Thief steals Eye-Fi-equipped camera, proceeds to give himself away
By Darren Murph 
posted June 5th 2008 5:55PM
posted June 5th 2008 5:55PM
[Image courtesy of Al]
posted June 5th 2008 5:55PM
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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