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The original poster clearly respected this right. The page clearly says "this guy has my MacBook," not "this guy stole my MacBook." Which, presuming the origina

The original poster clearly respected this right. The page clearly says "this guy has my MacBook," not "this guy stole my MacBook." Which, presuming the original poster isn't outright lying, is clearly true. I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights.

tintin 15y ago
I think it's even worse that he is posting pictures of a guy who has his laptop. What if it turned out this guy did not steal it but bought it from someone? He, his house and a sleeping woman are now on the internet. You should read the post here on HN about scanners at airports where we all are suspects. Everybody would scream about the privacy issues...
raganwald 15y ago
The original poster clearly respected this right. The page clearly says "this guy has my MacBook," not "this guy stole my MacBook." Which, presuming the original poster isn't outright lying, is clearly true. As I acknowledged elsewhere, this is an excellent point, thank you. I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights. Ah, now this is another matter. It looks like the author of this blog has this other person's GPS location and Google credentials. I am not an expert, but I am also not sure that publishing these pictures in this context is solely a question of identifying the person. So even if he is careful to avoid a blatant accusation, I still don't like the implication and I don't think that identification is the purpose. If it was, it would be easy enough to get in touch with this person without explaining what this has to do with a laptop.
- VBprogrammer 15y ago
  I'm not sure where his GPS location would have come from. Do MacBooks have GPS built in these days? Also, from the photo's it is only clear that he has the guys email address, and even if he did have his password I'm not sure what he could do with it without committing a fairly serious offense. I really have no idea how you would go about contacting this person without putting yourself in a compromised position. I realize that you do not want people to jump to conclusions as to this guys guilt, however, at the very least he would be a leading suspect in the theft of this laptop, and that is not the sort of person I'd meet for a coffee and to talk about him maybe giving back my laptop. Also, if you emailed the guy and politely asked him to return the laptop how long do you think it would take for him to get rid of it on craigslist or ebay? Therefore, attempting to get more information on who this person is in order to build evidence that the police might be interested in looking at seems quite reasonable.
  - iamben 15y ago
    Prey gets the location of the computer using Google, I believe.
  - allenbrunson 15y ago
    MacBooks don't have GPS, but they can indeed locate themselves, and report that information to apps that ask for it. Apple maintains a big database of WiFi networks with the location of each, crowd-sourced by users of its products. This same location method is used by iPads and iPod Touches, which also don't usually have any better way of locating themselves. The WiFi technique is even used for iPhones, in the rare event that they can't use GPS or cell tower triangulation at a given point in time.

The original poster clearly respected this right. The page clearly says "this guy has my MacBook," not "this guy stole my MacBook." Which, presuming the original poster isn't outright lying, is clearly true. I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights.

tintin 15y ago

I think it's even worse that he is posting pictures of a guy who has his laptop. What if it turned out this guy did not steal it but bought it from someone? He, his house and a sleeping woman are now on the internet. You should read the post here on HN about scanners at airports where we all are suspects. Everybody would scream about the privacy issues...

raganwald 15y ago

The original poster clearly respected this right. The page clearly says "this guy has my MacBook," not "this guy stole my MacBook." Which, presuming the original poster isn't outright lying, is clearly true. As I acknowledged elsewhere, this is an excellent point, thank you. I think making all reasonable attempts, including creating a webpage, to identify that person is well within his rights. Ah, now this is another matter. It looks like the author of this blog has this other person's GPS location and Google credentials. I am not an expert, but I am also not sure that publishing these pictures in this context is solely a question of identifying the person. So even if he is careful to avoid a blatant accusation, I still don't like the implication and I don't think that identification is the purpose. If it was, it would be easy enough to get in touch with this person without explaining what this has to do with a laptop.

VBprogrammer 15y ago
I'm not sure where his GPS location would have come from. Do MacBooks have GPS built in these days? Also, from the photo's it is only clear that he has the guys email address, and even if he did have his password I'm not sure what he could do with it without committing a fairly serious offense. I really have no idea how you would go about contacting this person without putting yourself in a compromised position. I realize that you do not want people to jump to conclusions as to this guys guilt, however, at the very least he would be a leading suspect in the theft of this laptop, and that is not the sort of person I'd meet for a coffee and to talk about him maybe giving back my laptop. Also, if you emailed the guy and politely asked him to return the laptop how long do you think it would take for him to get rid of it on craigslist or ebay? Therefore, attempting to get more information on who this person is in order to build evidence that the police might be interested in looking at seems quite reasonable.
- iamben 15y ago
  Prey gets the location of the computer using Google, I believe.
- allenbrunson 15y ago
  MacBooks don't have GPS, but they can indeed locate themselves, and report that information to apps that ask for it. Apple maintains a big database of WiFi networks with the location of each, crowd-sourced by users of its products. This same location method is used by iPads and iPod Touches, which also don't usually have any better way of locating themselves. The WiFi technique is even used for iPhones, in the rare event that they can't use GPS or cell tower triangulation at a given point in time.