TL;DR If you bought a camera from a pawnshop and found pictures already on it and had a means to give the flash drive back to its original owner, would you?
Backstory:
So.. what would you do. Would you be compelled by your good nature and work to give the photos back? Would you just delete the photos and not deal with the hassle? Or would you do something more nefarious?
Backstory:
Ok, I guess this is a minor morality question. Here is the situation. I was forced to purchase a digital camera for one of my classes today. So whenever I need to buy electronics that I dont care about the quality or longevity I typically opt to save money and go to a local pawn shop.
So I pick up a Fugi 8.1 MP camera for 20$. In this camera was a 2gb SD card. I get the camera home and partook in one of my favorite pawnshop purchase activities in looking to see the goofiness the last owner left. (because inevitably no matter how much they try to avoid buying stolen items, it happens. Do you really think someone would sell something that has personal IDs for game consoles, or Photos of ones self before deleting their own traces?)
Anyway, I started viewing the photos on the camera and it was mostly stuff you would expect, Pics of the owner, pics of her girlfriends, doing the typical posing by sticking their tongues out at each other, holding alcohol bottles and posing in semi provocative positions, then the more traditional stuff like family photos, coworker photos, etc.
Again, I dont think anyone would purposely sell an item that has pictures of themselves in less than ideal circumstances without first deleting their personal traces. What bothers me is that the Coworker pictures inadvertently pinpoints where this girl works and even supplies a phone number to her place of business and it is a relatively local company.
Now I already know what I am going to do, Although the not so much of a prick side of me wants to do the honorable thing and reunite the memories to their owner, I already have reformatted the drive because that "meeting" and gathering information about a complete stranger would be incredibly akward, Stalker-y and there is the possibility the person would see it as me being the one who stole her camera in the first place (if it is indeed stolen)
So I pick up a Fugi 8.1 MP camera for 20$. In this camera was a 2gb SD card. I get the camera home and partook in one of my favorite pawnshop purchase activities in looking to see the goofiness the last owner left. (because inevitably no matter how much they try to avoid buying stolen items, it happens. Do you really think someone would sell something that has personal IDs for game consoles, or Photos of ones self before deleting their own traces?)
Anyway, I started viewing the photos on the camera and it was mostly stuff you would expect, Pics of the owner, pics of her girlfriends, doing the typical posing by sticking their tongues out at each other, holding alcohol bottles and posing in semi provocative positions, then the more traditional stuff like family photos, coworker photos, etc.
Again, I dont think anyone would purposely sell an item that has pictures of themselves in less than ideal circumstances without first deleting their personal traces. What bothers me is that the Coworker pictures inadvertently pinpoints where this girl works and even supplies a phone number to her place of business and it is a relatively local company.
Now I already know what I am going to do, Although the not so much of a prick side of me wants to do the honorable thing and reunite the memories to their owner, I already have reformatted the drive because that "meeting" and gathering information about a complete stranger would be incredibly akward, Stalker-y and there is the possibility the person would see it as me being the one who stole her camera in the first place (if it is indeed stolen)
So.. what would you do. Would you be compelled by your good nature and work to give the photos back? Would you just delete the photos and not deal with the hassle? Or would you do something more nefarious?
