Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Good Samaritans Using Web to Track/Stalk Owners of Lost Stuff

by Terrence O'Brien on April 12, 2009 at 01:37 PM

Good Samaritans Take to the Web, Creep Us Out

It turns out that not every cyber-stalker is out to harm you or your child, or to just generally be a creep. No, some use their Internet sleuthing abilities for good, not evil. Of course, malicious cyber-stalking is still the norm, so, to make us feel better, the New York Times has compiled a list of anecdotes about good-cyber-Samaritans returning lost items using the Internet.

The article is filled with tales of wallet owners tracked down on Facebook and airports using the Internet to find the family of an abandoned urn (complete with human remains). One rather kindhearted/creepy woman used photos found on a dropped digital camera and a team of amateur detectives on Flickr to track down the couple who owned the camera. Attempts to return the Olympus camera apparently led one Flickr member to drive up and down a street in Aberdeen, Scotland looking for a home pictured in one of the photos.

We think it's nice, if a little stalker-y, that people are using the power of the Web to track down the owners of lost objects, but, unless we happened to drop a prescription for Viagra, we're pretty sure no one is trying to return any of our lost items to us. [From: New York Times, Via: Gawker]

Related Links:

Tags: cyber stalkers, CyberStalkers, facebook, flickr, good samaratin, GoodSamaratin, lost and found, LostAndFound

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular