Did you finally decide which digital camera to buy, only to see it come up stolen? Are you afraid your hard-earned purchase is being used to populate another person’s Facebook page? If so, StolenCameraFinder.com could be of assistance.
Living it up to its name, StolenCameraFinder.com makes use of the data available in the exchangeable image file format (EXIF), compare the tags of images in the index, and discover whether or not your missing camera was the one being used. Granted, recovery of said stolen camera is still up to the victim, and whatever authorities they decide to involve, but finding out who stole your camera is easier now, thanks to the website in question.
The website explains how it does what it does with various explanations that appear throughout:
stolencamerafinder uses the serial number stored in your photo to search the web for photos taken with the same camera.
And:
Is your camera lost or missing? Has your camera been stolen? If so, stolencamerafinder can help you find out where it is now.
We can help to locate a missing camera by searching for photos on the web that have been taken by that camera.
There are currently over 1 million camera sightings in our database and counting…
There’s also a FAQ for those of you who would like to know more about the process, and if you’d like to volunteer some assistance, you can do that, too. The useful creation also features a list of cameras it supports.
StolenCameraFinder was developed by Matt Burns, a jack-of-all-trades style of developer who has also developed other projects like Screenwaker.
Hat-tip to Boing Boing for the find.