Usually when a laptop is stolen, it's gone for good. According to a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 70 percent of the 624,000 laptops stolen from U.S. airports each year are never reclaimed. That wasn't the case for Joshua Kaufman. Thanks to an ingenious app and the Tumblr community, he was able to get his stolen MacBook recovered in under two weeks time.
On May 21, 2011 the man in the above photo stole Kaufman's laptop from his Oakland, Calif. apartment. Thankfully, before the MacBook was stolen, Kaufman installed an anti-theft app called Hidden that allows owners to track their stolen machine and, using the built-in video camera, see who has it. Once he realized his laptop was missing, Kaufman fired up the app and began taking pictures of the thief enjoying his bounty. But instead of crying over his loss, he took to the Internet and made—what else?—a Tumblr aptly titled This Guy Has My MacBook chronicling the thief's time with the laptop.
The Tumblr began to spread around the Net, gaining some press along the way, until the Oakland Police Department contacted Kaufman on May 31 to tell him that they have arrested the man who stole his laptop.
Update: (May 31, 8:37 PM PST) ARRESTED! An Oakland police officer just called me to let me know that they arrested the guy in my photos! BOOYA! The police used my evidence (email which pointed to a cab service) that he was a driver and tricked him into picking them up. Nice work OPD!
Who said the Internet can't bring about change?
