iPhone thief reveals himself by accidentally sharing photos with owner

Meet Nelson. Nelson seems like a pretty nice guy. He works on the Disney Wonder cruise ship and has a girlfriend and plenty of friends. He also has an iPhone. Oh, but he didn’t buy it. He stole it from passenger Katy McCaffrey. She now knows all about her iPhone thief thanks to the photos he took with the handset and then accidentally shared with her.

It’s a quirky little story of an innocent vacationer easily finding her iPhone in the possession of an ignorant thief. Once she started noting the photos he was taking — I’m assuming via Photo Stream because he didn’t wipe the phone after stealing it — she started uploading them to the Internet. They are available in a public photo album entitled “Stolen iPhone Adventures.” There, you’ll find Nelson on the cruise ship with all of his buddies having a grand time, as well as some photos of his significant other. McCaffrey also added some witty captions to each photo to turn the album into a fun tale about her iPhone’s adventure in the hands of this thief.

Once Disney picks up on this story, I’m sure they won’t be too pleased with the negative publicity. I can’t imagine Nelson being able to keep his job and I’m sure the employees in the photos will be questioned to see if they knew the phone he was using was stolen.

Let this be a lesson: don’t steal things, especially if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Technology is a pretty powerful thing. Between Apple’s Find My iPhone service and Photo Stream, the chances of getting away with using a stolen iPhone for long are not in your favor.

[via PhoneArena]