Sean Power Tracks Down Stolen Laptop Using Twitter, Prey From Hundreds Of Miles Away

Twitter: now helping you track down your stolen laptop.

Read on for the incredible true story of the man who managed to get back his stolen laptop--while hundreds of miles away in Canada.

Sean Power, using Prey, a free tracking program, tracked down his laptop to a bar in Brooklyn, where he saw that a man, Skype alias "Paolo Votano" was using his computer to browse the web and call friends. Power, however, was in Canada. Enter Twitter.

"Prey sent me a report & pic of a guy playing with my stolen laptop. What should I do? http://awe.sm/5J8hu," Power tweeted.

Soon enough, the Twitter world jumped in to help. They discovered that the man was in fact a part owner of the bar. One woman even went down to the bar herself to check out the situation.

"I am sure we can virtually arrange a geek squad intervention to go reclaim your gear. You need help rounding up a posse?" tweeted pfasano.

Power called the police instead. But they told him that they couldn't do anything unless he filed a report in person. Meanwhile, Power was able to get pictures of the man's face, his Gmail account, and his Chase bank account. He directed his followers not to get too involved.

"please please please don't get directly involved. I don't want any of you to get hurt for a stupid laptop," he tweeted.

But the girl at the bar decided to go:

"Apparently, the girl that went there has befriended two of the bartenders and is doing shots with them. Wow," Power tweeted.

Power called "Paolo." A long Twitter silence ensued during which followers wondered whether Power was pulling a viral stunt for Prey (he said he was not). Finally, the story came to an end:

"So .. Paolo freely gave it up. I'm not about to accuse anyone of anything. I'd rather forget that that place exists and just move on," Power tweeted (a friend of his went to go get the laptop). "But yes, Internet - I'm about 800km away, and I got my stolen laptop back."

Comments

[Jenny Graham]

05:36 AM on 06/22/2011

It is really a wonderful technology has been introduced by the Twitter.

We should actually appreciate this effort from them.Interesting!

http://www.laptops4review.com/acer-aspire-6935g-a-media-centric-laptop.html

[OverseasVet]

04:05 AM on 05/17/2011

Sounds like the stolen sidekick story but not quite as entertaining.

[jsgaetano]

08:05 PM on 05/16/2011

A friend of mine had his car stolen, with all kinds of electronics gear.
 
He traced his computer to a certain address... and the police did nothing with the information.

[Ipadroid nterface]

11:01 AM on 05/16/2011

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies!!!

[Dissident Dexter]

10:14 AM on 05/16/2011

The power of technology. Science at work. Not prayer, not superstition, not wishful thinking, only SCIENCE will save us all.

[jsgaetano]

08:06 PM on 05/16/2011

That's why conservatives are so desperately getting people to hate science.

[LEOzoidberg]

09:22 AM on 05/16/2011

Wow! A detective story, Holmes and Watson in the case again! =)
Some difficul text for me. I was hardly to translate. I Paolo a thief? And Power was in Canada, right?

[Thomas Frizzensnitchel]

06:18 PM on 05/15/2011

Wow, sounds like a syfy story. Way to cool to be real, but if so....then way to go.

[Jusus]

05:11 PM on 05/15/2011

It's ashamed we can't use small explosives so that your property,and the thieves hand are rendered unusable

[artist-53]

09:30 AM on 05/17/2011

Jusus, I think you just went over the line. Are you sadistic as well?

[atila]

04:54 PM on 05/15/2011

Yeah right...

[harlowethrombey]

02:36 PM on 05/15/2011

So is Paolo a thief or not???
And if he is, what are we gonna do about it?

[Jacob007]

02:24 PM on 05/15/2011

I think batman did it from his bat cave when Mr Freeze stole his laptop.

[beasteben]

01:51 PM on 05/17/2011

Freeze is too cool to use a laptop.

[jo smith456]

01:42 PM on 05/15/2011

call up the Navy Seal to terminate the laptop stealer...

[iLoveOldNY]

06:50 AM on 05/15/2011

Oh please.

Cliche fail.

[huffyak]

07:31 PM on 05/14/2011

Apparently Prey was uploaded to download.cnet.com on the very same day that this story broke. Common sense would suggest that if this app was available 6 months ago, it wouldn't show up on cnet so late in the game AND on the very day of such an auspicious event.

What about other download sites?

On macupdate.com.... May 13, 2011.

On softpedia.com... May 14, 2011 (latest release).

Coincidence? Or, once again, has journalism failed to verify a story cuz it sounded just so cool?

What biz school is teaching 'how to get free publicity by faking a crime'?

Yes, it might be legit but... I'll bet a quarter it's a fake, set to coincide with a new release of software that the developers think may finally be working right.

Oh, how did I become so cynical?!

[DaneAZ]

09:41 PM on 05/14/2011

Good Catch!

FAKE STORY ALERT!!!

[ikoniqueOS]

12:03 AM on 05/15/2011

This is definitely looking BAD!

Seems you can't uninstall it from a Mac either.

I have tried 5 times and the site is still tracking me. to get support they want me to subscribe.

FAIL

[danusgram]

07:17 PM on 05/14/2011

okay this service does not help but still is not as good as having a lojack installed in your conputer or phone it works just like the cars that have them installed as soon as your computer is fired up by the person that stole it, it will send a signal to lojack and pinpoint exactly where it is...remember you get what you pay for!