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Thanks for your software, i think u guys are latin-americans? ...
yup that's right, at least me and most of the guys that work for Fork (the company I founded after Prey took off). however there's lots of contributors from Europe, the US and Asia.
Glad the person got their Mac back, but why does this story and ones like it always end at the recovery of the property? Could we get an update on the punishment of the criminal? I'd like to know what kind of repercussions the criminals suffer--do they get prosecuted? I'm just curious if these software tracking systems have been used in court as evidence to convict any of these criminals.
It's amazing how when big media releases a story about "hackers ruining America", people come out of the woodwork saying "actually, the term for someone who practices forced electronic entry is 'cracker', and 'hacker' just means someone who writes code", but when someone uses it that way, the HN post fills up with comments about how the term 'hacker' has been diluted. PICK ONE, GUYS.
The issue is that the article is titled "Why you don't steal from a hacker". This is not actually an appropriate name for the article, because it's not the writer's status as a hacker that leads to the final result. It is the writer's position as an application user that leads to the final result. In that sense, this article be should called, "Why you don't steal from someone that knows how to use an application to track their stolen laptop". Hence, by replacing the the "application user" with "hacker" you are diluting the meaning of hacker that everyone here loves to use. I'm not trying to be critical, just explaining why people are stating this and that they are attempting to express a consistent stance. You may associate this type of activity with a hacker, but understandably, it is not what you'd come up with when you attempted to define a hacker.
Am I the only one who feels that it's wrong to put someone's personal information and picture on the internet just because he stole a laptop? Of course you get your personal information stolen as well, but in my opinion that doesn't justify spreading his image and name all over the internet. that kind of intrusion into privacy (of the thief) is a much bigger crime in my eyes than the loss of some laptop.
Others take a pitchforks and torches approach. I recall people saying, “publish and let him sue if he doesn’t like it,” which is pretty much the same thing as saying “it might be wrong, but thanks to the difficulties of suing for libel, we can get away with it.”
I guess this is where we peel away all of our nobility and reveal the savages underneath. Some of us strongly believe in the justice system and the importance of treating the accused extremely fairly in theory, but in practice "we know the bastard did it, so there."
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I don't think he surrendered his privacy voluntarily . exposing his picture and info has nothing to do with law enforcement - that's just self-administered justice. a well functioning state of law / rule of law (I dunno how you call it in english) works by sentencing criminals to prison according to the scale of their crime. not by punishing them overtly and excessively as a warning to other criminals (that's just ba…
All that happened is that the World knows that he is a criminal. His right to privacy doesn't mean the right to conceal his misdeeds from the rest of us, nor the right for us to keep silent about it.
Am I the only one who feels that it's wrong to put someone's personal information and picture on the internet just because he stole a laptop? Of course you get your personal information stolen as well, but in my opinion that doesn't justify spreading his image and name all over the internet. that kind of intrusion into privacy (of the thief) is a much bigger crime in my eyes than the loss of some laptop.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/10/uk-riots...
It's amazing how when big media releases a story about "hackers ruining America", people come out of the woodwork saying "actually, the term for someone who practices forced electronic entry is 'cracker', and 'hacker' just means someone who writes code", but when someone uses it that way, the HN post fills up with comments about how the term 'hacker' has been diluted. PICK ONE, GUYS.
The reason that people are annoyed is because the title of the article is misleading. Yes, this guy may be a "hacker" in the sense of the word that we all like to use (he's a programmer). The issue is that the article is titled "Why you don't steal from a hacker". This is not actually an appropriate name for the article, because it's not the writer's status as a hacker that leads to the final result. It is the writer…
Is this one of those viral marketing campaigns again? Yesterday, there was a popular thread on Reddit about some guy who retrieved his stolen Macbook by using the exact same software that's being mentioned here. And not to mention the several other threads here on HN a few months ago that are suspiciously similar. Or maybe it's just really useful.
I have prey too - it's awesome.
Here is a much funnier and more technical account of someone retrieving their stolen computer. In video form! Skip to 3:15 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI8S2houW4
I've been thinking about that video... the guy says it started connecting to the network over 2 years after it was stolen. It seems unlikely (or at least plausible) that the guy who had it was the guy who stole it... or did I miss a key bit of info that justified it all?