Like in the movies, some thieves can actually have a heart.

A professor at Umeå University in northern Sweden claims that a thief stole his laptop but returned the data by way of a USB stick.

Choosing to remain anonymous, the professor told the local newspaper that his laptop was originally stashed away in a backpack. Having just undergone surgery, he didn't want to make an additional trip back up to his apartment before going to the laundry room. Instead, he placed the backpack behind a door in the apartment building stairwell--thinking it would be safe--and then headed off to wash clothes.

Unsurprisingly, the backpack was gone when he returned shortly thereafter. He called the police to report the theft, and then called his creditors to cancel the stolen credit cards. According to the local newspaper, the professor was highly upset over the calendar, quoting him saying that it documented everything that had happened over the last ten years and beyond.

"It is my life," the professor said.

But the story takes a strange turn after the police report. The professor said that he left his apartment and headed back down the stairwell only to discover that the backpack had reappeared. Save for the laptop and a library card, everything remained intact--the cherished calendar, credit cards, documents--everything. He was dumbfounded.

Still, the laptop was somewhat of a major loss. "Unfortunately, I have been bad at backing up my computer," the professor admitted.

Then--as if someone had heard those very words--a package arrived a week later. He ripped open the envelope to discover his very own USB drive which had been plugged into the laptop at the time of the theft. The thief used the portable drive to backup the professor's data stored on the laptop--all the documents, personal files, and more. Although the size of the drive wasn't specified, it was assumed that the backup process took hours.

"Often when people lose their computers and cameras, it is understandably not the gadget itself that is the most important," he told the newspaper. "The content is often irreplaceable."

Despite the actual theft, the outcome has given the professor a new hope for humanity.

Currently there's no indication that the laptop thief was identified and arrested.

Thief Steals Notebook, Returns Data On USB Stick

Posted By: Rhammstein
18 Oct 2010