Thieves allegedly rob Internet cafe, forget to log out of Facebook
In what seems like a particularly enjoyable faux pas, armed thieves in Cali, Colombia, allegedly spend some time on the Web in an Internet cafe and then rob it. They leave a rather obvious digital footprint, however.
Facebook is so deeply woven into the human fabric that people forget to, well, wipe their feet before they enter and say goodbye before they leave.
A very prime example is the story of two men who stand accused of robbing an Internet cafe in Cali, Colombia.
I am grateful to the San Francisco Chronicle for translating the efforts of Colombia's El Tiempo to keep a straight face.
For this is a tale of two men who went into the cafe and were, well, just browsing. At some point they allegedly decided it might be fun to rob the cafe. So they made as if to pay and then allegedly assaulted the owner.
They then escaped by allegedly purloining a motorbike that was as much theirs as the Internet cafe's cash.
This they seem to have succeeded in doing. However, when police arrived, they noticed one peculiar thing: one of the alleged thieves had been wafting around Facebook and hadn't logged off.
This led to the arrest of one of the suspects. I am guessing it might have been the one who didn't log out of Facebook.
Naturally, they aren't the first to have fallen foul of a Facebook habit during a foul act. For three whole years ago, Jonathan G. Parker, a young man from Pennsylvania, was accused of burglarizing a house and stealing jewelry.
But it seems to have been such a comfortable house that he made himself at home and logged onto Facebook on a computer. He was convicted.
As I am sure Mark Zuckerberg made very clear at each of Facebook's IPO presentations to Wall Street, Facebook, and criminals just don't mix.