As many times as thieves get away with what they do, we can enjoy a case where a thief does something really stupid, and it costs him.

The Berkeley Police Department reports on a thief who smashed a car window and stole a laptop. That’s nothing new (it happens every 12 seconds, after all). But this thief holed up at a motel and proceeded to take photos of himself with the laptop’s camera. Because the laptop had backup software installed, the photo appeared in the backup online. The victim (the laptop owner), discovered, voila, a series of photos of his thief conveniently stored in the online backup site.

Not to be a lazy citizen, of course he forwarded these photos to the police, who recognized the man as a known “regular” visitor of their justice system. Thieves tend to have a hard time breaking the habit.

The police noticed the background in the photos, knew it was a motel, and proceeded to check around. They saw the thief getting into a car, arrested him, and recovered not only this victim’s laptop but, lo and behold, many other stolen items from other recent burglaries.

Never underestimate the foolishness of some thieves. If nothing else, it makes for decent entertainment.

1. Duh!
2. True, I really should, but…

The first folks–the “duh” crowd–will exclaim that this is just dead obvious. Of course regular, automated backup is absolutely essential, they’ll say. Every one of us is only seconds away from a hard drive crash, spilled coffee, or theft, all of which could toast our data. Duh!

Unfortunately, these “duh” people will be shouted down by the other crowd, which outnumbers them about 20-to-1. These are the masses, the crowded sea of people who never back up. They know they should. They know it’s absolutely foolish not to. But they don’t do it. They think it’s hard. They won’t check it out. They won’t just use Mozy.com or Carbonite or any of the great, simple services. They won’t buy a USB hard drive (external) and at least back up there. They just won’t. And almost everybody, even after all these years and technological advancements (and reliance), still falls into this category.

I read story, after story, after story of stolen laptops, where the data lost is completely irreplaceable. Photos of lost loved ones. Childhood photos. Documents. Emails. Memories.

Sure, MyLaptopGPS can recover those, even after the theft. But what about a hard drive crash? There a million ways to lose data, and they’re very, very common.

Back up. Stop making excuses. It’s easy. The alternative is devastating.