News Myspace leads to capture of teenage thieves

[The_Pope]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/04...nager_thieves/

[Firehed]

Just goes to show that you can never underestimate the stupidity of criminals. It's kinda like the kids in the facebook development group requesting the ability to censor out photos because they don't want to get tagged in them since they provide incriminating evidence. Uhh... use privacy controls if you absolutely MUST be stupid enough to take pics or videos of yourself and your friends committing crimes.

btw - link goes to the forums, not this thread. You guys should really automate that... dev for hire

[Tulatin]

Oh c'mon now, don't we live in a culture where crime is cool :P

[ChromeX]

wow... you'd think that anyone who commited a crime wouldnt be so stupid as to leave any evidence implicating you! To record yourself doing a blatently illegal activity is just plain old dense!!

[Spaceraver]

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

[Tyinsar]

The attention they got may not have been the attention they wanted - Hopefully they get the attention they need (either serious counseling or a boot in the ...).

[Gravemind123]

Heh...we had some cheerleaders at my high school get busted for posting myspace pics of them all filthy drunk surrounded by bottles of assorted alcohol. Shows how stupid people can be..if you don't want someone to see something, don't put it on the internet.

[stevie1556]

I don't want to cause any offence to any americans, but has anyone in the UK seen the progams on Bravo like America's Dumbest Criminals?

So this news doesn't surprise me really. I just wonder if it is more prevailent in America, as you don't get teh same programs about other countries.

[Tyinsar]

I have read stories of similar stupidity from criminals in other countries. It just might be that other countries don't expose / celebrate this the same way. I doubt there's any real difference in average intelligence.

[Firehed]

Well think of it this way - consider someone of average intelligence. Half the world is dumber.

[cpemma]

Originally Posted by Tyinsar

I have read stories of similar stupidity from criminals in other countries.

UK yobs have posted movies of each other engaged in 'happy slapping' and such fun activities, and ended up helping the police with their enquiries. If you're basically stupid, you do stupid things.

[Cthippo]

Remember, crime is the only true equal opportunity employer!

[Duste]

"Jail - thats where we'd like to put quite a lot of Myspace users come to think of it..."

Oh, how I do agree with you. :P

[Lazarus Dark]

My ex-step brother is becoming (or has already become) a 15 year old idiot. My sister showed me his myspace page which shows pictures of him getting the crap kicked out himself as his gang initiation and various pictures of him breaking the law in different ways and using illegal substances. He left his name out and wears a bandana over the lower half of his face, but he's obviously no genius so I'm sure it could easily be traced back to him. And there's no telling what pictures of him his new "friends" have. It's amazing, two people grow up with the same parents and situation for the most part, and somehow one turns out smart and straight arrow (well, mostly), and the other joins a gang. None of my other eight or ten siblings and step-siblings turned out bad (though several turned out dumb). Well, he's in juvi right now, though they caught him in the act of something or other, had nothing to do with his myspace page. Hopefully six months will teach him something. Dumb@ss.
Anyway, just trying to say this isn't too uncommon. Well, I guess; I personally have only been on myspace like three times, mostly on accident (clicked the wrong link).

[JSRiolo]

Please correct me if I'm wrong but this whole thing sounds retarded. No wait, make that double retarded. It is retarded that people record themselves and it's retarded to get jailed over a .jpg/.mpg! I was under the impression that: A, digital images cannot be used as evidence because they are easily manipulated and B, just because the IP of your computer posed something does not prove identity because anyone could be using your machine. Oh and how much time would it take to crawl through all of the pictures/videos online to find someone doing something dumb within your jurisdiction? I can see how images might give them reasonable suspicion and allow them to investigate further, but we aren't hearing part of this story.

[cpu121]

The oddest case I've heard of involved a couple of boys in my year at school.

They took photos of each other apparently smoking cannabis and drinking bear in a quarry while wearing school ties.

The photos were then discovered lying around in the quarry by a dogwalker who reported the incidence to school and the papers (one of the tabloids ran the photos with the headline: ('SPLIFFING, OLD BOY!').

Despite the media attention though, the school couldn't do anything other than require random drug testing in the future as it didn't take place on school grounds.

[x06jsp]

three of my friends got arrested for a couple of video's they posted on youtube of them running round a village where they live throwing eggs at cars trashing the local co-op and just generally being a*******s.
but the films were hillarious!

josh

[Tulatin]

Maybe they'll trash your **** next, and we'll all have a jolly round at your expense.

As to how arrests work, i'd imagine it's the same way as that surveilance footage does.

[cpemma]

Originally Posted by JSRiolo

I was under the impression that: A, digital images cannot be used as evidence because they are easily manipulated ...

I can see how images might give them reasonable suspicion and allow them to investigate further, but we aren't hearing part of this story.

Once the police have a suspect to aim at, it's usually easy to get some hard evidence. A judge might sign a search warrant even if all the evidence so far wasn't admissible in court.

And faced with pictures of them doing something, the perps very probably confessed all and blamed each other.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

In March 2007, the British government was considering fingerprinting of children aged 11 to 15 as part of new passport and ID card (the latter having been recently implemented in the UK), also lifting opposition for privacy concerns. All fingerprints taken would be cross-checked against prints from 900,000 unsolved crimes. Shadow Home secretary David Davis called the plan "sinister."

Originally Posted by ibid

The FBI manages a fingerprint identification system and database called IAFIS, which currently holds the fingerprints and criminal records of over fifty-one million criminal record subjects, and over 1.5 million civil (non-criminal) fingerprint records. U.S. Visit currently holds a repository of over 50 million persons, primarily in the form of two-finger records (by 2008, U.S. Visit is transforming to a system recording FBI-standard tenprint records).

Having a name makes it so easy to check.

[IAmATeaf]

Stupid is as stupid does springs to mind.