[jcfrei]

Am I the only one who feels that it's wrong to put someone's personal information and picture on the internet just because he stole a laptop? Of course you get your personal information stolen as well, but in my opinion that doesn't justify spreading his image and name all over the internet. that kind of intrusion into privacy (of the thief) is a much bigger crime in my eyes than the loss of some laptop.

[raganwald]

We had this discussion the last time something like this was on HN, so I’ll try to summarize things from my biased point of view. The first thing is, some people (myself included) would say this fellow is a suspect but has yet to be convicted of a crime. Some people would wait until a conviction is registered to publish details like this.

Others take a pitchforks and torches approach. I recall people saying, “publish and let him sue if he doesn’t like it,” which is pretty much the same thing as saying “it might be wrong, but thanks to the difficulties of suing for libel, we can get away with it.”

I guess this is where we peel away all of our nobility and reveal the savages underneath. Some of us strongly believe in the justice system and the importance of treating the accused extremely fairly in theory, but in practice "we know the bastard did it, so there."

[DanielBMarkham]

Must it be the civilized versus the savages? Are you sure that's a fair description?

How about this: it's my laptop, and I reserve the right to use it to take pictures any time I see fit?

I'm okay with running the picture of the guy, and publishing the data, as long as there's a clear disclaimer that this is just information pulled from your own laptop, not presented as evidence in some kind of criminal proceeding. We do this all the time with videos on the news that show crimes in progress. Heck, we did it with the rioters. Local papers ran big pictures of them on the front page. Simply making public video and data that you have every right to have and use isn't the same as calling the guy a crook and demanding he be hanged.

Now yes, the mob will probably take over from there, but that's because the net is full of mobs, not because you've somehow made a mistake in publishing the data. I am very concerned about folks taking justice into their own hands, but I don't think that my concern somehow changes the right of this guy to publish his own data.

There's no "we know the bastard did it, so there" that has to be involved. I load my laptop up with whatever legal programs I like, and I choose to publish the data from those programs any time I feel like it.

[raganwald]

How about this: it's my laptop, and I reserve the right to use it to take pictures any time I see fit?

That statement is like saying “This is my gun, I reserve the right to shoot bullets from it any way I like.” Obviously every action we take with our person and our property has consequences and we are responsible for those consequences we can reasonably foresee.

Clearly there is a continuum of choices from sharing the pictures with law enforcement but not publishing them, to publishing them but being careful to disclaim that this person has not been convicted of committing a crime, to publishing them and asserting this is the thief. You pick where you feel comfortable on that line, I pick where I feel comfortable.

Looking at the commentary here and the last two similar things to hit HN, you must accept that regardless of where you or I might place ourselves, there are definitely people to the far right of the line. You can see people talking about this person as “the thief” without bothering with the inconvenience of a trail. You can see people discussing the publicity as a pubnishment. One comment talks about “naming and shaming” as a deterrant.

You may not consider yourself part of a lynch mob, but seriously, can you deny that such an element is present?

[DanielBMarkham]

You may not consider yourself part of a lynch mob, but seriously, can you deny that such an element is present?

No, and I'm very concerned about it. But the only choices are the ones I have to make. I can't start worrying about everybody else. In fact, once I let the threat of a mob start swaying my decisions, I've already lost. The mob has won. (ugh. hated doing that, but it was too rhetorically easy.)

You get my drift. I think, for me, that I need to think long and hard about what the consequences might be. But quite honestly, here's some guy I don't know using my computer. Anybody know this guy? Perhaps he's being held hostage for all I know. The more information I get out there, the sooner we can have this thing resolved. I don't have to jump all the way to some conclusion simply because I need to solicit information about the location of my laptop. After all, I'm the innocent guy here.

I didn't read the other articles, but it sounds like you are reacting against the mob mentality found here and elsewhere. Yes, this concerns me a great, great deal. The internet was supposed to bring equality and democracy. It's done that, but it's also brought flash mobs robbing stores, riots, and vigilante justice. Not good. We should all speak out against that -- especially when it's a cause that sounds "right" to us.

[CapitalistCartr]

Think about it. Why do we put far more money into law enforcement than the cost of the crime? Because it's not just about that one laptop. If we don't get the point across to the criminal, he'll do far more damage to all of us. Most burglary is the result of a small number of people. Because few police departments treat that crime seriously, a single burglar gets away with hundreds of crimes before getting caught.

As for his privacy, he surrendered that voluntarily when he stole the laptop; the government didn't impose that sentence on him.

[jcfrei]

I don't think he surrendered his privacy voluntarily. exposing his picture and info has nothing to do with law enforcement - that's just self-administered justice. a well functioning state of law / rule of law (I dunno how you call it in english) works by sentencing criminals to prison according to the scale of their crime. not by punishing them overtly and excessively as a warning to other criminals (that's just barbaric).

[CapitalistCartr]

All that happened is that the World knows that he is a criminal. His right to privacy doesn't mean the right to conceal his misdeeds from the rest of us, nor the right for us to keep silent about it.

[jcfrei]

No, just because you become a criminal doesn't mean you lose your right to privacy. Whether the act itself was unlawful or not doesn't really matter (to a certain extent).

[polymatter]

To compound matters, a person not convicted of a crime by a court of law is a suspect who may or may not know the laptop they are using is stolen goods. I think its wrong to treat suspects as though they are convicted criminals. Presumed innocent before guilty and all that.

[aw3c2]

In the US it seems normal to even expose people's full names on any police stuff and/or after prosecution (I never paid too much attention what was what). Privacy and personal rights are very different in some countries. In germany we highly value personal rights and privacy.

[waffle_ss]

Yeah that's a good point. Although unlikely, the guy could have bought the laptop off of Craigslist or something.

[exit]

"When it's a large group of Millwall supporters, in a pub all day, talking about doing the police's job for them, it creates the impression that they're spoiling for a fight, opportunistically – using the chaos to bust into a racial confrontation that they normally wouldn't be permitted, in a metaphorical echo of the looters they're determined to stop."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/10/uk-riots...

[jokermatt999]

I disagree. Shame is a good deterrent to theft. Naming and shaming the thief could prevent future crimes.

Furthermore, I don't see how putting someone's information on the internet is comparable to physically depriving someone of their property. The latter has obvious effects, and the former may not even cause much harm. It would have never happened had the thief not stolen the laptop, so I'd say the ultimate blame rests on them anyway.

[randlet]

If a person breaks into/trashes/takes things from my personal space they are certainly giving up their right to anonymity in my eyes.

Why should I respect his privacy when he has absolutely abused mine?

[jcfrei]

he violated your privacy and so did you, when you installed a tracking software. the difference is that you're putting the information on the internet and he is not.

[sukuriant]

I violated his privacy by logging all actions that are performed on my computer, and reading the actions performed on my computer when it was used without my permission? Hm...

[flocial]

This being London and with their libel laws the author could indeed be setting himself up for trouble.