It seems that nowadays nothing is impossible when it comes to electronics and crime fighting is one domain in which computer science has helped a lot. However, a rather surprising case has recently been made public.

An apartment shared by three young people in Westchester was robbed on April 27; the burglars managed to get away with flat-screen televisions, iPods and DVDs, but also two laptop computers. It just so happened that one of them was a Macintosh and it belonged to Kait Duplaga, an employee of the Westchester mall Apple store. Her extensive knowledge of the machine came in handy and, with the help of a program called Back To My Mac, she was able to establish a connection with her stolen MacBook and photograph one of the burglars.

It was because of this photo that the White Plains police was able to arrest Edmon Shahikian, 2 and Ian Frias, 20. $5,000 worth of stolen electronics were found in the homes of the two men. They are now facing charges of burglary and possession of stolen property.

Back To My Mac is integrated in an online service, made available for the annual fee of $99 and allows registered users to access their computers from any Macintosh running the Leopard operating system. In order to photograph the thief, Ms. Duplaga used the PhotoBooth software, that comes with all newer models of Apple laptops.