Stolen Mac recovered with help of built-in camera
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Joshua Kaufman had his stolen MacBook back in hand on Thursday after the laptop sent clues that led police to the suspected thief. Kaufman won fans online by using Hidden software to capture pictures of the apparent culprit taken with the stolen MacBook’s built-in camera and posting images at his ThisGuyHasMy-Macbook.tumblr.com blog along with commentary. One picture showed a man snoozing on a couch while another featured the same fellow shirtless in bed staring intently at the laptop. Kaufman said he began piecing together clues after the MacBook was stolen from his apartment in the California city of Oakland on March 21. A photo posted to his blog apparently shows the suspected thief driving away with the laptop. “I immediately began to gather photos, network and location information about my stolen MacBook using Hidden,” Kaufman said at his blog. He shared his detective work with police officers who on Tuesday arrested a cab driver said to be the man in the MacBook pictures and found the laptop in the suspected thief’s home. “BOOYA!” Kaufman wrote in his blog, using a local expression of triumphant enthusiasm. “The police used my evidence [email which pointed to a cab service] that he was a driver and tricked him into picking them up.” The story turned out so well that some of those following along online suspected it was staged as a promotion for Hidden, software that spies on laptop thieves and pinpoints their whereabouts. © The Province 2011