As told by the NYT, there is now a way to possibly track down the person who stole your camera. GadgetTrak, is an app that is available on smart phones and PC/Mac, where it searches the internet for photos taken by stolen equipment.
What it does is build a database of photos with serial numbers on public sites like Flickr, Twitter or Facebook etc. Then you use the app to compare your serial to the photos and see if those pics were taken by you. Then you can track back to the person using the stolen camera.
John Heller, a Getty photographer, used GadgetTrak to find his camera just a few days ago after a year of searching! It's free for now but I'm sure they'll start charging soon.
That is really great! Thanks for reporting this.
I don't use Flickr but I have posted a few of my photos on Facebook. I entered the serial numbers of each of my cameras (Nikon D300 and D7000) and got no matches. I would have expected to get quite a few matches as the serial number is in the Exif of the photos I uploaded.
I found an image from doctor mike's stolen camera, serial number 0970601694. Boy, was I excited.
Sadly, it was an image that was posted by doctormike, but it was an interesting test of this program.
I have my gear covered by DAN insurance and I highly recommend using it. I also contacted my AAA homeowners insurance rep and he said that if you are using the cams as a professional than flooding would not be covered, so I will stick to keeping my DAN insurance as well.
Steve
I expect insurers will also be using this or similar applications to determine whether 'lost' or 'stolen' cameras remain in use with the assured and were therefore the subject of a fraudulent claim...
