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World's dumbest crooks: the saga continues

by Mel Martin Sep 1st 2009 at 2:30PM

Yesterday we told you about some crooks that broke into a house and made off with a couple of Macs and a PC. We recounted how the victim used his replacement MacBook Pro to screen share with the stolen device, and even watch as someone filled out an online form to find a job, displaying an address, social security number and phone number.

Well, the crooks are still at it, and seemingly oblivious to the consequences. Last night, I heard from 'Jim' the victim, and he said he was connected again to his laptop, but no one appeared to be home. He saw an unfamiliar jpeg image on the desktop, and you guessed it, the alleged perp had proudly taken a picture of himself with the built in iSight camera. 'Jim' grabbed the pic, and has now forwarded it to his local police department.

It's kind of amazing that the crooks would know enough to grab a pic from the camera, but not realize they have left the Mac wide open to the features of Back to My Mac.

Hopefully, the police will get in gear, and rescue the stolen computers, and grab the perps. Meanwhile, 'Jim' is cautiously considering getting back into his Mac and erasing any files with personal info on them. He just doesn't want to get caught and spook the thieves.

We'll keep you posted.

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Yesterday we told you about some crooks that broke into a house and made off with a couple of Macs and a PC. We recounted how the victim...
 

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Martin

This could have been a cool reality show.

September 02 2009 at 1:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
silas

Surely he can delete files without logging onto screen sharing? They wouldn't notice that would they??

September 02 2009 at 9:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mario

He should just use little snitch to find out what ip address back to my mac is talking to and then give that to police with date and time of day then the police can easily look up where physical address is.

September 02 2009 at 1:23 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to mario's comment
MikeN

Mario & few others, He knows the guys SS number, his face, his name, his home addy, his phone number !! he can go beat the guy down if he wanted to(but don't incase it's the guy who broke into your house then you get a worse ass kicking)

it comes down to the police not giving a crap because they are to busy trying to act like CSI and want to feel important. A detective team will not make this a priority unless it lands in the news(engadget should contact pd for pr info and put pressure on them)

They have murders, donuts, and coffee to worry about. This makes for great story but really Jim got screwed over twice. Guy who jacked his stuff and cops..

Now im sure a bunch of us Mac Brothers would stick together and help him out (anyone else work for PD)

September 02 2009 at 8:13 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eric

"It's kind of amazing that the crooks would know enough to grab a pic from the camera, but not realize they have left the Mac wide open to the features of Back to My Mac."

In response to that - most people don't know every feature of their computers. Everyone with a webcam-equipped computer knows how to take a picture, very few people are aware that Mobile Me exists, let alone Back to my Mac, Find My iPhone, and any number of similar services.

September 02 2009 at 12:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
madgunde

Back To My Mac handles ssh:

In Terminal, go to Shell-->New Remote Connection and select Secure Shell (ssh) from the service column. All your Back To My Mac managed Macs show up on the right in the Server column. Just select the Mac you want to manage and click "Connect". You might have to select "SSH (Automatic) from the popup menu.

September 01 2009 at 11:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jezuzfreak7

Just throwing this out there...but if he has Back to My Mac activated to it's full potential then he SHOULD be able to mount his hard drive as if it's a network drive and then do all the deleting he wants and no mouse movements would be made....just files mysteriously disappearing from its location.

September 01 2009 at 9:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alva Elver

Obicule: Undercover ... FTW!

September 01 2009 at 8:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MileHighHoosier

Hi all. Long-time reader, first-time writer.

I'm not sure if this is where I should ask this, but this entire ordeal has me wondering if there's a good way to hide and/or password protect some files on my MacBook? I keep both personal and work-related financial information on my Mac. Is there any way to protect this?

September 01 2009 at 6:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to MileHighHoosier's comment
axiomatic22

There are better places to ask this, as you'll get more in depth information, but here are a few tips.
Turn off automatic login. Use a strong password. Turn on OSX's FileVault. The following are for the truly paranoid (or those that need the security). Enable the the Open Firmware password on your computer (I don't recommend this but opinions vary). You can use the open source program TrueCrypt to further encrypt data, there are also commercial programs available. You could also use a hardware encrypted flash drive to store your data (top of the line would be ironkey, or similar.)

September 01 2009 at 9:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matt

Make an encrypted disk image and put all your important personal data in there- easiest way to use the mac freely with or without auto login, etc., and still have your data unavailable to anyone else who gains access to the machine.

September 02 2009 at 12:59 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
GadgetGav

While all these technical things are possible, my money is on the police doing nothing. It may seem important to the person who's stuff has been stolen, but property crime of a few items is low on the priority list for the cops, even small town local cops.

September 01 2009 at 5:40 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
emil

For that matter, couldn't you quickly set the display brightness to zero, then do whatever you need? The crooks might think it's the screen saver going on or something..

September 01 2009 at 5:34 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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