Through Public Shaming
At least it worked for Ivanna. The story goes like this...
Ivanna lost her sidekick mobile phone worth around USD 350 in a NYC Taxi. She got a replacement SIM card and when she started using that in her new sidekick and she found out who has her old device. To her surprise, the 'new' owner has been merrily taking photos and sending SMS. All those got downloaded to Ivanna's new device and thus she was able to exactly tell who has her stolen device.
Here is where the story gets interesting..
Ivanna with the help of a friend Evan asked Sasha Gomez to return the phone but Sasha refused. They approached NYPD but that wasn't off much help till Evan launched a website. Evan published a simple page with the details of the incident along with Sasha's photo and things started happening. He started getting hundreds of emails along with new information about Sasha and even her mysapce.com information.
To cut the story short, this incident took a life of its own, thanks to Internet and NYPD finally got involved and resolved the issue. They arrested the teenager Sasha for possessing a stolen article and recovered the mobile device. Evan is hoping that Ivanna would get her sidekick back soon.
I am not sure if this would work in India or for that matter in other cases. Ivanna got lucky because the 'new' user left digital footprint all through and it was easy trace. Regardless, the power of Internet is being harnessed in novel ways and it is only the beginning.
Related Links
Tale of a lost cell phone..
Beware of .. Digital Trail
How NOT to steal..
Digg.com
Damnit!!! Mine's stolen but the guy refuses to turn up in my area even though his house is somewhere in my area.
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