7 ms·

The Embarrassing Naked Photos On Your Stolen Laptop May Not Belong To The Thief

63 points by pwg 15y ago

tlrobinson 15y ago
Everything about this pisses me off: the woman who likely knew she was buying a stolen laptop, the cops judging the woman calling the photos "disgusting", and the "expert" witness who says "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in communications via the Internet." Sigh
- troels 15y ago
  You forgot the vigilante who thinks ridiculing a criminal publically (regardless of his guilt) is acceptable. But yes, I concur.
  - tlrobinson 15y ago
    It doesn't sound like that's how it went down: The Absolute recovery officer sent the explicit photos along with location information for the stolen laptop to the Springfield Police Department.
- latch 15y ago
  I'm missing why/how people are coming to the conclusion that she probably knew she was buying a stolen laptop? The price? A quick ebay search shows working laptops in that price range. I think what's important is that I actually had to check because I have no idea what a working used laptop goes for..and if you told me some go for $60, I wouldn't be surprised.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    Working laptops of what age? And - on eBay you might be able to get a good deal if no one else bids / is interested. Did you find 'Buy immediately' offers of a reasonable laptop (I assume from the article that we're not talking netbook here) for that price range? And - wouldn't you think that _those_ offers would be shady? I mean.. There's a reason why people check eBay after their gadgets were stolen...
    - latch 15y ago
      The search was for immediate buys from $50-$90. You can easily see for yourself. As for shady, no, the depreciation of electronics never surprises me. Plus, the article said the laptop needed repairs. I'm not saying she didn't know it was stolen. I'm saying that the price, alone, is a 0% indicator in my books.
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    Yes. I'd say at a price of $60, you should definitely double-check to make very sure the laptop isn't stolen, because there is a pretty good chance that it is. Given that the laptop was "messed up" and needed to be "fixed", even more so. Who "fixed" it btw? Not her, probably. I've had stuff of mine stolen often enough (bikes, mostly) that I don't really care whether the law would say I should have known or not, but morally, I just think it's disgusting to profit off theft of other people's property and I think it's just the right thing to do, to consider the possibility. That said, even though I'm of the opinion the women was definitely in the wrong and should have known better, the police also definitely crossed the line the way they handled those photographs.
    - tlrobinson 15y ago
      Also, a kid at an "alternative high school" probably isn't the most reputable of sellers.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- wyclif 15y ago
  How do you know the photos weren't disgusting without seeing them?
  - colanderman 15y ago
    "Disgustingness" is a subjective measure. I'm sure they were disgusting to the detective but not to the intended recipient.
    - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
      >I'm sure they were disgusting to the detective but not to the intended recipient. // How sure? Perhaps she has a scat fetish that her boyfriend doesn't share. Yes it's subjective but not necessarily a chosen response; most people find the image of a mutilated corpse or a festering wound to be disgusting for example.
      - colanderman 15y ago
        It's unprofessional for the detective to pass moral judgment on the accused. His job is to find likely suspects and pass them on to the court for legal judgment.
        pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        From the article: 'One of the prudish detectives wasn’t a fan of the photos, calling them “disgusting.”' That's all we have to go on. A single word remark reported by the plaintiff. It's pretty much impossible to make any bearing as to the professionalism or otherwise of the "detective" (it says earlier in the same para that it was "officers" operating under a warrant, which would almost certainly not be detectives for recovering a stolen laptop, YMMV the piece looks unfinished and unedited to me). However, FWIW, saying something is disgusting isn't casting a moral judgement on it. If you show me a festering sore I might remark "urgh, that's disgusting" but I don't find sores to be immoral. I'm pretty sure he or she wasn't presenting or even attempting to present a legal judgement with what was most likely an off-the-cuff remark. Unprofessional, perhaps mildly. For all we know the remark was disgust at a teacher having apparently knowingly handled stolen goods taken from another school and encouraged a pupil into delinquency by helping them profit from crime and that the plaintiff misinterpreted. Yes it would probably still be mildly unprofessional to comment. Aside, aren't school laptops marked to show their owner; this would have made it near impossible to not know that the goods were stolen.
- altrego99 15y ago
  And that the woman started using the laptop with preinstalled and preused OS instead of reformatting it.
nirvana 15y ago
There's a libertarian principle called minimal force. That is to say, libertarians believe that the initiation of force is immoral, and thus use of force against the initiators is just, but only sufficient to mitigate the crime. When someone steals your laptop, they are initiating force. In doing so, they give you the right to use methods, such as this software, to recover the laptop. But that right only extends to recovering the laptop, not to unnecessarily violate the privacy of the thief. While the thief does owe the laptop owner compensation for the crime, this is something that is determined via court, not by the victim of the crime. So, yes, you have the right to hack into your laptop, turn on the webcam, collect evidence necessary to locate and recover the laptop, but you don't have the moral right to exploit the thief beyond that. I remember the Defcon presentation had some privacy obscuring bits for the thief when he took nude shots of himself in the shower. That's appropriate. Shaming the theif by showing their face is reasonable, but only if you know they aren't an accidental victim. Sharing the thief's nude photos with the police or with any unnecessary third parties, where the they are not necessary for recovery, is a violation of privacy. At least morally. Who knows whether a government in the US will hold the police accountable for any immoral actions.
- novas0x2a 15y ago
  I apologize if this seems like I'm attacking a strawman, that's not my intent. (If I did hit the strawman, please tell me how I've misunderstood...) The problem with this sort of ideology is it ignores deterrence as a force for stability. If the only acceptable response to an application of force is an equal, opposite force, then why shouldn't I steal someone's car for a week rather than rent a car? If the only punishment is that I am forced to pay for the "rental", then I'm afraid the logical thing to do is to steal a car from the nearest parking lot rather than go through the rigmarole of taking the shuttle to the rental car parking lot. You could counter-argue that the equal-opposite force would take that into account, but then, how do you calculate that? Does it cost exactly the same as a rental of an equivalent car would have? (In which case, no deterrence). Is there an additional charge for the theft? The calculation of opposite force starts to take on characteristics of our current civil legal system: calculation of the cost of a wrongdoing.
  - 15y ago
sliverstorm 15y ago
They had one expert witness, a criminal law professor, go a step beyond that, attesting that “there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in communications via the Internet.” Period. The idea that any electronic communication lacks privacy protection whether on a stolen laptop or not is a scary thought and a ridiculous conclusion. A scary thought? That's why it's wrong, because it's scary? I've grown to expect slightly more sophisticated arguments from the people I agree with.
- learc83 15y ago
  He never said it's wrong b/c it's a scary thought. He just said that it was a scary thought. Explaining why is beyond the scope of this article.
- sp332 15y ago
  It's true. When you send a photo to another person, you are knowingly and intentionally sending it unencrypted through multiple third parties, most of whom you don't even know. Does that sound like privacy to you? In the US, courts have ruled that certain kinds of communications (including phone calls and emails) have a "right" to privacy, which means that it's illegal to intercept them. But that doesn't mean it can't happen.
  - learc83 15y ago
    Reasonable expectation of privacy is a legal term. It has nothing to do with the ability of the communication to be intercepted by a criminal. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your home, but that doesn't stop a criminal from breaking in and setting up hidden cameras.
ams6110 15y ago
Anyone who buys a used laptop should immediately dban it and set it up clean from bare metal. But it's not realistic to expect that everyone knows this, and it requires the OS install media which is often not included with used machines.
- hartror 15y ago
  Also advisable if you steal a laptop.
- LogicX 15y ago
  This is irrelevant. LoJack (by Absolute) is in the BIOS. If you reformat, it reinstalls itself. Numerous sources can attest to this, but here's a generic reference: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/LoJack#LoJack_for_Laptops https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/LoJack#LoJack... As you mentioned, not everyone would know, nor have the capability to reformat. This is doubly so for steps I take with administrative passwords, firmware passwords, hard drive passwords, etc. to make it further difficult for the thief to reformat the machine. Pro-Tip: Leave a guest account, and have everything else encrypted. (Looking forward to OSX Lion's upcoming support for a browse-only guest account on the unencrypted boot partition when using filevault2)
  - shard 15y ago
    From looking at the description on Wikipedia, installing Linux would also bypass LoJack, as the software that's reinstalled is a Windows service.
Zak 15y ago
I think it's always reasonable to access data that's on your computer unless you have authorized a third party to use it with the understanding that you will respect their privacy, and to authorize a third-party to access that data on your behalf. It may not be reasonable to make that data public, depending on the content of the data and the probability that its owner is the actual thief.
- AJ007 15y ago
  The data was hardly made public. It was shared with law enforcement in order to track down a person who was believed to be a criminal. Until law enforcement discovered that the holder purchased the stolen property rather than stole it herself, she would be assumed to be a criminal. Additionally, because a user puts their own personal data on their laptop it should be assumed that they are entitled to do things to protect that that personal data just as it is reasonable for you to use lethal force on anyone in your home you believe believe is an intruder. If it turns out after the fact that the masked guy with a crowbar isn't an intruder, they fucked up, not you. I'm sure this argument could be translated to legalese and win the case. The plaintiff's lawyers are just trying to get easy settlement money because the cops were rude.
  - ugh 15y ago
    You can always use lethal force in the US against intruders? That seems wrong.
    - abduhl 15y ago
      This is false. Lethal force is legal only under very specific conditions in most of the US, although there are exception where states have enacted a Castle doctrine type of law (Texas is the most obvious example here).
      - Zak 15y ago
        It's actually a majority of states (31) now. These laws don't simply mean you can shoot anyone who trespasses in your house; the entry must be forceful and you must believe that the person intended to seriously harm someone in the house or remove someone against their will. The castle doctrine simply creates a presumption that, barring evidence to the contrary, someone who "unlawfully and forcibly" enters a home plans to harm the people inside.
nowarninglabel 15y ago
and she’s got a strong case… Uh, no she doesn't. Buying a working laptop for $60 is going to easily constitute knowing the laptop was being sold for less than true value. Sorry, I don't have the link, but this whole receiving stolen goods knowingly thing was explained fairly well on HN in some comments a couple months back.
- ajays 15y ago
  It depends on the type of laptop. Today, a brand new laptop can be had for $350. If this was, say, a 4-year old model with a lot of wear and tear on the surface (possibly, since it was a laptop that was loaned to people), then it's possible that it appeared worth under $100.
- hackerblues 15y ago
  I didn't know how cheaply a laptop could be purchased for so I just checked on Ebay for Used/Refurbished laptops. Currently there are 47 'Buy It Now', nominally complete and working, laptops/netbooks available for $40-60. They all looked pretty crappy, is it reasonable to assume they are all stolen property on the basis of their price alone?
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    A good bunch of them, most certainly.
- zik 15y ago
  I think the point was that the laptop wasn't working when she bought it. She had to have it fixed.
  - nowarninglabel 15y ago
    Take a look at page 3. She not only didn't but it until it was fixed but she also demanded the original agreement be kept on the price. http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2011-08-22-clements-jeffrey_v_springfield.pdf http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2011-08-22-clemen...
breck 15y ago
> “We’re eager to bring this case to the jury,” says [an attorney for the plaintiff]. “It’s a fascinating case and I’m eager to see what a jury will think.” This is pure B.S. right? "I'm eager to see what a jury will think." A jury is composed of randomly selected individuals. So he's saying "I'm eager to see what a group of random people will think." Clearly doesn't make sense. Basically what he's saying is, "A group of random people are clearly going to side with us."
- onan_barbarian 15y ago
  A jury is not a 'bunch of randomly selected individuals'. It is a 'bunch of randomly selected individuals who have had to sit around and assess arguments from both sides, to the exclusion of most other activities'. You might legitimately be eager to see what such a group of people might think; especially as opposed to, or in addition to, a judge. Possibly, dare I say it, it might even be more interesting than the weighted average of 12 random members of the Brains Trust here on HN reading a blog for 5 minutes and forming an opinion...
- dctoedt 15y ago
  Yes, a jury is drawn from a pool of randomly selected individuals, yes. But the pool is first filtered, by striking (1) people who appear to the judge to have too much potential for bias; (2) people who convince the judge they have a good excuse for not serving on the jury; and (3) up to X people peremptorily struck by the lawyers, where X typically equals 3 per side. (In technology-related cases, item 3 often results in the exclusion from the jury of anyone who knows anything about the technology---one or another team of lawyers will want the jurors to know only that which was presented to them for the first time at the trial.)
  - shabble 15y ago
    My understanding is that (1) is typically argued by the opposing trial lawyers, who can appeal for "Strike for cause"[1], which doesn't count against their arbitrary $X strikes. I assume this is actually decided upon by the judge, based on those arguments. [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Strike_for_cause https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Strike_for_ca...
ugh 15y ago
I’m always disgusted when people share those photos with the public or third parties even though doing so is clearly not necessary for recovering the stolen property. It just seems immoral to me, no matter whether you know that the thief or someone else took the photos. I can’t comment on the law but I really don’t understand people who are ok with this kind of behavior. Thieves don’t suddenly become fair game for any treatment just because they are thieves.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  >Thieves don’t suddenly become fair game for any treatment just because they are thieves. Any treatment, no. Humiliation? Sure. Mark Bao struck the right note with his video of the "dancing" thief, but I'd be willing to go further than that. When you violate someone's person or property, I'm okay with a disproportionate response. I think it should hurt you more than it hurt them. I make no claim to any moral foundation to this belief, but I don't feel sorry for muggers who get the shit kicked out of them or thieves who get exposed and ridiculed online. Granted, the OP makes a good point: you have to be damned sure in these cases that the person you're humiliating is, in fact, the thief.
  - ugh 15y ago
    I guess I’m weird but I have really no desire to punish people.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      That's a nice thought in theory, but it leads to antisocial behaviour in practice. Punishment is necessary. The severity of punishment is up to debate, but negative reinforcement works where positive doesn't (and vice versa). Now, as far as desire to see a shit head get punished, that's pure petty schadenfreude and I make neither excuses nor apologies for it. I don't claim to be a paragon of moral virtue. I get warm fuzzies from seeing people get deserved comeuppance. It's such a deeply ingrained part of our cultural psyche (look at every movie Disney ever made), and so universal across cultures, that I suspect it's just an integral part of human nature. We can aspire to loftier moral heights, but at the end of the day a whole lot of us get satisfaction from seeing the bad guy lose.
wheaties 15y ago
They lost that professional flair in the article when they called the cops "po-po" and the expert declared it a "fail." Come on, there was enough stubstanence to report on that stuff without the derogatory remarks.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
sp332 15y ago
I wonder if the thief could claim copyright on the photos, as well as "modeling rights" or the UK equivalent, to prevent the images from being distributed.

63 points by pwg 15y ago

Everything about this pisses me off: the woman who likely knew she was buying a stolen laptop, the cops judging the woman calling the photos "disgusting", and the "expert" witness who says "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in communications via the Internet." Sigh

troels 15y ago
You forgot the vigilante who thinks ridiculing a criminal publically (regardless of his guilt) is acceptable. But yes, I concur.
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  It doesn't sound like that's how it went down: The Absolute recovery officer sent the explicit photos along with location information for the stolen laptop to the Springfield Police Department.
latch 15y ago
I'm missing why/how people are coming to the conclusion that she probably knew she was buying a stolen laptop? The price? A quick ebay search shows working laptops in that price range. I think what's important is that I actually had to check because I have no idea what a working used laptop goes for..and if you told me some go for $60, I wouldn't be surprised.
- darklajid 15y ago
  Working laptops of what age? And - on eBay you might be able to get a good deal if no one else bids / is interested. Did you find 'Buy immediately' offers of a reasonable laptop (I assume from the article that we're not talking netbook here) for that price range? And - wouldn't you think that _those_ offers would be shady? I mean.. There's a reason why people check eBay after their gadgets were stolen...
  - latch 15y ago
    The search was for immediate buys from $50-$90. You can easily see for yourself. As for shady, no, the depreciation of electronics never surprises me. Plus, the article said the laptop needed repairs. I'm not saying she didn't know it was stolen. I'm saying that the price, alone, is a 0% indicator in my books.
- tripzilch 15y ago
  Yes. I'd say at a price of $60, you should definitely double-check to make very sure the laptop isn't stolen, because there is a pretty good chance that it is. Given that the laptop was "messed up" and needed to be "fixed", even more so. Who "fixed" it btw? Not her, probably. I've had stuff of mine stolen often enough (bikes, mostly) that I don't really care whether the law would say I should have known or not, but morally, I just think it's disgusting to profit off theft of other people's property and I think it's just the right thing to do, to consider the possibility. That said, even though I'm of the opinion the women was definitely in the wrong and should have known better, the police also definitely crossed the line the way they handled those photographs.
  - tlrobinson 15y ago
    Also, a kid at an "alternative high school" probably isn't the most reputable of sellers.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
wyclif 15y ago
How do you know the photos weren't disgusting without seeing them?
- colanderman 15y ago
  "Disgustingness" is a subjective measure. I'm sure they were disgusting to the detective but not to the intended recipient.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    >I'm sure they were disgusting to the detective but not to the intended recipient. // How sure? Perhaps she has a scat fetish that her boyfriend doesn't share. Yes it's subjective but not necessarily a chosen response; most people find the image of a mutilated corpse or a festering wound to be disgusting for example.
    - colanderman 15y ago
      It's unprofessional for the detective to pass moral judgment on the accused. His job is to find likely suspects and pass them on to the court for legal judgment.
      - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
        From the article: 'One of the prudish detectives wasn’t a fan of the photos, calling them “disgusting.”' That's all we have to go on. A single word remark reported by the plaintiff. It's pretty much impossible to make any bearing as to the professionalism or otherwise of the "detective" (it says earlier in the same para that it was "officers" operating under a warrant, which would almost certainly not be detectives for recovering a stolen laptop, YMMV the piece looks unfinished and unedited to me). However, FWIW, saying something is disgusting isn't casting a moral judgement on it. If you show me a festering sore I might remark "urgh, that's disgusting" but I don't find sores to be immoral. I'm pretty sure he or she wasn't presenting or even attempting to present a legal judgement with what was most likely an off-the-cuff remark. Unprofessional, perhaps mildly. For all we know the remark was disgust at a teacher having apparently knowingly handled stolen goods taken from another school and encouraged a pupil into delinquency by helping them profit from crime and that the plaintiff misinterpreted. Yes it would probably still be mildly unprofessional to comment. Aside, aren't school laptops marked to show their owner; this would have made it near impossible to not know that the goods were stolen.
altrego99 15y ago
And that the woman started using the laptop with preinstalled and preused OS instead of reformatting it.

nirvana 15y ago

There's a libertarian principle called minimal force. That is to say, libertarians believe that the initiation of force is immoral, and thus use of force against the initiators is just, but only sufficient to mitigate the crime. When someone steals your laptop, they are initiating force. In doing so, they give you the right to use methods, such as this software, to recover the laptop. But that right only extends to recovering the laptop, not to unnecessarily violate the privacy of the thief. While the thief does owe the laptop owner compensation for the crime, this is something that is determined via court, not by the victim of the crime. So, yes, you have the right to hack into your laptop, turn on the webcam, collect evidence necessary to locate and recover the laptop, but you don't have the moral right to exploit the thief beyond that. I remember the Defcon presentation had some privacy obscuring bits for the thief when he took nude shots of himself in the shower. That's appropriate. Shaming the theif by showing their face is reasonable, but only if you know they aren't an accidental victim. Sharing the thief's nude photos with the police or with any unnecessary third parties, where the they are not necessary for recovery, is a violation of privacy. At least morally. Who knows whether a government in the US will hold the police accountable for any immoral actions.

novas0x2a 15y ago
I apologize if this seems like I'm attacking a strawman, that's not my intent. (If I did hit the strawman, please tell me how I've misunderstood...) The problem with this sort of ideology is it ignores deterrence as a force for stability. If the only acceptable response to an application of force is an equal, opposite force, then why shouldn't I steal someone's car for a week rather than rent a car? If the only punishment is that I am forced to pay for the "rental", then I'm afraid the logical thing to do is to steal a car from the nearest parking lot rather than go through the rigmarole of taking the shuttle to the rental car parking lot. You could counter-argue that the equal-opposite force would take that into account, but then, how do you calculate that? Does it cost exactly the same as a rental of an equivalent car would have? (In which case, no deterrence). Is there an additional charge for the theft? The calculation of opposite force starts to take on characteristics of our current civil legal system: calculation of the cost of a wrongdoing.
- 15y ago

sliverstorm 15y ago

They had one expert witness, a criminal law professor, go a step beyond that, attesting that “there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in communications via the Internet.” Period. The idea that any electronic communication lacks privacy protection whether on a stolen laptop or not is a scary thought and a ridiculous conclusion. A scary thought? That's why it's wrong, because it's scary? I've grown to expect slightly more sophisticated arguments from the people I agree with.

learc83 15y ago
He never said it's wrong b/c it's a scary thought. He just said that it was a scary thought. Explaining why is beyond the scope of this article.
sp332 15y ago
It's true. When you send a photo to another person, you are knowingly and intentionally sending it unencrypted through multiple third parties, most of whom you don't even know. Does that sound like privacy to you? In the US, courts have ruled that certain kinds of communications (including phone calls and emails) have a "right" to privacy, which means that it's illegal to intercept them. But that doesn't mean it can't happen.
- learc83 15y ago
  Reasonable expectation of privacy is a legal term. It has nothing to do with the ability of the communication to be intercepted by a criminal. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your home, but that doesn't stop a criminal from breaking in and setting up hidden cameras.

ams6110 15y ago

Anyone who buys a used laptop should immediately dban it and set it up clean from bare metal. But it's not realistic to expect that everyone knows this, and it requires the OS install media which is often not included with used machines.

hartror 15y ago
Also advisable if you steal a laptop.
LogicX 15y ago
This is irrelevant. LoJack (by Absolute) is in the BIOS. If you reformat, it reinstalls itself. Numerous sources can attest to this, but here's a generic reference: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/LoJack#LoJack_for_Laptops https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/LoJack#LoJack... As you mentioned, not everyone would know, nor have the capability to reformat. This is doubly so for steps I take with administrative passwords, firmware passwords, hard drive passwords, etc. to make it further difficult for the thief to reformat the machine. Pro-Tip: Leave a guest account, and have everything else encrypted. (Looking forward to OSX Lion's upcoming support for a browse-only guest account on the unencrypted boot partition when using filevault2)
- shard 15y ago
  From looking at the description on Wikipedia, installing Linux would also bypass LoJack, as the software that's reinstalled is a Windows service.

Zak 15y ago

I think it's always reasonable to access data that's on your computer unless you have authorized a third party to use it with the understanding that you will respect their privacy, and to authorize a third-party to access that data on your behalf. It may not be reasonable to make that data public, depending on the content of the data and the probability that its owner is the actual thief.

AJ007 15y ago
The data was hardly made public. It was shared with law enforcement in order to track down a person who was believed to be a criminal. Until law enforcement discovered that the holder purchased the stolen property rather than stole it herself, she would be assumed to be a criminal. Additionally, because a user puts their own personal data on their laptop it should be assumed that they are entitled to do things to protect that that personal data just as it is reasonable for you to use lethal force on anyone in your home you believe believe is an intruder. If it turns out after the fact that the masked guy with a crowbar isn't an intruder, they fucked up, not you. I'm sure this argument could be translated to legalese and win the case. The plaintiff's lawyers are just trying to get easy settlement money because the cops were rude.
- ugh 15y ago
  You can always use lethal force in the US against intruders? That seems wrong.
  - abduhl 15y ago
    This is false. Lethal force is legal only under very specific conditions in most of the US, although there are exception where states have enacted a Castle doctrine type of law (Texas is the most obvious example here).
    - Zak 15y ago
      It's actually a majority of states (31) now. These laws don't simply mean you can shoot anyone who trespasses in your house; the entry must be forceful and you must believe that the person intended to seriously harm someone in the house or remove someone against their will. The castle doctrine simply creates a presumption that, barring evidence to the contrary, someone who "unlawfully and forcibly" enters a home plans to harm the people inside.

nowarninglabel 15y ago

and she’s got a strong case… Uh, no she doesn't. Buying a working laptop for $60 is going to easily constitute knowing the laptop was being sold for less than true value. Sorry, I don't have the link, but this whole receiving stolen goods knowingly thing was explained fairly well on HN in some comments a couple months back.

ajays 15y ago
It depends on the type of laptop. Today, a brand new laptop can be had for $350. If this was, say, a 4-year old model with a lot of wear and tear on the surface (possibly, since it was a laptop that was loaned to people), then it's possible that it appeared worth under $100.
hackerblues 15y ago
I didn't know how cheaply a laptop could be purchased for so I just checked on Ebay for Used/Refurbished laptops. Currently there are 47 'Buy It Now', nominally complete and working, laptops/netbooks available for $40-60. They all looked pretty crappy, is it reasonable to assume they are all stolen property on the basis of their price alone?
- tripzilch 15y ago
  A good bunch of them, most certainly.
zik 15y ago
I think the point was that the laptop wasn't working when she bought it. She had to have it fixed.
- nowarninglabel 15y ago
  Take a look at page 3. She not only didn't but it until it was fixed but she also demanded the original agreement be kept on the price. http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2011-08-22-clements-jeffrey_v_springfield.pdf http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2011-08-22-clemen...

breck 15y ago

> “We’re eager to bring this case to the jury,” says [an attorney for the plaintiff]. “It’s a fascinating case and I’m eager to see what a jury will think.” This is pure B.S. right? "I'm eager to see what a jury will think." A jury is composed of randomly selected individuals. So he's saying "I'm eager to see what a group of random people will think." Clearly doesn't make sense. Basically what he's saying is, "A group of random people are clearly going to side with us."

onan_barbarian 15y ago
A jury is not a 'bunch of randomly selected individuals'. It is a 'bunch of randomly selected individuals who have had to sit around and assess arguments from both sides, to the exclusion of most other activities'. You might legitimately be eager to see what such a group of people might think; especially as opposed to, or in addition to, a judge. Possibly, dare I say it, it might even be more interesting than the weighted average of 12 random members of the Brains Trust here on HN reading a blog for 5 minutes and forming an opinion...
dctoedt 15y ago
Yes, a jury is drawn from a pool of randomly selected individuals, yes. But the pool is first filtered, by striking (1) people who appear to the judge to have too much potential for bias; (2) people who convince the judge they have a good excuse for not serving on the jury; and (3) up to X people peremptorily struck by the lawyers, where X typically equals 3 per side. (In technology-related cases, item 3 often results in the exclusion from the jury of anyone who knows anything about the technology---one or another team of lawyers will want the jurors to know only that which was presented to them for the first time at the trial.)
- shabble 15y ago
  My understanding is that (1) is typically argued by the opposing trial lawyers, who can appeal for "Strike for cause"[1], which doesn't count against their arbitrary $X strikes. I assume this is actually decided upon by the judge, based on those arguments. [1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Strike_for_cause https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Strike_for_ca...

ugh 15y ago

I’m always disgusted when people share those photos with the public or third parties even though doing so is clearly not necessary for recovering the stolen property. It just seems immoral to me, no matter whether you know that the thief or someone else took the photos. I can’t comment on the law but I really don’t understand people who are ok with this kind of behavior. Thieves don’t suddenly become fair game for any treatment just because they are thieves.

redthrowaway 15y ago
>Thieves don’t suddenly become fair game for any treatment just because they are thieves. Any treatment, no. Humiliation? Sure. Mark Bao struck the right note with his video of the "dancing" thief, but I'd be willing to go further than that. When you violate someone's person or property, I'm okay with a disproportionate response. I think it should hurt you more than it hurt them. I make no claim to any moral foundation to this belief, but I don't feel sorry for muggers who get the shit kicked out of them or thieves who get exposed and ridiculed online. Granted, the OP makes a good point: you have to be damned sure in these cases that the person you're humiliating is, in fact, the thief.
- ugh 15y ago
  I guess I’m weird but I have really no desire to punish people.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    That's a nice thought in theory, but it leads to antisocial behaviour in practice. Punishment is necessary. The severity of punishment is up to debate, but negative reinforcement works where positive doesn't (and vice versa). Now, as far as desire to see a shit head get punished, that's pure petty schadenfreude and I make neither excuses nor apologies for it. I don't claim to be a paragon of moral virtue. I get warm fuzzies from seeing people get deserved comeuppance. It's such a deeply ingrained part of our cultural psyche (look at every movie Disney ever made), and so universal across cultures, that I suspect it's just an integral part of human nature. We can aspire to loftier moral heights, but at the end of the day a whole lot of us get satisfaction from seeing the bad guy lose.

wheaties 15y ago

They lost that professional flair in the article when they called the cops "po-po" and the expert declared it a "fail." Come on, there was enough stubstanence to report on that stuff without the derogatory remarks.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

sp332 15y ago

I wonder if the thief could claim copyright on the photos, as well as "modeling rights" or the UK equivalent, to prevent the images from being distributed.