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Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Tablet thief forgets to disable camera instant uploads, help me find my tablet !

if you are directed your from HN or from Facebook or simply found this somehow, here is a short read on something interesting that happened on an otherwise boring Monday morning.
 I am a software developer full time and consider myself tech literate and also like to build stuff on Django , android etc. so that's that, here's what happened.

so here is a little context, this morning I was lazily browsing my Dropbox folder when I noticed random pictures and videos of this dude, and his family . I assumed there was a bug on Dropbox and investigated further I realized they were added from my android app, (I double checked my phone and unfortunately I could see no evidence of my phone ever uploading these images and videos)

and then it stuck me , I had lost a bag in a cab during my trip to Mumbai during feb 2013 and it contained my Samsung galaxy tab. I obviously ensure I signed my Google apps from my device by going to googles Gmail activity and signing myself out, I also changed my Gmail password, but Dropbox I don't remember if I did until a month later or if its still synced (the uploads have stopped after April 27th 2013)

so now I ended up downloading this guys images which I have attached to this blog and also uploaded the videos to you tube to whose link i shall be sharing , in the hope that the world wide web and honest citizens can help crowd source and find this guys location so I can ask my friends in India to contact the authorities to recover my tablet and my old passport, YES I am moron, I had my passport in the same bag and since then have issued myself a new passport and im back to new jersey where I currently reside.

so yeah , I don't usually blog much, but using this as medium to reach out to all those living near the slums in Wadala (Mumbai) , my initial research suggests the images/videos are taken there. There are also images of this guy taking his family to Bhakti Park, near Wadala, Mumbai, India which is basically here -> view on google maps

so here goes my attempt at crowd sourcing using you-tube, blogger and other social media sites and even hacker news submissions to try and get peoples attention and see if I get lucky with someone identifying the identity of any of the individuals in this video or pictures and helping me get my tablet and passport back

although I have my new passport, recovering my old passport back helps to return it to the passport authority of india and also help close the passport missing case at the local police station where I have a standard missing complaint issue

thanks for reading

ps. Note I am not accusing the person in these images, im merely pointing out evidence that the person has my tablet (He might be innocent and might have bought it from the black market)

thanks to my friend sid, one of the calanders in the background seems to be from a company called  Shree Sidh Litho Works, Girgaon, Mumba
This could help identify the guy if he works in that company and his employer gifted him the calendar.
thanks for that sid.
HN discussion : here
the video links :-
1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVA7eUoCfQs&feature=youtu.be
2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXavFfQCa8U&feature=youtu.be
3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i8mmpCcudZA
4-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YixaILyePcs&list=PLCclPnN9j2wViznni7ZxcXFgxV4F0p9la
5 -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piPDwsqK5AE&feature=youtu.be
6-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIVwWkvVgUM&feature=youtu.be

yes he took 6 fricking videos, it takes time to upload the 1.2 gigs of videos (yeah that's right this guy was quite liberal with the video sizes he kept shooting )

images he took in ascending order of date taken:














the following pics are at this park