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Who knew? Apparently would-be thieves have a soft spot for baby photos. A research study conducted in Edinburgh found that lost wallets containing baby photos were returned nine out of ten times.

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Ha! Remember when the Half-Life 2 source code was stolen a few years ago, showing up all over BitTorrent, IRC and the like? It turns out that Valve, once it was able to determine who was responsible (with the help of the FBI), a German fellow by the name of Axel Gembe, attempted to offer him a job! The company offered him the job in order to lure him to the U.S. so he could be arrested. Gembe, perhaps thinking that it was patently ludicrous that the company he just helped screw would want to emply him—you know, to make good use of his elite hacking skills—refused the job. Read More

If someone asked me to help them steal a gigantic cactus, I’d be like, “Have you ever touched a cactus? Those things are really prickly. Find yourself another cohort, kind sir.” But apparently the giant Saguaro cactus, found mostly in Arizona, can sell for over $1,000 which, in turn, has given rise to a pretty active poaching trade.

In order to cut down on such thievery, officials at Arizona’s Saguaro National Park will test the effectiveness of implanting RFID microchips – similar to the ones that people implant in their pets – inside the types of cacti that are getting stolen most often. Park officials will then be able to wave a wand scanner over cacti found in truck beds and even local nurseries to detect whether or not a particular cactus has been stolen.

[via Jaunted]

There was an adorable article in Time magazine last week about Wi-Fi theft. The author, Lev Grossman, admits to being a “Wi-Fi thief” for several years, using his neighbors’ unsecured Wi-Fi without them knowing. He calls it a crime, a direct violation of Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47 of the United States Code.

But is that really theft?

TechDirt argues that when someone leaves an access point open, they are essentially granting permission to anyone to use it. And if you’ve granted permission, how can someone’s access be unauthorized and illegal? Cracking someone’s WEP (people still use WEP around here) and then using that connection, obviously, is a different story.

Bonus points if you have a swashbuckling “I stole teh Wi-Fi!1″ story to share. I tried to crack my neighbor’s WEP a few years ago, which means I was savvy enough to fire up Linux and run AirSnort. Hardcore hacking, in other words.

To quote Boing Boing’s Joel Johnson, “The most amazing gaming story of the year.”

A recently released adventure game for the PC, Limbo of the Lost, appears to have stolen content, including artwork and level design, from games like Oblivion and Silent Hill. The game, developed by Majestic Studios—its [down] Web site is hosted on Geocities!—looks like absolute rubbish, from concept to execution. Like, check out this video:

Really, dynamic storyline? Good heavens.

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A couple from Long Island left their camera at a restaurant in Florida where two of the employees found and kept it . The camera contained an Eye-Fi card which automatically found an open wireless base station and began uploading their photos including some photos the thieves had taken of each other. When they contacted the restaurant with the evidence, the camera was returned and the couple declined to press charges, proving that even technologists have a heart.

I wonder how much this is going to affect petty theft. With everything enabled for Wi-Fi and cellular, how often will we get our pockets picked when the thieves have no idea how the device is rigged.

Get this. You know how when you have to confirm your bank account with, say, Paypal or Google Checkout or any number of online services that want to make sure the bank account that they’re going to be depositing money into belongs to you? So you’ll generally receive two small deposits — pennies each — that you’ll have to confirm, right? Well some guy used an automated script to open up around 58,000 accounts with E-Trade and Schwab.com and collected all the little deposits using a handful of bank accounts. When all was said and done, he walked away with around $50,000.

The man, Michael Largent of California, also used the technique to nab over $8,000 from Google Checkout. He said he needed the money to pay down some debts. He hasn’t been charged by Google (maybe because Google doesn’t “prohibit multiple e-mail addresses and accounts”) but he’s facing computer, wire, and mail fraud charges for the E-Trade and Schwab stunts. Largent is currently out on bail.

via Wired

Who stole the sole?

Noah “Red Hot” Shachtman wrote a great piece on an iRobot insider who stole the plans for the company’s military Packbot robot and recreated the robot himself, becoming a direct competitor to iRobot. The thief, Jameel Ahed, was frustrated because he wasn’t given full control over the project. He quit the company and, after reworking the design, was able to recreate the Packbot’s special rotating paddles which kept it upright on rocky terrain.

Ahed started a company called Robotic FX and almost beat out iRobot for a military contract, leading the company to bring a lawsuit against one of its top engineers.

On Monday, August 20, a district court judge in Alabama issued a temporary restraining order against Robotic FX, demanding that it preserve “all evidence, information, data, and documents.” The next day, iRobot’s lawyers showed up at Robotic FX’s office, US marshals in tow.

They searched the office, then Ahed’s parents’ house, and finally headed to Hill’s apartment in Chicago. Ahed and Hill got there first, barely, and went in through the back door. Hill let the marshals in the front while Ahed ran to the bedroom. His laptop was there, its screen displaying a message that the hard drive had been wiped clean. He unplugged it, put it in a case, and slid the case underneath the bed. Then he went to the living room, where the marshals were asking Hill where the computers were. She didn’t mention the laptop. They found it anyway.

Ahed is currently banned from competing in robotics and iRobot eventually bought his assets, essentially folding in his copycat robot back into its own project. IP theft doesn’t pay, kids.

I’m not a fan of UPS, despite it starting in my hometown. They’re late, and when they show up at my apartment with a package (at least once a month) they knock so faintly my dog can’t hear it. Also, they apparently steal video game shipments.

At least three UPS employees have been fired in the last 24 hours for stealing copies of GTA IV out of shipping boxes. I’ve always wondered if this kind of theft happened, and now we know it does.

Today is a day of GTA IV fever, and I won’t be taking part until it dies down some. You people frighten me.

This trick never works, yet people still keep trying it. I’m sure when they come up with the cunning plan they’re very proud of themselves, but they always end up in the pokey in the end.

Reginald Newman was at a Wal-Mart and found a 26-inch HDTV that he wanted. You and I, we’d check our bank account and see if we had enough to pay for it. But not crafty Reggie. No, he took the UPC bar code from a $3 bottle of water and placed it over the TV’s barcode.

Then he casually tried to buy the TV for $3. Needless to say, the quick-witted cashier noted $3 was a bargain on a new LCD TV so he called a manager who discovered the ruse. Oops!

Intel’s upcoming anti-theft technology will be released later this year and will be called “Intel Anti-Theft Technology”. Clever, no? There aren’t a whole lot of details beyond the mind-blowing name except that, according to a recent presentation (PDF) by Dadi Perlmutter, VP of Intel’s mobility group, it’ll “basically lock the system, lock the disk, so people cannot be maliciously using and getting the data.”

It appears that the technology allows the computer to be locked down once it’s been stolen, so it seems that it may be locked once it’s found a wireless signal or some other way to connect to the internet. Either that or maybe it needs to “check in” once in awhile or maybe it doesn’t work outside of a certain range of acceptable usage zones. Intel will release more details as we get closer to the fourth quarter.

Remember the Craigslist scam in Southern Oregon where an unknown person or persons posted asking people to come clear out a house? Well, it was actually supposed to be a way to cover the tracks of two bumbling burglars. Amber and Brandon Herbert originally broke into the property’s garage and as a way to keep from getting caught a post of the Craig’s list ad encouraging folks to come in and take everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Most of the goods have already been returned and the couple is now in custody.

The lovely couple!

A pair of fools from Salem, MA, have found themselves in jail after stealing 332 iPhones from the Apple Store they worked for and selling them on the black market. Thinking they’d never get caught, the thieves stole and sold for months before being caught.

For those keeping score at home, the grand total of their heists: $132,468.

Sony has issued a warning to gamers in the UK concerning “a possibility of unauthorized access to personal information on the PLAYSTATION Store through PCs.” It didn’t say how the accounts had been accessed but the last line of the message reads, “Remember; do not disclose your log-in or password details on any email communications,” although that could be unrelated.

It’s unlikely, according to Sony, that credit card information has been stolen since only partial card numbers are shown are displayed but any credit stored inside the PlayStation Wallet could be used to purchase items from the store.

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