It was inevitable, really. We've seen quick-footed thieves swipe GPS units that eventually
led to their arrest, a bank robber who
didn't even bother to close his clamshell while holding up the joint and now, we've seen the
Eye-Fi card
really pay off. According to the outfit's PR firm Red Consultancy, one particular vacationer had her entire stash of camera gear (over $1,000 worth) stolen while taking a load off in Florida. Upon returning home and checking things out, she noticed that all of the snapshots taken prior to the theft were uploaded, and upon closer inspection, she even noticed a clear shot of the remarkably idiotic crook. After syncing up with the boys in blue, all of the gal's equipment was eventually returned, and some semblance of normalcy was finally returned. How's that for a feel good story, huh?
[Image courtesy of
Al]
posted Jun 5th 2008 5:55PM
Damn, that thief is an epic fail!
funny story!
I think next time I go on a trip I'm gonna get me some of these cards.
THE BIGGER STORY HERE is that GPS and WiFi can be used to locate ANYBODY.
We don't need chips implanted in our body for the government to monitor us. We've got cellphones, PSP, DS, and Navigation radios.
Things which nobody is forcing you to use.
Sarig
where were you when the governments of North America started implanting RFID chips in Passports and then america passed the REAL ID ACT which demands you have an RFID REAL ID on you once they start being churned out?
MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T USE ENGADGET TILL YOU LEARN TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE OVERLORDS EVIL DOINGS.
I think he was "taking a load off in Florida"
It wasn't as funny as I'd hoped it would be...
Well, since I royally screwed that one up, nevermind! Damn you Engadget comment system.
Are thieves getting dumber or are electronics just getting smarter? They might need to start a school for thieves to teach them about new technology.
My comment isnt supposed to be here
it was supposed to be at Sam Zebian @ Jun 5th 2008 6:53PM
what gives!!!!
So the theif took a picture of himself and uploaded it somewhere? I don't get it.
EyeFi cards upload automatically
Oh nice...I gotta read up on these. Thats a cool feature.
@Patrick:
only in hotspots that you've associated with the card. i dont see how the photos managed to get uploaded unless the thief went to a hotspot that the owner had previously configured and associated with her eye-fi.
Maybe the hotel she was staying in?!
Maybe "linksys" or "netgear".
possible, but it reeks of a PR stunt.
Any link to the news article, PR report, blog entry, ANYTHING to back up this news story?
I had a quick look around on a couple of news sites, nothing doing.
You've peaked my interest, is this a fake story because it's a slow news day or is it genuine.
Anyone else able to find this info let me know.
If it's fake I'll be p***ed off.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0534545220080605?rpc=44
This sounds way too much like publicity stunt. Don't believe it for one second
I agree. Even the "news" reports read like a thinly disguised ad.
Per the Reuters article posted above:
"Luckily, the culprits passed by an unsecured network, whose factory-installed setting matched that of DeLauzon's home system, and the Eye-Fi automatically shipped the photos: first baby pictures, then the snap-happy scoundrels."
This would probably mean that DeLauzon's home wireless net is also unsecured, so please add this to your Hot Spot list :-)
"I opened up the Eye-Fi manager on the computer and, lo and behold, there are the guys that stole our cameras," said DeLauzon, a native of New York's Long Island suburb. "Not only is it the guy who stole our camera ... but the guy took a picture of (his accomplice) holding our other camera."
Normal human beings do not say things like this. Now they might say "I opened up the software" -- but "I opened up the Eye-Fi manager?" That *is* something that someone in Eye-Fi marketing/PR might say. The reality is that companies do seed the media with stories like this and that sometimes lazy reporters pick them up.
@foo.bar
Yes, real people DO talk like this. All the time. I do agree that this might be a PR stunt because it just sounds too fortunate, but it probably is legitimate. Reuters is a very trustworthy source.
Now she can continue making armature porn.
'armature' ?
You, sir, FAIL.
better than stator porn?
@ Rouge_Genius, thanks for pointing that out amateur now I will change my name to: armature_stator. Had to copy and paste both words.
You're welcome. The funniest part is that you misspelled my name in your reply. Granted, that loud whooshing noise above your head probably will continue for the rest of your life, but because the whole thing started with a mis-spelling (read waddaya's attempt @ a witticism), I can't decide whether to high-rank you for the folly or low-rank you for the intended diss. LMAO!!!
Not the most unlucky criminal in the world, just not very up on technology.
Someone should send him a link to engadget.com
If anybody could ever be bothered!
I have my EYE on you.
"Don't even think about it, lunchpail"
-bender
Here is an article, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=lost-cameras-phone-home-t
Thanks to HardForum
Moral of the story: If you use your camera to take pictures of your significant other (or yourself I suppose) without clothes, do not use a EyeFi card. Unless you roll that way of course... or you GF is hot.
Excellent advertising by the Eye-Fi folks!
"stolen while taking a load off in Florida"
So she was in the crapper when this happened??
Ooh, big fat FAIL for not knowing what the phrase "take a load off" means.
I actually have no idea what that means :/
disconnecting a power circuit?
I'm calling shenanigans. I just checked my eye-fi manager page, and I can't setup things to connect to a random wifi AP. So unless the perp had an AP with the same name and password as the victim, I say it's BS.
I should have read the article first:
Luckily, the culprits passed by an unsecured network, whose factory-installed setting matched that of DeLauzon's home system, and the Eye-Fi automatically shipped the photos: first baby pictures, then the snap-happy scoundrels.
In other words, she's just another dumb user with "linksys" as her AP and no wireless security.
"Luckily, the culprits passed by an unsecured network, whose factory-installed setting matched that of DeLauzon's home system, and the Eye-Fi automatically shipped the photos: first baby pictures, then the snap-happy scoundrels."
It was dumb luck.
Saw SeanR and had to comment.. i was wondering who else registered under that nick since it was taken lol.
Here's a fun little fact I found from Eye-Fi's website:
"Is the Eye-Fi Card available?
Eye-Fi Home, Eye-Fi Share and the Eye-Fi Explore Cards will be available for sale online and at selected retail locations beginning June 6, 2008. The original Eye-Fi Card is currently available for sale online and at selected retail locations."
Would you look at that! They just happen to be relaunching the entire line of cards tomorrow - just a day after this story broke. What a wonderful coincidence.
It's all one big coincidence. The perp walked up to an AP with the exact same settings as the victim AND the press release comes out the day before their newest product release.
good thing they didn't upload my donkey porn and spoil their big coming out party
I have one at home already. I got it off their website last month.
But I wont be home till next month....
*Being stuck in Iraq sucks big ones*
"Luckily, the culprits passed by an unsecured network, whose factory-installed setting matched that of DeLauzon's home system, and the Eye-Fi automatically shipped the photos: first baby pictures, then the snap-happy scoundrels."
yeah, right
My guess is the SSID was "linksys" and the password was ""
Do I win a prize?
So I take it from the sciam article that her home WiFi was left as default, like "linksys" with no security, (so bright), and the idiot thief passed by ANOTHER WiFi ignoramus who also didn't configure his/her WiFi.
One time I stayed in a hotel in Victoria, BC and I noticed that the free WiFi graciously provided for guests had an SSID of "linksys", so I typed in
192.168.1.1, and then admin, admin, and there I was, configuring their router. I played nice.
That's always a ton of fun. Even better: Upgrading the router to dd-wrt, of course! Set the Xmit value to at least 70, and now it really benefits everyone.
My neighbor has a netgear router, unsecured. I logged in and changed her SSID to "you mom". Now everytime she connects, the little bubble in the bottom corner of her screen says "Now connected to your mom" :)
Reminds me of the story about the young lady who got her .Mac back...
http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/11/stolen-laptop-recovered-with-back-to-my-mac/
Technology to bust criminals FTW!
@Dave
**Note usually the default credentials for linksys routers are use nothing for the user and admin as the pass. I'm sure you just mistyped/meant that, but it's late in the day and I just feel like being a pain in the ass. :) :)
"I typed in
192.168.1.1, and then admin, admin, and there I was, configuring their router. I played nice."
Absolutely rubbish this story.
They are trying to tell us that the thieves just happened to photograph eachother, 'pass by' an open access point while the camera was turned on, and uploaded the pics (which can take some time) while passing an open access point?
If you ask me the cops have more chance of catching these guys than this story being true.
@Brad: Absolutely rubbish, that comment.
Are you trying to tell us that you never read the original article and thus spout out uninformed nonsense every time you comment on Engadget? If you've read the article, you will know that the thieves were employees of a restaurant where she dined and accidentally left her camera. Many restaurants nowadays sport Wi-Fi hotspots (or are located close to one) so it wouldn't suprise me if this article was indeed true. Besides, Reuters is reliable news source.
It doesnt have to be your home network.
http://www.eye.fi/services/hotspot/
It can be any of the listed networks and then they will get uploaded when you are within range. Kinda handy actually cause you can delete the photos off the card once they have been uploaded from a public hotspot. Means you dont need as big a SD card.
What I was hoping before (I think my camera was stolen from my front yard... or i"ve simply misplaced it somewhere) was that the camera serial number was stored somewhere in the picture file information. That way if my camera was stolen, I could search online photo sites to see if someone local had uploaded photos using my camera.
That only applies to the Eye-Fi Explore card which isn't out yet.
Oops. Thanks for clarifying that.
From other reviews I've seen, the range on these cards is pretty small.
Knowing how the news media has a gift for getting the story wrong all the time "taking a load off" in this case probably means she was sitting down while dropping a load...
Brad et al.
Alison had configured her Eye-Fi Card to her home network. This just so happened to be an open Linksys network. The default network settings for a Linksys router. The unlucky culprits also happened to have the same default Linksys network settings on their network.
Because the Eye-Fi Card was set to use Alisons network it was also set to use any other open Linksys network, So when the culprits took pictures they were unwittingly uploading the photos to Aison's computer via their own open Linksys network. When she returned home from her vacation, she discovered much to her surprise, photos uploading to her computer of the culprits.
Some of you doubt the story, that is fine, but as the lead at Eye-Fi support, I can verify that she contacted us to tell us about what happened. She was pretty excited and grateful to have been able use the photos of the culprits to get her gear back.
Did they have masks on and a swag bag?
Pics or it didn't happen
@ larry
Sorry but i just don't buy the story. She is unable to configure her unsecure WLAN network at home using default settings, but is technophile enough to to know about a WiFi-SD-Card and putting it in her camera?!
Fenchurch,
Not sure what to tell ya other than you don't have to be a technophile to use the Eye-Fi Card. We have put together a really simple interface the lets you set up the card in less than 5 minutes. As for knowing about the card, Alison mentioned to me that she heard about on TV via the Today Show.
Eye-fi, huh? Hmm...
*goes off to patent "Ear-fi" for use with portable media players*
Did you guys read the whole story...
"An eerie case occurred last month, when a Japanese man set up a hidden camera because food was disappearing from his kitchen. While he was out, the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of the intruder -- an unknown woman living secretly in his closet."
I mean WTF!!!
Wait...
The thieves took pictures of themselves?
this is awesome. If this works every time that a thief uses the stolen device then everyone should have one. $100 for a the eye-fi which I contemplated anyway is a lot cheaper than a new camera
this card is too Good
I am mad fan of this Card