Tag: THEFT

Here's a bit of advice for would-be gadget thieves: don't steal other people's stuff. But if you do have the compulsion to take what isn't yours, do the world a favor, and make sure you steal from people who are incredibly tech-savvy, like Mark Bao. The 18-year-old entrepreneur and student at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts had his MacBook Air stolen roughly two months ago. Last week, ...

It may not be top-secret or espionage-worthy, but the information we keep on laptops and smartphones is still something we all would like protected. Saved passwords, addresses, bank balances, friends' contact info -- all sorts of information could have potentially devastating effects in the hands of a crook. Large companies have long had the technology to remotely lock-down and wipe mobile ...

We've all done it: found an unencrypted Wi-Fi connection and decided to piggyback on an unsuspecting neighbor's Web hookup -- even if it was only a temporary fix while we waited for a repairman, or until we could get cable installed in a new apartment. According to a recent poll conducted by Wakefield Research and the Wi-Fi Alliance, 32-percent of respondents admitted to trying to steal a ...

Share A Maryland man accused of pulling off ten burglaries is sitting in jail right now, thanks to a single cell phone and a well-timed power outage. On Friday evening, 25-year-old Cody Wilkins broke into a home in Silver Spring, Maryland, in search of jewelry. His operation was interrupted, however, when the family's son walked into the house. Panicking, Wilkins jumped out of a window, and ...

Share Richard Lynch was understandably peeved when his laptop was replaced with sheets and cans of soda after being shipped out for repairs. Lynch, eager to find the culprits, sent a box rigged with a car alarm through the same UPS shop that his laptop passed through. Ten minutes after being dropped off, the alarm was triggered when an employee opened the package. Check out the video after the ...

In the past, an alarm system's siren has really just served as a two-minute warning: "Hustle and grab that TV, Mr. Burglar, because the cops are on their way." Well, England's Alarm Monitoring Company has decided to quit coddling these bloody crooks, and intends to give them some Cromwellian justice instead. Behold the VuVutech 5000. If a thief can withstand five blaring vuvuzelas, he's earned ...

Share It takes one kind of dirtbag to simply rob a person. It takes a different level of lowlife to steal from a 15-year old. And it takes a very special kind of scum to then post photos posing with the stolen goods on the victim's Facebook page. Marc Fisher's home in D.C. was invaded one night. The thief simply kicked in the aging wooden basement door, and ransacked the house. Fisher, who wrote ...

In 2005, New Jersey resident Daniel Goncalves allegedly hacked into the e-mail account of domain name squatter investor Albert Angel, and used the information he found to transfer ownership of the domain P2P.com to his GoDaddy account. Shortly thereafter, Goncalves flipped the domain on eBay for $111,000 to NBA star Mark Madsen, who was unaware that the domain had been stolen. Goncalves attempted ...

Google's Street View cameras have caught plenty of embarrassing images in the past, but one family thinks the service may have just identified the man who stole their camper. As Jalopnik explains, 11-year-old Reuben Soames first discovered the suspect while looking up his family's home in Derbyshire, England on Google Maps. The site's Street View images of the Soames' front yard showed their ...

Reuters reports that a recent study conducted by a risk consulting firm shows that, worldwide, electronic theft is now costing companies more than physical theft. While it's a marginal difference, according to Kroll's Global Fraud Report, electronic theft accounts for about 27.3-percent of fraud losses reported globally while physical theft accounts for about 27.2-percent of that total. Fraud in ...

Stolen computer capers frequently culminate with negative consequences and heartbroken owners. Occasionally, instead of the usual stories of compromised personal data and half-witted criminals, the incidents produce heartwarming tales of redemption. A Swedish professor recently experienced such a distressing and eventually gratifying laptop robbery after a repentant thief attempted to atone for ...

This is John Boldt, a graduate student at the University of Calgary. This past Wednesday, he was out for a run in Edworthy Park when some heartless thief (or thieves) broke into his car, and stole his laptop, which contained his research, notes and partially complete thesis. Now, Boldt was smarter than many users, and backed up all of his work to an external hard drive. But it too was swiped. ...

The online virtual world of Habbo Hotel, at first glance, seems like just another idyllic, peaceful, fake community, where fake people exchange goods with a fake handshake and a fake smile, and decorate their fake residences with fake furniture. Basically, it's Orange County. But beneath the placid, Norman Rockwell veneer of non-existence lies an all too real underbelly of crime, deception and ...

Share Last November, Florida dentist Robert Thousand, Jr. was the victim of a denial-of-service attack where crooks initiated transfers totaling $399,000 from Thousand's Ameritrade retirement account. When Ameritrade attempted to call Thousand to confirm the transfer requests, Wired reports, the thief (or thieves) used several VoIP accounts and automated dialing software to tie up Thousand's ...

We know that the iPad is the hot new gadget out right now, but we were unaware that getting your grubby fingers on one might be worth permanently disfiguring someone else's. Sadly a pair of thugs, while stalking gadget shoppers at the Cherry Creek Mall in Denver, had no issue with literally ripping the pinkie off of Bill Jordan, who was there to buy the Apple tablet, as a gift and at the behest ...