The case of the stolen laptop that continues to update on last.fm
I happened across this Digg story the other day and had to ponder its actual meaning. Simply, this guys’ laptop was stolen. In most occurrences like this, that would be the last he would ever see of it. But it isn’t. He’s getting a sort of echo, a ghost-like breadcrumb trail, courtesy of last.fm.
Last.fm is a music aggregator that acts as a social barometer for what people are listening to at any given time, as well as over long periods of time. You install it and forget about it, and after a while, it has an entire file ready for you, charting your musical interests and tastes and displaying them to the world. Juan Carlos, the victim, noticed that even though his laptop was gone, his last.fm profile kept updating – this time with the thieves’ music collection. In a bit of poetic irony, the thief has much less popular taste in tunes, angering Juan’s friends enough to post spiteful remarks.
This tether that Juan and his thief share is interesting but also sad: Its unfortunate that last.fm can’t GPS the location of the updates, or else poor Juan might have a chance of getting his hardware back. However, although Juan’s last.fm profile is a string to his lost merchandise that can’t be pulled, and it’s a string that has gone seemingly unnoticed by the thief (for a year!) Maybe someday in the near future that will be enough to find it.
As well, one has to touch on the fact that a music aggregator is the tie, and not something else. For the first time (that I’m aware of, at least), a thief and a victim are connected by a live stream of digital music. Unlike when someone steals an ipod, this trail isn’t really noticeable by the thief, and could be there permanently. As well, most ipod thefts (as well as laptops, for that matter) are more often than not about reselling the item on the black market, not personal use. It’s literally the case of one music fan (enough to download last.fm) being victimized by another (since he hasn’t wiped the hard drive, he’s likely using it himself, which means he’s using it at least partially to enjoy music, regardless of it’s subjective quality). Hopefully there’ll be an update to this story.
