My kind of geek!
Dirty Harry had his .44. Sherlock Holmes had his brain.
Evan Guttman had his computer, the Web and a few thousand people he had never met. That was enough.
The tale began when Mr. Guttman’s best friend Ivanna left her cellphone in a taxicab, like thousands of others before her. After Ivanna got a new Sidekick, she logged on to her account — and was confronted by pictures of an unfamiliar young woman and her family, along with the young woman’s America Online screen name.
The 16-year-old, Sasha Gomez, of Corona, Queens, had been using the Sidekick to take pictures and send instant messages. She apparently did not know that the company that provided the phone’s service, T-Mobile, automatically backs up such information on its remote servers. So when Ivanna got back on, there was Sasha.
Using instant messages, Mr. Guttman tracked down Sasha and asked her to return it. “Basically, she told me to get lost,” Mr. Guttman recalled. “That was it.”
Evan Guttman wasn’t about to get lost.
So he set up a no-frills Web page with a brief account of what happened, and posted the pictures of the girl and her family. Within hours of putting up the Web page, Mr. Guttman was fielding hundreds of e-mail messages from those nursing their own bitter memories of a lost cellphone, a BlackBerry or a digital camera that went unreturned.
There were links to the page on Digg and Gizmodo, two popular tech-oriented blogs, which helped drive more and more traffic. Eventually, hundreds of other Web sites posted links to his page. The hundreds of e-mail messages became thousands, from as far away as Africa and Asia.
Some readers also began visiting Sasha’s MySpace page and bombarding her and her friends with e-mail messages. Others found her street address in Corona and drove by her family’s apartment building, taking videos or shouting out “thief” in front of her neighbors.
I’m not going to relate the whole cautionary tale here. Read through the links. There are a bunch of them at Evan’s site. Every time he was threatened by Sasha and members of her family [including a member of the Military Police!] — he just posted it on the web site.
Suffice it to say — Evan got his friend’s Sidekick back.
Last Thursday, the story of the lost Sidekick began meandering toward a conclusion. The police arrested Sasha and charged her with possession of stolen property in the fifth degree, a misdemeanor. (The police have possession of the Sidekick and plan to return it to Ivanna.) Sasha was released, but was not available to comment. Her mother offered a parting remark.
“I never in my life thought a phone was going to cause me so many problems,” Ms. Gomez said.
Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.
Yeah…
That girl Sasha got what she deserved…
The funnier thing being that she got arrested too…
The sorry thing is that we accept this kind of behavior as common place. The mother is sorry the phone caused a “problem” for her. She should be sorry she raised a thief who doesn’t have the integrity to return someone elses property.
“I never in my life thought a phone was going to cause me so many problems,” Ms. Gomez said.
Ummm… yeah. It wasn’t the CELL PHONE that caused the problems…. it was your ACTIONS, and LACK THEREOF.
Nice try.
I had a similar experience to this one 4 or 5 years ago. My mom’s purse was stolen from her Van. She had failed to lock the doors for what ever reason. When she returned from windo shoping found that the purse (containing a checkbook, Work ID and her cell phone and other misc. Items) was missing. I called her service provider and got a list of the numbers that had been called since the phone went missing (this was 1 or 2 days later). After getting the numbers I called information and got the address to which the numbers belonged. I’m unaware if they still do this or if it was even legal at the time but it worked so I was happy. It tuned out that one of the places he called was only a block or two from my parent’s house. Mom and dad dove over to the residence and started asking the person living there questions about the missing items. The individual living there said that they had no Idea but that someone might have more info lived right across the street (I dont know how the conversation went I wasn’t there). Long story short, the house across the street was where the the thief (16 yr old kid at the time) was living and my parents got the cell phone back. Beyond that I don’t believe anything happened but I thought it was pretty cool that I found the little bugger. I doubt he’s stolen anything that might be tracked since then.
Damn Dvorak, you were kind of slow on this one. Us geeks have been following this one for weeks when it surfaced on Digg.com. Get in touch with Kevin and Alex for the latest news for your blog.
😉
Seems to me that a phone call to the wireless carrier would have resulted in an instantly inoperative and unre-registerable piece of hardware.
Not as satisfying, I suppose, and an Insurance issue, but setting up a web site to harass somebody may be interpreted as a crime in some areas, and isn’t exactly “right”…. (It can also be dangerous.)
Sasha got what she deserved (we hope). Her parents should be hauled off to the greybar too for condoning such behavior.
Identity theft should be handled the same way – one call and the miscreant is locked out, _and_ all such activity comes off your account. The card issuers don’t want to do the latter….
Might be fun to go after the wireless provider. When I bought my first cell phone (1984) one of the things they told me was that if the phone was stolen, it would be deactivated….
Regards,
Stu.
The kid didn’t steal the phone. She found it. Finding isn’t the same as taking it from someone.
Semantics. The misuse of the word “steal” to mean anything from armed robbery to singing a song leads to madness such as AG Gonzales requesting ISPs maintain logs for two years (hah.) to track down “thieves” who listen to music. The torture of the word “steal” has lead directly to the justification for a police state apparatus to stop the “thievery”. Words are what human thought is made of. Own the words, own the mind. Change the words, change the mind. Clean and unnoticeable.
Kid didn’t steal it. If you leave a wallet on a seat in a cab, the person who finds it and keeps it may be an ass, but they aren’t a thief. I don’t think there is a law that covers the situation. “Finders Keepers” is the custom. Tho I’m sure a law will be purchased to make it theft.
Geez, with all the new laws, everyone is a criminal now, potentially. In a well-run police state, you can always live with the terror that the “law” will swoop down and imprison you for something you may not know is a crime, AND THAT YOU COMMITTED THREE YEARS AGO. Not only a police state monitoring your actions now, but any actions searchable in a linked universe of databases logging your past actions. Lovely.
Catbeller
Finding it….knowing clearly someone has lost it…(common sense would tell you that)…and then CHOOSING to disregard the fact that it is lost….and this is not some lame go-phone…this is a $300 piece of electronic equipment( or at least mine was)….then unless she is a complete moron and I am doubting she is…she uses the phone….KNOWING someone else is paying for it…THAT MAKES HER A THIEF….and her mother is an idiot for allowing it to continue….another parent passing off responsibility….I think we should have applications for people who want to reproduce….and get off that whole…may not know what is a crime bit….common laws for eveyday life are pretty plain and simple…..
What a dumb girl, she should have taken that sidekick to one of the MANY places that reprogram the cell phone. Even more, she should have changed the chip inside.
And the one who lost it… FU you little bitch; if a 16yo gets a sidekick it means it’s a spoiled brat.
Oops… I need to read the news more carefully *blush*
It should be noted that the NY Police Department did everything in its power to ignore this theft, including filing the wrong police report and trying to bully the victim into leaving the police station. It took a bunch of negative publicity to get the cops to act. Great Job, Bloomberg!
What surprises me?
If you spend any time walking, its impossible to miss the fact that cell phones are frequently discarded with only slightly less frequency than scratched CDs. Having found a couple that weren’t destroyed by the impact, I’ve gotta wonder why this isn’t either a significant source of identity theft or service theft and if it is, why no one’s done a story calling attention to the fact.
No doubt, if you’re so ticked off at somebody over a conversation that you’re gonna throw the phone out the window, you’re probably not gonna be considering the possibility that you’re not only wasting whatever you paid for the thing and creating pollution (batteries AND plastic?) but hey! You might have just paid for someone’s long distance charges to Hong Kong for a while or better still, a few steamy evenings spent with 1-976-HOT-SHEEP.
#11, it’s amazing that someone smart enough to find and post on Dvorak would make such a stupid comment. Congradulations.
#15 — I think Angel misread the article, first time through. Which is why #12, Matt.
This was totally, unequivocally AWESOME! Finally good to see a thief that gets what she deserves. Maybe she will learn a life lesson here, probably too dense though.
The only thing that would’ve ended this story better would’ve been if the owner could have remotely detonated the phone, like a bank dye pack. Yeah, an M80-like blast would be better…
#16 – I know, “FU you little bitch” is just so classy I had to say something! 😉
#8, cat, it is a crime. Where I come from it is called conversion and is equivalent and analogous to theft. Some jurisdictions merge conversion with theft.
While you mention Common Law’s finder’s keepers, Statute Law doesn’t. You may be charged with theft if you use someone else’s property for your own benefit when you know it doesn’t belong to you.
#11, Angel, that was uncalled for. You are quite capable of posting intelligent comments, there is no need to stoop.
Has anyone checked with the INS as to Sasha Gomez’s immigration status?
Seems like her whole family has a problem, not just her. The fact that her parents and brother condone her theft or possessing a lost sidekick is so ignorant. When they claim to have experienced more trouble than they’ve ever, it is obviously because you are in the wrong. They completely disregard their actions, and this is just, retarded.
@mike cannali (yes im aware his reply was made 4 years ago, I just wanna make a point): she is puerto rican
Just because she has a latino last name doesn’t mean that she might have trouble with immigration or that she may not be American herself. Oh hey, an Italian last name, why don’t we check YOUR immigration status with the INS? Bigot.