Showing posts with label tracks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tracks. Show all posts

5/12/2011

GWU sophomore tracks down his stolen iPad, alerts police

Hugo Scheckter returned to his George Washington University residence hall late Saturday. His unlocked room had been ransacked. His iPad, laptop and emergency stash of cash were missing.

Tweet

Scheckter, 20, a sophomore from England, soon filed a police report. He complained to friends on Facebook and Twitter. Then he logged onto MobileMe, an Apple program he had installed on his iPad that tracks the device.

At first it didn’t work, probably because the iPad was powered down. But then on Sunday night, it flipped on. Scheckter hit “track” and, he said, instantly found himself peering at a Google map showing a house in Landover where his iPad was mysteriously moving from room to room.

Scheckter posted a photo of the house from Google Earth on his Facebook page and told his Twitter followers: “Currently tracking my iPad. It’s in Maryland.”

A few of his friends, he said, were “gung-ho” about storming the stranger’s house and taking back the iPad themselves. But Scheckter said it was difficult enough to call his mother in Britain to explain that he was robbed. He didn’t want to call her from a hospital bed because of a “Rambo-style” operation gone wrong.

At first “the police were skeptical when I told them exactly where my iPad was — the address, the room in the house,” said Scheckter, a sports management major.

But on Monday, a D.C. police officer ventured to the house in Prince George’s County, and a few hours later, Scheckter tweeted: “Just picked up my iPad from the station!! Pretty awesome!”

Scheckter said police told him that they had apprehended a man at the house who said he had purchased the iPad from someone else and provided a detailed description. Scheckter said police are looking for that person.

D.C. police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump confirmed that the department is investigating the case, along with GWU campus police, but said she could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

College students are often easy targets for criminals looking to snatch the latest laptops from unattended coffee-shop tables or techy gadgets from unlocked dorm rooms.

At GWU, in the heart of Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood, there have been 53 reports of stolen electronics since January. About 20 of those reports involved stolen laptops. Officials have warned students not to leave their valuable electronics unattended and to watch for “tailgaters,” who slip into secured buildings behind groups of students.

Scheckter admits that he had left his dorm room unlocked all day Saturday, something he often does so a friend can easily borrow his PlayStation. He kept his laptop in a locked drawer but he said the intruder simply ripped the door off.

To send a “public message to the thief,” Scheckter posed for a new Facebook profile photo in which he triumphantly held up his recovered iPad.

johnsonj@washpost.com


View the original article here

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5/04/2011

College student tracks down his stolen iPad

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Leave your comment belowTweet2daysagoCollege student tracks down his stolen iPad

Hugo Scheckter's Twitter profile picture


By Athima Chansanchai


UPDATE: Hugo Scheckter responds to our email, his quotes added below in bold.


Thieves who think they can easily pick off iPads and other devices be warned: Don't underestimate your victim. Especially when he's a wise-cracking, soccer-and-cricket-playing managing editor of a college student newspaper.


The thief who stole?Hugo Scheckter's iPad did not know they were dealing with someone with "stunning good looks and fantastic dress sense" (from the then-freshman's own introduction to the George Washington University's Patriot journal). Nor did the would-be Thomas Crown realize that business school student Scheckter subscribed to Apple's MobileMe cloud service, which comes with a tracking program to locate missing devices.


Below, he explains to DC's Fox 5 how it worked for him:


He told us his learned a valuable lesson from this experience: "If someone at Apple recommends something —?do it! I only had it on my iPad because my Twitter follower, Tony, who works for apple in Indiana, told me to! The second thing is to always think outside the box with problems. I know it sounds obvious, but tracking it was a last resort and I'm so glad it turned out well!"


Scheckter, who sometimes leaves his dorm room unlocked so his friends can borrow his PlayStation (probably not the best idea), came back from traveling with his soccer team?to find his room locked —?and ransacked. His lockbox was smashed up, and his iPad, 13-inch MacBook Pro and $500 in cash were missing. In an email, he wrote us:



"They broke into the building. I do leave my door open (or at least I used to!) for my friend to play on my playstation. The buildings at GW are supposed to be secure, while the door was shut, it wasn't locked. I definitely take part responsibility for allowing it to happen."


In his anger, Scheckter vented on Twitter, catching the attention of a friend who reminded the victim about MobileMe. But it only works when the device is turned on, so he had to wait until Sunday night before he could get a fix.


He recounted the tale to the?Washington Post's Jenna Johnson,?who tracked down this story and followed?Scheckter's tweets, showing the progression of his quest to regain his stuff:



"I hit 'track' and it took me right to the room in the house where it was. When he went to the back room, it moved to the back room," said Scheckter, a sophomore sports management major who grew up in England. "The police were skeptical when I told them exactly where my iPad was — the address, the room in the house."


Scheckter posted a photo of the house from Google Earth on his Facebook page. He tweeted: "Currently tracking my iPad. It's in Maryland."

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While some of his friends wanted to stage their own rescue operation, Scheckter, 20, exercised restraint. "Scheckter said it was difficult enough to call his mother in England to explain that he was robbed," wrote Johnson. "He didn't want to call her from a hospital bed because of a 'Rambo-style' operation."


Scheckter was born in Atlanta, GA, but moved to the UK when he was 6. He lived in Laverstoke, England for 12 years, before moving to GWU for his studies, which focus on sports management.


On Monday, police finally followed up with Scheckter's detective work and arrived at the house, where they activated the beeping sound that led them to the iPad. Turns out the person who had Scheckter's iPad had bought it from the thief, and he gave the police a description to track that person down.


While his laptop and cash still seem to be MIA, at least Scheckter recovered his hard-earned iPad. Here's a NSFW picture (due to language) of the triumphant student holding it.


But the theft did leave him feeling violated. He tweeted:


"The idiots didn't wipe the ipad or it would have been lost. The horrible thing is that they were looking thru my family photos and emails :/"


And in his email to us, he wrote that he's going to take more precautions in guarding his gadgets from now on: "I got careless, and I got hit. I was actually lucky they didn't take more."?


More stories of thieves caught by their victims:

Woman finds stolen GPS on CraigslistLaptop thief caught by victim, who posts on YouTube, TwitterBurglar who posted on victim's Facebook pleads guilty

Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who also has MobileMe on her MacBook, so when she gets an iPhone or iPad, don't think about taking it, thieves!

Browse: apple, college, featured, ipad, thief, george-washington-university, mobileme, hugo-scheckterolder

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