Want to be in on the new online craze? Before you do, you're going to need to be ripped off by someone unscrupulous but not particularly intelligent.
Using the internet to extract revenge is not particularly new. Anyone remember the radio DJ whose pride and joy Lotus car was sold for peanuts on eBay by his wife after he offered to leave her for an attractive star during a live on-air interview? It does however seem to be striking a chord with blogs and online forums at the moment.
First up was The broken laptop i sold on eBay. Someone bought a laptop on eBay for £375. When he received it, it wasn't working. So he fixed it and discovered all sorts of embarrassing stuff on the hard drive, which he proceeded to use to create a website designed to humiliate the miscreant into an act of contrition.
Hot on the heels of this website comes How NOT to steal a SideKick II. A woman accidentally leaves her SideKick II in a taxi. The person finding it doesn't return it but gives it to his 16 year old sister. She starts to take pictures of herself, her 1 year old child, her (ever so slightly skanky) family and her (probably - based on the age of her child - paedophilic) boyfriend. Unfortunately for her, the SideKick automatically uploads all pictures it takes and other personal information to T-Mobile's server. As soon as the true owner got herself a new SideKick all those photos and info downloaded to her new machine. So a friend of hers uses this info to create a website, once again hoping to humiliate and embarrass the wrong-doers into taking the right action.
According to news reports (1), (2) The broken laptop i sold on eBay has prompted several police investigations, into both the suspected eBay scammer and into the actions of the website creator under the UK's "improper use of public electronic communications network" laws.
The SideKick site appear to be less than 24 hours old at the moment so the story is unfolding before our eyes.
shantelle.leilani@gmail.com
