Florida Woman Watches Via Webcam As Her Home Is Burgalarized

After having been robbed once previously, Jeanne Thomas of Fort Lauderdale Florida had a small video camera installed to allow her to monitor her home from work. Saying that she had a kind of "sixth sense" she logged in to find two men rummaging through her belongings. A call to 911 brought 18 police officers down on the home and the two were apprehended, check out the video and 911 call

Technology leads victims to criminals

A Georgetown University student who was attacked and beaten because of his sexual orientation, took matters into his own hands and searched Facebook in an attempt to identify his attacker. CNN reports that "When he found a profile of someone who looked like his attacker, police investigated, then created a photo spread of possible suspects. The victim picked Cooney's photo from the photo spread and Washington police worked with Georgetown University Public Safety officers to arrest him." This is the second such incident of technology being used by victims of crime to catch the criminals, that I've heard of this week. The other incident is a little more humorous, a Vancouver company that was robbed of several computers found pictures of a shirtless man on it's flickr site. It seems that one of the machines that had been stolen had software installed on it that would automatically upload any photos taken by the computer's built-in camera to it's Flickr.com account. They were careful to say that the man in the picture did not necessarily steal the computer but was obviously in possession of it! Score a couple for the good guys!

Webkinz stolen identities

The NY Times Bits blog is reporting that theft of the popular Webkinz plush toy's identity tags is becoming a real problem for the company who makes the toys and retailers alike. It is such a problem that some retailers are resorting to displaying the toys behind the cashiers in more secure locations. Let's make this clear, the thieves are not taking the stuffed animals, but just the uniquely numbered little paper tags that allow the purchasers access to the Webkinz website where they can play with a virtual replica of their toy. It seems that the online version is perhaps more popular than the toy itself, or at least a lot easier to pilfer.

ATM Reprogrammed and stipped of cash

Wired has a story with a moral to it and the moral is change your passwords from time to time, especially if you are an ATM owner. The perpetrator of the crime used an ATM administrator password, which had never been changed from the default '123456', to reprogram the machine and access all of the cash inside. If that weren't bad enough, he came back the next day and did it again! The Triton ATM's user manual is apparently readily available online.