Found thumb drive, Dickson Shopping Centre: 166 Egypt holiday pics!

Here’s a nice story about someone doing something similar to Needle. Might have some good ideas to help track down the owner.

Here is another story about what you shouldn’t do when you find a lost camera with someone’s photos.

harvyk1 said :

Jonathon Reynolds said :

Yeah, I was just thinking that, I know of a case where an IT security company was called in to do a security audit on a certain very large (and they thought very secure) company, so what did the security company do? Got some USB drives, placed some code on it, and “accidentally” left them for all the smokers to find. Of course a few of the workers placed them into their machines thinking they had just found a “free” USB drive, in reality they had just opened a backdoor into the company, which the security consultants then used to gain access.

wouldn’t happen these days, now would it?

people are just too busy leaving notebooks in qantas lounges or cds that aren’t encrypted.

I use device control. stops unauthorised devices being used on my pc. I can override the settings, for known devices, but it means that I am aware it has been tried, usually by a moron who thinks that they are a pc expert, with no A/V or spyware anywhere near their PC.

Wow- Capital letters and everything. Chill out! It’s the weekend!

It’s comments like that that make people not bother to do the right thing. Needle has gone out of his/her way here to try to help someone out who might, just might, be extremely upset over the loss of their once-in-a-lifetime holiday snaps. Simultaneously, they’re doing their best to protect that person’s privacy. Kudos, Needle – the world could do with a few more people like that.

Yes Babyface…you are a DICK! You on the same page as another DICK called Realityskin. Both your scathings against people using the RA for a legitimate good cause is beyond poor form. I don’t think I’m along in suggesting you log off RA, and don’t bother returning. You are a poor human being, who I wouldn’t feed.

Jonathon Reynolds said :

… and we hope that you had your PC fully patched and running all the latest anti-virus/malware/spyware.

You’d be a great target for instigating an malicious attack via social engineering – just grabbing any usb stick you find literally on the street and plugging it in is a brave move. Your PC may now be infected with a nasty Egyptian virus…

Yeah, I was just thinking that, I know of a case where an IT security company was called in to do a security audit on a certain very large (and they thought very secure) company, so what did the security company do? Got some USB drives, placed some code on it, and “accidentally” left them for all the smokers to find. Of course a few of the workers placed them into their machines thinking they had just found a “free” USB drive, in reality they had just opened a backdoor into the company, which the security consultants then used to gain access.

Sammy said :

Then I came across the photos of their Porsche, in front of their enormous house, and I decided they could afford the loss 🙂

Oh dear! Laughed? People in this Bendigo cafe turned around to see what was going on when I read that!

All in favour of some posting of photos (without people).

^and did the house have it’s number? Both of those might have helped…

Sammy said :

A while back we found a digital camera that had been left in a taxi by a visiting tourist. The taxi driver knew that the visitors were from Adelaide as a result of chit-chat in the taxi.

Anyway, I decided i’d attempt to determine the identity of the owners using the photos on the camera. I got damn close as well. There were a bunch of photos on the camera of the mother in bed in hospital having just given birth, and you could *almost* read her wrist tag which would’ve contained her name.

Then I came across the photos of their Porsche, in front of their enormous house, and I decided they could afford the loss 🙂

Did the Porsche have a license plate????

I might consider uploading one or two pics somewhere this evening, just to help spread the word a bit.
Monument-only pics, though – Aswan and Hatshepsut should do…

I was recently in Egypt, and took nearly 1000 photos while we were there, and we did have close to 160 top notch shots. But I’ve not lost a thumb drive.

An awesome place to see if you can afford to visit. Cairo is the kind of place you wonder how on earth people manage to live there, you come back to Sydney and say: “Wow, it’s not crowded or dirty, and the air is clean!”

Good on you for doing something Needle.

You could post part of a photo, without faces.

Burnt out buses in Civic.

Photos of the Middle East on a USB drive found in Dickson.

Coincidence??????

Quick – someone think of the children and call the Terrorism Hotline before this all gets out of hand!

i doubt that people would keep the only copy of their holiday snaps on a single thumbdrive.

You are not familiar with human behaviour are you?

…your reservations about posting the pictures to help find who owns it “since some of the pics have kids in them” is very stupid.

Since posting the photos would be an unnecessary first step (might become necessary if they really can’t be tracked down), saying that is a bit of a wank. Especially that line about the kids.

That said, if the photos are really good, maybe a nice one without people in it? Please? I promise I won’t infringe on their IP.

A while back we found a digital camera that had been left in a taxi by a visiting tourist. The taxi driver knew that the visitors were from Adelaide as a result of chit-chat in the taxi.

Anyway, I decided i’d attempt to determine the identity of the owners using the photos on the camera. I got damn close as well. There were a bunch of photos on the camera of the mother in bed in hospital having just given birth, and you could *almost* read her wrist tag which would’ve contained her name.

Then I came across the photos of their Porsche, in front of their enormous house, and I decided they could afford the loss 🙂

Jonathon Reynolds, I booted into Wubi/Ubuntu first 🙂

I might look into either the Times or the Police. Since I don’t actually live in Canberra, it’s a little difficult for me (I only come here for work), but I’ll see what I can do.

I just thought posting on a fairly well-travelled forum would be a shot in the dark…and they suggested I try the same thing here :-Þ

Thanks for the well-wishes, and for the terrible jokes – both are always good on a Friday morning! 😀

jessieduck said :

Good on you for trying to find the owner – very noble.

Mummy, pyramid schemes! So bad they are brilliant.

Hope the owner gets their drive abck.

I just have to echo what the others said. Babyface, you are a tool.

Needles – good for you for doing the right thing. Maybe place an ad in the “lost and found” of the CT? May not even cost anything.

Spectra said :

babyface: It’s comments like that that make people not bother to do the right thing. Needle has gone out of his/her way here to try to help someone out who might, just might, be extremely upset over the loss of their once-in-a-lifetime holiday snaps. Simultaneously, they’re doing their best to protect that person’s privacy. Kudos, Needle – the world could do with a few more people like that.

Kind of like…. (wait for it) …. a Pyramid scheme.
Oh god…that’s at once the worst and best thing I’ve read all week.

+1.

Have an opinion and share it if you must, babyface, but don’t slag someone off who’s trying to help out. I personally think this site has a better chance of reuniting the item with its owners than the plods’ lost property. (And that’s more about the propensity of people to go to the cop shop if they lose something of this nature and NOT a stab at the AFP.)

Holden Caufield and BerraBoy, on your way to Offal thread the pair of you. Golf claps all around.

babyface: It’s comments like that that make people not bother to do the right thing. Needle has gone out of his/her way here to try to help someone out who might, just might, be extremely upset over the loss of their once-in-a-lifetime holiday snaps. Simultaneously, they’re doing their best to protect that person’s privacy. Kudos, Needle – the world could do with a few more people like that.

Kind of like…. (wait for it) …. a Pyramid scheme.
Oh god…that’s at once the worst and best thing I’ve read all week.

Maybe it’s a trick to get you to buy into holiday scheme in Egypt that will turn out to be a load of crap but will make a chain of people quite wealthy. Kind of like…. (wait for it) …. a Pyramid scheme.

I’d hazard a guess that the thumb drive was used to get the photos processed so maybe it would be worth checking with the shops that do prints?

The 166 would be the crème de la crème of the trip ready for an album.

Good on you for trying to find the owner- very noble.

Needle, it is highly possible that a said member from the family was smart enough to upload the pictures to their own computer and then put some images on the stick so that they could get some prints done… in which it must have been dropped or what not. In that sense they may not be so concerned with getting it back since a gig is so cheap these days.

The right thing to do would be to hand it into a Police Station if you feel so inclined to.

Oh… sneaky type, huh?

The old

stalk a girl
find out where she lives
break into house
steal a thumb drive
claim to have found it
have her collect it
go out to dinner as reward

trick

i doubt that people would keep the only copy of their holiday snaps on a single thumbdrive. your reservations about posting the pictures to help find who owns it “since some of the pics have kids in them” is very stupid.

Maybe he should have asked his mummy first?

… and we hope that you had your PC fully patched and running all the latest anti-virus/malware/spyware.

You’d be a great target for instigating an malicious attack via social engineering – just grabbing any usb stick you find literally on the street and plugging it in is a brave move. Your PC may now be infected with a nasty Egyptian virus…