This guy has my MacBook

A stolen laptop can be a real headache. Think of all the personal information and documents that may be stored in it. Then there's the expense of having to replace it, because how would you ever find the thief?

Joshua Kaufman of Oakland, California, had thought about this possibility and installed a program called Hidden on his MacBook. When his laptop was stolen in March, Kaufman activated the software, which took pictures of the man who had it. Kaufman posted several of the images to a page called "This Guy Has My MacBook" on the social-networking site Tumblr.

Kaufman also forwarded information to the Oakland police, who at first said they didn't have the resources to help him. But on 31 May, they found and arrested the man in the photos.

Through Hidden, Kaufman had been able able to get some screen shots that revealed what the man in the photos was doing. An e-mail indicated that he worked as a cab driver. The police then tricked him into picking them up.