good things about this, and yeah, what Brian said. With back to my mac, there is a chance someone could see the signals that it is being used by another person.
Although, I have never used back to my mac or undercover.
Aron T said 3:41PM on 5-09-2008
Does it say who's leg she humped to get Back to My Mac working because I paid for a year of .Mac and still haven't gotten this working?
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PSM said 3:47PM on 5-09-2008
Cool story. I've been wondering if BTMM is something I should bother setting up. If it works, this sounds like an even better reason to enable it.
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Johnny said 4:00PM on 5-09-2008
Count me in as one of those who has never gotten it to work with ANY router or configuration I've tried.
To Robert Palmer, I think you're a great addition to this blog. You've only been posting for over a day now and you are already one of the best writers at TUAW (or any blog for that matter). Keep up the good work!
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Robert Palmer said 4:19PM on 5-09-2008
You're too kind, Johnny! I'm just happy to be here.
Robert Palmer said 4:20PM on 5-09-2008
And it's a team effort, too -- Michael Rose and Scott McNulty are excellent editors. :)
Johnny said 4:23PM on 5-09-2008
Indeed. Kudos to all!
Michael said 4:03PM on 5-09-2008
This seems to be a recurring theme. A few years ago, Macworld had a story about a guy who did the same thing using Timbuktu (another remote control tool)
http://www.macworld.com/article/3187/2002/01/timbuktu.html
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George Muenz said 4:11PM on 5-09-2008
I get BTMM working just fine at home. At a wi-fi powered coffee shop, it did not work, but it might be that my home iMac was sleeping. I'll check again this weekend.
A similar incident happened here in Vancouver a few months ago. The owner had settings that automatically uploaded their photobooth pictures to Flickr.
http://www.switched.com/2007/09/27/stolen-laptop-self-uploads-photo-of-suspect-to-web/
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punkassjim said 7:03PM on 5-09-2008
It doesn't work at coffee shops because BTMM requires uPNP to be enabled on the router. The network administrator of the coffee shop would be an idiot to enable uPNP on their router.
That being said, thank god the thieves had uPNP enabled on their router.