The Journal of West Virginia reported yesterday that 19-year-old Jonathan G. Parker was charged on Tuesday with felony daytime burglary. He's alleged to have stolen two diamond rings worth more than $3,500, but to have taken some time out to access his Facebook account on the victim's laptop.
If the report is correct, it seems that no sophisticated computer forensic analysis was necessary to determine this, since the criminal mastermind left the laptop where it was, still logged in to his account. (Presumably laptops aren't worth stealing any more.)
I imagine that Facebook are now considering changing their famous "What's on your mind?" prompt to "What on earth were you thinking?" Still, given all the recent stories about burglars checking prospective victim's FB accounts to find out when they're away, it's good to know that social networking can work for law enforcement, too.
I'm now waiting to hear that the widely publicised indiscretion by the wife of one of the UK's security services was actually a complicated sting to catch Karla or Blofeld in the act of espionage. John Le Carré, if you're reading, feel free to borrow the idea for your next novel.
Tip of the hat to AVERTlabs for flagging a CNET article by Chris Matyszczyk on Twitter, which led me to the original story.
David Harley
Director of Malware Intelligence
