Thief Returns Stolen Laptop Contents On USB Stick

While it's true that Sweden is responsible for unleashing IKEA and ABBA on humanity, not everything they produce is terrible. Their thieves are some of the most considerate in the world. An unnamed professor at Umeå University received a USB stick with all his data after his laptop was stolen. From the article: "The professor, who teaches at Umeå University in northern Sweden, was devastated when ten years of work stored on his laptop was stolen. But to his surprise, a week after the theft, the entire contents of his laptop were posted to him on a USB stick. 'I am very happy,' the unnamed professor told the local Västerbottens-Kuriren newspaper. 'This story makes me feel hope for humanity.'"

Honor Amongst Thieves

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of when a friend had their radio stolen from their car, however, the thief took the time slimjim the door rather then bust his window. He even locked it up after he was finish. Just because you're gonna be a thief, doesn't mean you have to be a jerk about it.

Something similar but creepier happened to me...

[Solarbeat]

A long, long, time ago, I moved into the campus dorms a week early to lay claim to the only network port in the room (yes, back then there was only one). Only thing is that the dining halls hadn't opened. I went out to grab a bite to eat and got my wallet pick-pocketed, leaving me without money for food for days. A few weeks later, a package arrived with my empty wallet, even with my credit cards, ID, etc... the only thing missing? Cash (of course), and the creepy part: the guy took all of the pictures of family and friends I had. Rather than making me feel hope for humanity, it showed me how creepy we can be.

Trojan time?

[foodnugget]

The story of the thief who returns someone's goods with some opera tickets and an apology comes to mind -- when the victim goes to see the opera, the thief cleans out the victim's house.

Kinda makes me wonder if there's a rootkit on that drive for the purposes of emptying out this gent's bank accounts.

Also, wtf, no backups? ffs.

Re:I don't know...

[Krau Ming]

being almost done my PhD, the thought of losing all my data is enough to make me want to cry. of course my work is backed up, but if i was in that prof's shoes, creepy or not, i'd be doing a big time happy dance upon receiving that usb drive.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[vlm]

Two behaviors: Trying to look good in front of the judge if they're busted 10 seconds later, and trying not to walk off with personally identifiable property.

The CD changer probably had no recorded serial number, but was full of your CDs, easily identifiable.

Nope. Just lousy journalism.

[Ecuador]

No, the quote was used in the wrong context. He was not referring to his laptop/data but his calendar which was in the stolen backpack that was returned by the thief (backpack with calendar, other documents etc) a few hours later. Then, a week later he also got the USB with his work for which we simply know that it was not backed up well...
Way to go Telegraph. Read this instead: http://www.thelocal.se/29636/20101015/ [thelocal.se]

Same in Germany for wallets

[ciaran_o_riordan]

In Germany, wallet thieves often take the valuables and throw the wallet (with ID card and whatever else) in the nearest post box and it gets returned to its owner.

Saves the victim a load of hassle at least.

10 years on 1 USB stick?

[fooslacker]

Blah blah, theft, nice thief, should have backups etc....but I'm more concerned that he could fit 10 years of work on a single usb stick. I guess some jobs generate more data than others but that's pretty lean research work. I guess maybe some academics don't generate more than their own writing.

Re:Backup ffs!

[theaveng]

It's not unsympathetic when people do dumb stuff. I had a college friend lose all his work when his laptop died (HDD stopped spinning). I said, "I told you when you bought that laptop, make sure you get an external USB to back it up."

He wanted to hit me, but he should have been hitting himself.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[Jesse_vd]

how does a CD changer help when you only have 1 CD?

Re:10 years on 1 USB stick?

[Kharny]

Linguistics or such studies don't generate a lot of huge data types, but you can fit a huge amount of written text on a usb stick.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[riegel]

I lived in Denver Colorado during the late nineties. I had a Jeep Cherokee which is probably the easiest car to steal so it was a big target for people that just wanted to joyride.

It was stolen/attempted 4 times in the eight years I lived there. Each time it was recovered usually within a day. The last time it was stolen I called my insurance company to file a claim. The guy asked me if I had locked the door. I told him no. After a bit of silence he asked me why. I told him I didn't lock the door because I didn't want to drive around with a broken glass while I waited to get it fixed. He looked at my history and said I see it looks like we have replaced the glass in this vehicle 3 times and we wont have to this time.

Since then I never lock my car. People that do not know the story usually say things like "naive" but actually the opposite is true.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[james_shoemaker]

I had a bag of pretzels stolen from my car once, they broke both front door windows (with a nice fist sized granite rock provided by the landscaping in my work parking lot) and took only my bag of pretzels, leaving my cell phone and a $20 bill in the ashtray.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[firewrought]

Now if say he broke into you car and all he took was the bag of groceries out of the trunk you were on the way home with well, we might say they must have been hungry and it was kind of them to do the littlest damage possible, I guess, but there is nobody who "needs" a CD changer, that is just theft and vandalism and I really don't feel much need to excuse the guy the perp.

Thieves don't steal CD changers so they can listen to tunes: they steal so they can pawn/fence/resell the goods and get cash for drugs/HDTV/food/whatever. Who causes less harm to society: a thief that breaks into 10 cars for groceries or a thief that breaks into 1 car to get a CD changer with which to buy the same amount of groceries? IMO, the latter thief is morally superior because he caused less collateral damage in terms of damaged property and psychological stress on victims. Of course, if you're the victim in either of these cases, you KNOW that the first guy stole because of fundamental need whereas the second may or may not have bought groceries with the proceeds of his crime (in the real world: probably not).

Bottom line 1: a criminal who steals for fundamental need (food, medicine) is morally superior to one who steals for non-fundamental needs (recreational drugs, entertainment systems).
Bottom line 2: a criminal who takes some effort to minimize/mitigate the impact on his victims is morally superior to one who does not.

perhaps it wasn't the thief, but the recipient

[gaiageek]

A good friend of mine in Berlin had her MacBook stolen over a year ago. In May, she received a Facebook message from a woman in Tunisia who had bought the notebook, found my friend's personal data and wondered if it had been stolen. Originally the plan was to simply send the personal data, since my friend had already purchased a new notebook, but in the end the woman decided to ship the notebook to my friend in Germany without any compensation (my friend paid the shipping costs on delivery). The woman was apparently overjoyed at recently giving birth to twins, and simply wanted to do the right thing. I personally witnessed the arrival and unboxing of the returned laptop.

There are good people in the world. Whether you choose to be one of them is up to you.

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[acedotcom]

as i have had my house broken into, i can say that the only thing i can thank the criminals for was leaving my printer, because if they havent, i would have caught them. Thats right, i caught them.

they literally stole everything from my downstairs while i was sleeping upstairs, i came down stairs and everything that could be plugged in was stolen, i am a photographer and they stole $3000 worth of camera kit, 2 laptops, my home server with every picture i had ever taken on it, its two monitors and keyboard and mouse, my 42 plasma TV and my xbox 360 and all its games and controllers; roughly $8000 was stolen from me while i slept. the cops came, gave me useless self defense tips and left me there. they had stolen my wallet,ALL of my car keys, house keys and a few folders from my desk that had all my back up ID in it.

BUT they had left my printer! and it had a scanner! and a copier! and plenty of ink and paper. so i went to hand writing descriptions of EVERYTHING that was stolen, giving serial numbers when i could and as accurate as possible descriptions. i made about 20 copies and got someone to watch the house while i was out, found a ride and canvased every camera shop, computer repair and pawn dealer in the area. if i couldnt get them a copy i called them with the things that would most likely turn up.

three days later, a camera shop about 20 miles away in the next state called me to let me know that the police had just arrested two men trying to sell my camera kit. This shop i had been to a few times that year, and i had called them with serial numbers and descriptions the day before! they are a reputable dealer and called the cops...the suspects were arrested in the spot. but they couldnt hold them despite the fact the one guy was on parole. they claimed that they got the stuff from their "cousin" and didnt know it was stolen. they also had "my" xbox in their car...

so about a week later, i got yet another call, a computer repair 4 MILES FROM MY HOUSE, one that i go to everyfew weeks that i had delivered a list of stolen stuff to personally had called the cops...this time the SAME GUYS (really) had my server. It was pretty clear why they needed to visit a computer repair. they had tried to wipe the BIOS and were successful (mostly likely to because they felt that would deactivate services like LoJack the live in the BIOS) but because of my very particular hard drive setup, it wouldnt boot into windows, and i guess they didnt want to commit piracy or didnt know want Ubuntu is so they tried to recover my windows install from the hard drive.

Long story short, they got arrested on the spot. this time in Illinois, where the guy was supposed to be on house arrest. funny thign was that the cops wont search the guys house on the grounds the "his mother is helping them out" although nothing else of mine has turned up. funny thing is that i know they at least still had my xbox because the one that the cops recovered only had my hard drive, so when the cops powered it up they say the profile i told them about and hence CASE CLOSED. it wasnt my xbox. Mine had HDMI, this one was older and did not. i told the police and they said "its your xbox, it has your profile". Microsoft also agreed and said that i you just cant move the hard drive around (Microsoft could also tell me where my console is if some has gone online with it, but they wont without a subpoena) . it feels alot like the movie Changeling...people trying to pawn of some other kid on me.

Also i just could have my server back, pictures weren't good enough and the needed something to present to evidence so they wanted to keep my server, of course, it was the only computer i had at this point, and it had everything i needed to keep my business up and running so i REALLY needed it. i asked if i could take its hardware and leave the case. so on a hot day i had to go to the county jail with my two kids, a philips, my multitool and a big box to the county jail and take my whole computer apa

Re:Honor Amongst Thieves

[severoon]

I'm confused. I don't think I made any analogy. You trying to make what I said into an analogy is like a fish trying to make what I said into a bicycle; like some feminists, it doesn't make any sense.