'Back to My Mac' snaps a thief

TWO ALLEGED BURGLARS got nabbed in a New York City suburb last week after a laptop owner used Apple's "Back to My Mac" feature to snap a photo of one of them online.

Two weeks ago, thieves hit an apartment in White Plains, New York and made off with flat-screen TVs, Ipods, DVDs, computer games, a box of liquor, a set of car rims... and two laptops.

Then one of the light-fingered geniuses made the mistake of getting online with Kait Duplaga's purloined Mac. A friend sent her a text message congratulating her on recovering her laptop. When she said, "I don't know what you're talking about," her friend replied, "Well, you popped up as being online."

Ms. Duplaga, who just happens to work in the Apple store in the Westchester Mall, immediately got onto another Mac and used "Back to My Mac" to access her missing laptop remotely. She turned on the video camera built into the Mac and soon saw some guy sit down in front of it. Quickly, she snapped a picture.

When she described the tattooed suspect to one of her roommates later on, the roommate said, "Oh, I know exactly who that is," and named an acquaintance.

As it turned out, the suspects had been guests at a party held at the apartment weeks earlier, and were friends of friends of the roommates.

Last Wednesday, Police arrested Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Ian Frias, 20, and charged them with burglary and possession of stolen property.

Daniel Jackson, deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains, told the New York Times, "It doesn’t get much better than their bringing us a picture of the guy actually using the stolen property." µ

L'Inq
New York Times