In these days of unlimited free e-mail services (gmail, etc) you'd think someone wouldn't use their personal e-mail account to sell stolen goods...
My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
51–60 of 132 posts
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#52The ending is written as if the Myspace page was what sprung the trap on him. But was it the photo of him at McDonalds that they used or his online ones?
So it reads more like Credit card statement -> McDonald's photo -> arrest. With all her extraneous snooping around that?
I don't want to make assumptions, but I bet there was one annoyed police officer in California.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#53It strikes me that people who are bothered by theft in the modern age just haven't got the whole digital revolution on quite a profound level. She lists the things that bothered her as "the BlackBerry with contact information for dear old friends, the wedding anniversary wallet that her husband bought her when she finished chemo, stuffed with about two years' worth of love letters from her toddlers, hopeful doctors' notes, and other scraps of paper she couldn't bear to part with".
The wallet itself I kind of get, but the rest is just data. With a ScanSnap and an iDrive account, the stuff that matters becomes so many electrons in the grid. Send the bits of dead tree off to Iron Mountain, insure your gadgets and stop worrying.
I think it's a sort of zen exercise, separating sentiment from utility. If suffering really is caused by attachment to transient things, then it seems to me that we have a truly unique opportunity to break attachments wholesale, at little or no cost. Keep your bits in the cloud and treat your atoms as if they're borrowed (which ultimately they are).
If we really want to reduce crime, locking people up isn't going to help - we have decades of recidivism as proof. There's no such thing as deterrent, not for people with chaotic childhoods who never developed self control or long-term thinking. If I'm robbed from, it's my fault, because I haven't done enough for the people in society with lives so crappy that petty theft seems like an attractive career.
Here in the UK, the average prison inmate is functionally illiterate, mentally ill and addicted to drink or drugs. One in ten is psychotic and one in five has attempted suicide. I imagine the numbers are much the same in the US. I see a lot of comments in this thread about preventing crime, about punishment and deterrent. If it worked, why is recidivism so high? Is the best we can do just locking people up?
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#54> "By now it was Friday afternoon, and Inspector Vargas does not work weekends or Mondays, thanks to the California state budget cuts." The movies would have you believe that detectives work around the clock and would do anything and everything to catch a crook. Rude awakening. Seems like a lot of crimes must go unsolved because of this - time just seems like such a critical aspect of a lot of cases.
Sorry, but a crime like this does no involve the criminal getting a new passport and leaving town in 2 days time.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#55It strikes me that people who are bothered by theft in the modern age just haven't got the whole digital revolution on quite a profound level. She lists the things that bothered her as "the BlackBerry with contact information for dear old friends, the wedding anniversary wallet that her husband bought her when she finished chemo, stuffed with about two years' worth of love letters from her toddlers, hopeful doctors'…
Have you ever been robbed? Also, it sounds like the "transient things" were the things that helped her get through chemo. Have you every gone through that?
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#56This highlights the value of contingency planning and tenacity.
With the suspect's photo in the McDonald's, the police might have been able to find him, and convict him for possession of stolen property, especially with his criminal history. But the author wasn't done! She turned his email address into his complete online identity. This provided an extra link to the crime, the stolen GPS, and some extra supporting information, like the comment on MySpace about hitting the lottery. She made life easy for the police by finding the suspect's name. She stopped the case from falling through the cracks, and gave the police enough leverage to get a guilty plea.
This is why I don't believe (very strongly) in luck. Many facets of the case were fortunate: the Craigslist ad, the email reuse, the McDonalds surveillance picture, the MySpace profile, etc. But she was given multiple trails of breadcrumbs that she followed to their inevitable conclusion.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well there are different theories of justice. Deterrence is certainly one, but rehabilitation is another theory that should be considered. I'm not sure what the correct response is, but the article conveyed an attitude that this was a clear cut narrative on the triumph of good over evil, casting herself as the heroine. Another perspective is that a common thief, desperate to make ends meet, becomes the victim of a vi…
fwiw I agree, it left a sour taste in my mouth. Sounded far too much like she got wrapped up in her own empowerment and didn't think about whether just maybe letting it go was a better option. Compare with this story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8916475...
now that's a triumph of good over evil narrative I can get behind.
thanks for the reply -- great article.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#58The ending is written as if the Myspace page was what sprung the trap on him. But was it the photo of him at McDonalds that they used or his online ones? So it reads more like Credit card statement -> McDonald's photo -> arrest. With all her extraneous snooping around that? I don't want to make assumptions, but I bet there was one annoyed police officer in California.
The photo wouldn't have led to the arrest if she hadn't matched it against the ones in MySpace one that was attached to the e-mail, names, and other people.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#59I know HN etiquette dictates that my comment should add something to the conversation, otherwise a simple upvote will suffice, but I have nothing to add: I just wanted to state that this story is awesome. OK, maybe a few things to add. Snarks would point out that this was overkill, that insurance would have covered most of it (most of it was recovered anyway) and self-sleuthing can lead to dangerous situations. But a…
I'm not totally knowledgable about insurance, but I'm pretty sure if you leave the car door unlocked (or apartment door for that matter), insurance doesn't cover the theft. There needs to be some sort of forced entry, as far as I remember.
I left my car unlocked and accidentally left the garage door up. I lost the stereo from the car, and suffered a lot of console damage as well. I had two surfboards, some tools and a set of CD's stolen. It was all completely my fault for bumping the garage door remote (I now leave it in the car, always).
The insurance company paid up, both for the household items taken, and the car insurance for the stolen stereo and damaged interior. In fact, with the new-for-old policy, I got replacements on some old stuff with nice new items.
The takeaway is : check your policy. You want to insure against loss and stupidity.
Re: My relentless pursuit of the guy who robbed me
#60FWIW, this is completely the opposite of what pg suggests: http://paulgraham.com/top.html Turning the other cheek turns out to have selfish advantages. Someone who does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by taking up your time afterward thinking about it. If you learn to ignore injuries you can at least avoid the second half. I've found I can to some extent avoid thinking about nast…
You'd need clarification from pg himself, but I always took that more metaphorically and in a business/startup sense. I think there is a certain amount of personal strength to be gained from going vigilante on a small time crook and turning them over to the cops. We feel best when we feel the most control over our personal circumstances.