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Robbed Victim Posts Video of Laptop Thief on YouTube

Robbed Victim Posts Video of Laptop Thief on YouTube
3/24/2011
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Suada Kolovic

Getting a computer stolen could be a nightmare for a college student but for one tech-savvy Bentley University freshman, it became a viral dream come true.

Mark Bao discovered his MacBook Air had been stolen but was still able to access several of his hard drives and Web-Browsing history via an online backup service. What did he find? A thief with dance fever. In addition to several pictures of the thief, Mr. Bao found recordings of him dancing, which Mr. Bao took full advantage of and posted on YouTube that same night. “I thought it was hilarious,” Mr. Bao said of the evidence. “I couldn’t believe he didn’t reformat the hard drive or cover up his tracks. It was in plain sight.”

After getting a well-deserved chuckle at the expense of his robber, Mr. Bao notified Bentley’s campus police department and early Tuesday morning, the laptop was turned in to the campus police station. Though the alleged thief emailed Mr. Bao to apologize and requested that the video,“Don’t steal computers belonging to people who know how to use computers,” be taken down, he didn’t oblige. Mr. Bao says he doesn’t plan to press charges and intends to sell the stolen laptop – since he replaced his – and donate the proceeds to support the relief efforts in Japan. Do you think the thief had what was coming to him? Should Mr. Bao take the video down now that his laptop has been returned? Let us know what you think.

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