When Anthony van der Meer first had his smartphone stolen he instantly realized just how much of his personal/vital/secret information were now in the hands of a thief. The amount of information we store on our smartphones is shocking: hundreds of thousands of texts and emails, our entire contact/address book, pictures. That stuff in the hands of a thief can be terrifying, but it can also be extremely fascinating to peer into the life of a thief and glimpse what they do with this information, and how sophisticated they really are.
Anthony van der Meer is a film student, and after his phone was stolen the first time he picked up a second phone, loaded it with spyware which allowed him to track and monitor the phone at all times, and then he allowed that phone to be stolen by a thief. He then took the resulting footage and turned it into a short film (seen above), and it’s 21 minutes of insight into the life of a European pickpocket thief, and I have to admit that you ultimately start feeling shitty for this thief because his life is so pathetic.
What’s interesting is that this tactic of leaking a device loaded full of spyware is actually a well-known hacking tactic. So even though this filmmaker has supposedly innocent intentions, he turned himself into a hacker with the capacity for some pretty evil shit. I know this because a relative of mine had a tablet show up at their home, appearing to be a gift from one of his clients, and they later found out it was completely loaded with spyware which was tracking every single keystroke…Bank accounts, passwords…scary shit.
(h/t reddit/videos)