For a short time, it seemed as if the Denton Police Department outside Dallas had been inspired by great communicators such as Ashton Kutcher and CNN.
A Twitter page, headlined "Denton Police," fed details of every arrest the department had performed, coupled with TwitPic mugshots.
This remarkable, real-time communication between the police and outside world surely was a futuristic forerunner to Texas' progression towards secession.
Until it was revealed to be the work of University of North Texas senior, Brian Baugh.
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The cops on Comedy Central's 'Reno 911' are fake. So are the ones who ran the Twitter account @AustinPD, it appears.
(Credit: Comedy Central)There's no more @AustinPD on Twitter. That's because it wasn't actually the official Twitter account of the Austin, Texas, police department, according to the Austin Statesman.
The link to the account now reads that it was "suspended for strange activity," and city authorities have asked Twitter to keep tabs on the impersonator's contact information after both the police department and Texas attorney general's office complained to Twitter. The Statesman added, however, that criminal charges are not being sought at this point.
"Although some may dismiss the site as a simple prank or minor irritant, the fact is that the information presented was false and misleading, and could lead to unwarranted concern by the public," Austin police chief Art Acevedo said in a statement.
"AustinPD" wasn't exactly a huge sensation on Twitter, with only about 450 followers. But it was enough to tick off the real cops, especially during the South by Southwest Festival, when all eyes were on Austin.
Updates from the fake Twitter account included "warming up my radar gun for SXSWi" and "we're looking to make more stops at SXSW this year than last," as well as references to police jargon codes that seemed to be stemming from a knowledge of gangsta rap lyrics rather than actual law enforcement.
The Austin Statesman reported that fake accounts are a very serious problem on Twitter: "Even taco trucks aren't safe: NPR reported Monday that the Los Angeles-based Mexican-Korean food joint Kogi has a Twitter doppelganger that posts fake locations, menu items, and a 'Taco Bikini Saturday' event."
Getting punked by fake tweets is nothing new at South by Southwest, though: journalist Mat Honan has an annual ritual of posting off-the-wall updates in which he pretends to be present at SXSWi but actually isn't ("At the hyper-packed Facebook panel waiting for some sort of 'big announcement.' I bet it's that the new redesign was done by Blingee").
The antics of Honan and other Twitter account holders led to the spread of fake rumors such as a free breakfast burrito giveaway at the local Whole Foods (not true) and reports that oddball actor Bill Murray was showing up at SXSWi parties (never confirmed, but let's face it: probably not true).
Last month, Twitter suspended an account claiming to come from the Dalai Lama but reinstated it when the owner of the account agreed to provide a disclaimer that it was unofficial.
I recently got my car stolen from a public parking lot. When I got it back several days later, all the electronics were stolen, along with everything else even remotely valuable. The same day I got it back, a friend of mine told me to check out Craigslist to see if any of my stuff had been listed. I took his advice, and to my surprise I found a local posting with what was undoubtedly some of my car's electronics, along with a post date the same day of the theft.
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I immediately contacted the police with the posting and information on my goods, but I couldn't dig up the serial numbers. The detective could do nothing for me without them, but urged me to remember if there were any personalized markings that would give them 100 percent certainty they were mine. When I couldn't, it was basically the end of what the police could do for me. Case closed, the bad guy got away despite the evidence I had gathered.
This highlights an interesting issue with anonymous classified services like Craigslist--how do people act upon discovering what they believe to be their own stolen goods? In the case of Craigslist, there's no number to call. You're limited to communication via e-mail. Craig Newmark, the creator of Craigslist, explained to us what happens once a user comes forward with a suspicious listing: "we normally have the target contact the cops, and then we help the cops locate the bad guy, after due process has been performed." When the facts match up, Newmark says the response to warrants and subpoenas is "fast." Unfortunately, as I described above, in my case there were no warrants served.
Likewise, dealing with stolen items or potential fraud on eBay is a police matter. What may steer would-be thieves away from eBay is the traceability on the back-end with user accounts and personal information taken from PayPal or credit card transactions. Both are linked to each purchase, making it a little harder to sell things anonymously.
This moves me to ask if anyone else has had a similar experience, and whether they were able to get their property back. In some ways the Internet has made it frighteningly easy to get rid of personal items, but the optimist in me would like to believe it could be just as powerful in getting them back. What's your story?
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