14 DAY TRIAL // Sources are reporting that Apple's clever Back To My Mac feature, available with Macs running the latest version of Apple's OS (Leopard), has helped the New York police catch thieves that ran off with some Macs. Kait Duplaga, an Apple store employee, used the feature to remotely operate one of the stolen Macs, while it was being used by the burglar, snapped a photo of the thief and gave it to the police as evidence.
Naturally, prior to Duplaga's efforts, the police had came up empty with their investigation, according to this New York Times report. In addition to the two Macs, the thieves also ran off with flat-screen TVs, iPods, and DVDs. So, here's how it all went down:
"One of the laptops was a Macintosh belonging to Kait Duplaga, who works at the Apple store in the Westchester mall and thus knows how to use all its bells and whistles. While the police were coming up dry, Ms. Duplaga exploited the latest software applications installed on her laptop to track down the culprits and even get their photographs," the report mentions.
Duplaga took pictures of one of the suspects before she could realize what was happening. The Apple store employee went and showed the photos to some of her friends who were able to confirm that the suspect was someone who attended a party at the apartment where the stolen hardware was.
"It doesn't get much better than their bringing us a picture of the guy actually using the stolen property," Daniel Jackson, the deputy commissioner of public safety in White Plains, said on Friday, during a telephone interview. "It certainly made our job easier. The fact that they knew who these guys were certainly added solvability."
Back To My Mac runs on Leopard-based Macs. It costs $99 to subscribe to the .Mac online service. If, say, you want to achieve the same results in case of theft but spend less cash (that is, none at all), take a look at VigiMac 1.0.