Storage space is cheap, and it's pretty cool that this guy has realised that and has taken the time and effort to make an entertaining (at least the first time) plea.
In the days of chemical film cameras I always made sure the first shot was of a card with my name and a contact address. I recovered three films that way which had been delivered or given to the wrong people by the people developing the film. For the cost of one photo per film, it was definitely worth it.
I need to go do this again, although if I lost the camera, I doubt I'd get it back. If a reward is offered, returning someone's photos is clearly a win for the person who has them, whereas the camera might be of greater value than the (reward plus warm fuzzies minus effort).
Then again, maybe not. I'm off to take a photo ...
For my bicycle, since it's more likely to be stolen than lost, I have little bits of paper inserted into lots of places that bike mechanics are likely to find.
"If this bike has not been brought into your shop by [insert your name] then it is stolen, please call me immediately on [insert your number]".
These little pieces of paper are in places like the stem, the bars, under the bar tape, in the bottom bracket, under the inner tubes, under the rim tape, in the hubs. Literally anywhere I can put them where they are likely to survive undetected by a casual user of the bike but that is likely to be discovered the first time the bike is taken into a shop for servicing. Obviously I use little bits of plastic and a permanent CD marker for the places likely to get wet (the ones under the innertubes).
I don't expect to get the bike back days after a theft, but weeks or months later I think it would work well.
I like this idea alot. I do have my doubts that someone who has stolen a bike is going to take it in for servicing. Though they may sell it to an unsuspecting person who subsequently takes the bike to a shop so maybe it does have a shot of working. Good concept either way.
I'm always amazed by news stories about people being prosecuted for possession of child pornography, found when they took their laptop in for servicing/fixing. So in light of that someone taking a stolen bike for servicing doesn't seem that far-fetched..
In London a sizeable quantity of bike thefts appear to be pre-meditated and part of organised crime. The bikes we've recovered (I run http://www.londonfgss.com/ ) have turned up as far afield as the coast and as close as Brick Lane.
Down Brick Lane market on a Sunday morning there is literally a fence... a chicken wire one from which stolen bikes are sold. Lord knows what the buyers are thinking, and the police are well aware of what is happening too (but are doing very little about it).
We are now tracking (within the community) where bikes are stolen from, the measures used to protect them and evidence of how they were circumvented as well as where and when the bikes are turning up. With a large enough community (over 12,000 users in the same city) we're able to recover a fair amount of our own property after the event... not to say we're lax about protecting it but that by taking as many precautions and steps that you can you stand some chance of being re-united should the worst happen.
Opportunist crime wherein someone just steals something because it's easy to and then they keep the item now seems rare.
Oh, and if you're interested in bike security these guides on my site are good places to start:
We also have private areas of the site for tracking stolen bikes, and have worked with companies like Kryptonite to help make their locks better, local police to try and get them to do stuff about the 'fence' and the local cycling associations to try and raise awareness. We're collectively writing guides on bike security too which we hope will be released under creative commons on a wiki and then from there we can encourage bike shops to distribute copies with every new bike sold.
Anyhow... I am more than wandering off the point, which is that most stolen bikes in London are stolen to be sold and that the buyers tend to be regular people who do take them into bike shops after a while, from where some bikes have been recovered. More successfully though, we've recovered bikes from Gumtree and eBay classifieds.
If the search engines could do an image search based on camera serial number then you could locate some stolen cameras that way. Just search for any images uploaded from that camera since it was stolen, and then you could have some evidence to use in tracking it down. EXIF data can include serial number but apparently it's not very standardized right now.
Some picture noise removal programs allow you to supply a "noise profile picture". This involves leaving your lens cap on and taking a long exposure so that the only thing in your picture is the noise inherent in the camera's sensor. The noise pattern on any given sensor is fairly unique, unique enough that these programs can then use that profile to "subtract" noise from pictures you take.
Perhaps people could register their noise profiles with a service like Flickr and, if their camera is stolen, this noise profile could be detected in pictures found on the web.
I bet you could sell more Eye-Fi's if there were an easy way to upload new firmware to the card. It's a fundamentally interesting product but I think you could get a lot more creative uses for it from opening it up more to your customers.
You could also sell more Eye-Fis if they supported CompactFlash in addition to SD. I thought I could use an SD to CF converter, but they are apparently pretty dodgy.
I'm shocked that there isn't a way to wirelessly send pictures to a tablet PC for instant studio proofing with a DSLR that saves to CompactFlash, but there doesn't seem to be.
Yes, rogupta - to Martin's point here... if EyeFi is in your portfolio then I would urge you to push for CF version... I only use pro camera gear which doesn't take SD.
I've talked to the EyeFi guys about this but it seems to fall onto deaf ears.
I also agree that there should be an open platform option for these -- you could sell a ton of these if people could use them for their own uses that go beyond the original concept of uploading to the internet.
It is a brain hack. Stealing is easy if you don't know who you're stealing from. This is why shoplifting is a common crime and stealing from corporations/banks isn't looked down in the same way as stealing from an old lady is. This trick breaks down that barrier and imbues personality onto the potentially stolen item.
It wont work agaisnt a hardened thief but it will on someone who just found the camera and is thinking of just keeping it.
While I couldn't stand a sticker on the outside of a camera, I always print labels with my email + phone number and stick them on the memory cards and removable batteries.
it was great idea. i wanted to know who have this beautiful camera. and i know it. i promiss to keep ur camera very well and take pretty photo. dont worry buddy
