Thief Steals Laptop, Returns Data on USB Stick

[Electrogecko]

Wow. Think about what he risked in returning to the scene with the stolen backpack.
The library card was probably lost, either by the thief or by the professor.

 

[superbatranger]

A considerate thief with a conscience? Who'd a thunk it?

 

[Epictank of Wintown]

A nice thief who'd a thunk it.

Well if he was nice he wouldn't have stolen in the first place.

Not every thief steals out of malice. Some from desperation, some from necessity. What if he were a man on the verge of starvation that sells the laptop to feed his family? What if he needs to sell the laptop to pay bills?

At the end of the day, yes, it's still thievery. It's still wrong. This guy, though, is fairly well not stealing out of malice; there was a lot of personal information in that bag. He could have maxed out the guy's credit card or stolen his identity, but he didn't. That says something about whoever this thief was.

 

[Broderick]

Nice thief my ass. He's still a douchebag thief. If he was really so concerned he shouldn't have stolen anything in the first place. Fuck that guy, I hope they find him and put him in jail with all the other dirty thieves.

this is nice
the way i see it, there are 2 main reasons people steal; out of necessity, and out of greed. people who steal out of greed rarely show remorse for their crime. but the fact that this person returned everything but the laptop shows that this person must need that laptop more than this professor does

Horse shit. Nobody needs a laptop.

I would be inclined to agree with you if I did not have a friend in a very bad position. She is a new mother, doesnt have a drivers license, doesnt have a job and cannot leave the house because of her child, does not have any from of stable transportation, and lives 20 miles from any sort of "town". She could however, get a work at home job and all of her problems could be solved. This job however requires that fabled device known as the computer, or more commonly for these sort of jobs, the laptop.

I do not support theft of any sort, but I can understand that some people in certain situations NEED to in order to survive. Im just glad that, for whatever reason it was, the theif decided to return most of the stolen items; Maybe the theif is in a bad situation as well?

 

[Throwitawaynow]

The guy is a thief not a terrible person who wants to hurt others. I he turned theft of cash, memories, and hard work in to theft of cash. He knows what he wants and knows what he doesn't want to take. I mean every mugger could kill that person, but they don't. I agree with one of the responses, still press charges but ask for a reduced sentence.

 

[ilspooner]

Thats nice. Someone might have needed to steal that laptop. If he stole it out of greed, he would not have returned it. At least he gave back all of the valuable data.

 

[xxcloud417xx]

But the thief has also made his first mistake! We can now trace the package back to his hideout and blow this Laptop and Library card stealing operation wide open!

 

[Gray Monk]

If I was a thief returning that data I would wear a suit, top hat and monocle. When I returned it I would of left a note saying howdly doodly I just thought that I should return this tippity dee hodwly doodly.

 

[Douchebag intent]

This reminds me of when my i-pod got stolen. He took the i-pod but was kind enough to leave my headphones behind.

 

[Crystal Cuckoo]

I don't get why everyone's saying that "there is hope left in this world"- The guy still stole somebodies laptop.

Even if said thief did return all my data, I'd still be pissed, being out at least a thousand dollars and all.

 

[mad825]

back-up, back-up, back-up, back-up, back-up.

no matter what you are doing, where you are, back-up!

learn fluently the language of backing-up and then back-up that back-up

.....don't also forget to encrypt the main source....and back-ups. as one day it may be a blessing for all that hard work.

"heart-warming" story though.

 

[C95J]

it would be very crushing to have all that work stolen, but this makes me chuckle a bit. And, someday, might end up on one of those cop's and robbers shows, as the worlds kindest thief

Doesn't give me any more hope for humanity though, he still stole his laptop... and his library card...

seriously who does that?

Oddly enough, when I was returning from my last deployment, I had a fairly new (about six month old) alienware laptop that cost me about 3.5k USD (for those interested, I found that the investment was not worthwhile in the long run). A friend and I we sleeping in close proximity (along with dozens of others returning from their own deployments) and I, being a fool, left my laptop in the open. My friend left his bargain bin (> 500 USD) laptop carefully locked inside his stuff. When we awoke, my laptop was sitting in the open still happily humming along while his had been looted at some point in the evening.

So, to reiterate, some jerkbag came into a room, swiped the laptop OUT of a bag mere inches away from a sleeping soldier when another, obviously more valuable laptop sat unguarded and in the open.

The thief still has the laptop, gentleman my ass more like douchebag. It's more of a mockery than anything, the real thieves would skin this guy/gal alive for not following the rules of thieves club. That's like if a guy stole your taco out your hand and ate everything but one bite and gave it back to you. Oh what a good guy he didn't eat it all at least! No! He's a fuckin douchebag that taco is no longer in my stomach!

more of like taking the television out of the box and only stealing the box...

That is the better description I'd say. For most computer using professionals, the value of the computer itself pales in comparison to the value of the data contained on it.

wow, lucky you!

I bet the other guy was pissed to see his laptop stolen though...

 

[SimuLord]

"After a month in Sweden I no longer wondered why there are no crazy people wandering the streets. Like everything else in Sweden the craziness is distributed equally. They're all a little crazy." - PJ O'Rourke

 

[Jezzy54]

Who says there's no honor among thieves?

 

[Canid117]

Thieves doing nice things always makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Like that time a mugger realized he had just stolen from a veteran and returned the wallet and thanked the man for his service.

 

[Don't Poke My Bobcat]

Seems to me like the thief couldn't afford a laptop of his/her own for study and took the lowest impact one s/he could, seeing as it wouldn't be the professor's pocket a new laptop come from.

As far as things go, seems akin to a 'bread for your family' type scenario.

 

[Android2137]

This reminds me of the time my friend's dad's car was broken into by thieves. I forget exactly what they stole, but among the items was a bag of snickers (and didn't take some of the more valuable items for some reason). Anyway, they had apparently turned around and returned the snickers. When her dad found out that he had been robbed, he saw a snickers wrapper in the mud and a shoe print too big to be his own.

 

[TechNoFear]

I wonder if the prof scanned the USB for virus/rootkits before loading it on to his computer (assuming a scanner can find the possibly custom-built to bypass the prof's malware protections), a computer that probably allowed to access his employers secure network....

 

[The Rockerfly]

That must have been a massive memory stick and cost him a fair bit