It is often said that today’s children are more computer and technology literate than their parents and this has been borne out by the case of a 12-year-old schoolboy, Kristen Richardson, who managed to track down his mother’s stolen mobile phone.
The mobile phone was not a cheap one, it cost £230 and it disappeared when she placed it on a Felixstowe nightclub bar when she bought a drink and a light-fingered thief took the opportunity to pocket it.
What the lady didn’t know was that her savvy son had installed something called a Lookout Mobile Security application on her phone, enabling him to track its location if lost. Using his mother’s laptop, Kristen logged on to the free Lookout account he had installed and was able to show a map showing exactly where the phone was, a detached house ten miles way. Looking up the address on Google Street View, Kristen was able to display a picture of the house near Woodbridge. The whole process took but just a few minutes.
Mrs Richardson passed the information on to the police who later called at the house and interviewed a 21-year-old man who admitted he had taken the phone when he was in the nightclub. The case was settled amicably by ‘community resolution’ when Mrs Richardson agreed to accept a letter of apology from the man who had never been in trouble with the police before.
Kristen is to be congratulated for his commonsense and for his technological knowledge. It’s a case also when you are almost breathless at learning what technology can do for you.
At the same time, it was staggering to learn that the thief had deleted 173 of Mrs Richardson’s contacts from her phone. But even then, Kristen came up trumps. He just pressed a button and all the contacts were restored.
Mrs Richardson must be a very popular lady. I don’t have 173 contacts around the whole world and only a dozen on my own mobile!
.
The mobile phone was not a cheap one, it cost £230 and it disappeared when she placed it on a Felixstowe nightclub bar when she bought a drink and a light-fingered thief took the opportunity to pocket it.
What the lady didn’t know was that her savvy son had installed something called a Lookout Mobile Security application on her phone, enabling him to track its location if lost. Using his mother’s laptop, Kristen logged on to the free Lookout account he had installed and was able to show a map showing exactly where the phone was, a detached house ten miles way. Looking up the address on Google Street View, Kristen was able to display a picture of the house near Woodbridge. The whole process took but just a few minutes.
Mrs Richardson passed the information on to the police who later called at the house and interviewed a 21-year-old man who admitted he had taken the phone when he was in the nightclub. The case was settled amicably by ‘community resolution’ when Mrs Richardson agreed to accept a letter of apology from the man who had never been in trouble with the police before.
Kristen is to be congratulated for his commonsense and for his technological knowledge. It’s a case also when you are almost breathless at learning what technology can do for you.
At the same time, it was staggering to learn that the thief had deleted 173 of Mrs Richardson’s contacts from her phone. But even then, Kristen came up trumps. He just pressed a button and all the contacts were restored.
Mrs Richardson must be a very popular lady. I don’t have 173 contacts around the whole world and only a dozen on my own mobile!
.
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