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Jocelyn Kirsch may be sentenced to 6 years in a Federal prison for her role in a “brazen” identity theft ring. I posted this billso.com article, Philadelphia couple stole neighbors’ identities, on 3 December 2007. She plead guilty yesterday in a Federal courtroom in Philadephia.

She and her ex-boyfriend, Edward K. Anderton, use keys to raid their neighbors’ mailboxes in the Rittenhouse Square building where they lived. 

When investigators searched the couple’s four computers, they found vacation photos, invoices and more evidence that was used against the couple:

The pair deployed an increasingly sophisticated set of schemes to obtain more than $116,000 in goods and services and tried to obtain at least another $122,000 more, prosecutors said.

Anderton had previously plead guilty, and may receive a 5 year sentence on 19 September 2008. Kirsch is scheduled for sentencing on 17 October 2008. Her punishment may be more severe than Anderton’s because she continued to steal identities while she lived in northern California with her mother. Kirsch was waiting for her Philadelphia court dates at the time. 

See this Associated Press article, Student grifter admits $116K fraud in Pa. ID theft, for more information. 

I see more white and silver laptops than black models when I walk around campus and the shopping mall these days. Colored laptops might look nice in the home, but do people really want to live with one color choice for 2 or more years?

If you don’t like the stock color of your device, Colorware will sell you a custom painted Blackberry, iPhone, iPod, game console or laptop. They’ll also paint your equipment. Their process takes a few days, and you have to wait for the mail or FedEx, though.

It’s easy to wrap a laptop in decals. Students and programmers like to do this, because it’s a great way to personalize a computer. The decals also help the user identify their computer easily.

But I’m not sure I’d go to a job interview with a laptop covered in bumper stickers, unless I knew the client well enough. An accountant might not visit carry a bright purple computer with Astroturf on the lid to a major client meeting.

Erica DeWolff has posted a nice article about this issue at Professionalism and computer color: What do you think? The comments on that article are fun to read.

Skinit.com, schtickers.com, skinvo.net and other companies sell a variety of large, colorful stickers that are custom cut each model’s dimensions - and some companies will let you design your own laptop skin.

From the New York Times comes Michelle LaBrosse’s account of her laptop’s travels. After she was injured, LaBrosse ended up checking her laptop computer as luggage on a flight to Chicago.

From her description, it sounds like she takes packs a lot in her bags when she travels. Maybe she should read this New York Times article about packing light.

In any case, when she arrived at O’Hare, her computer bag was missing. Never made it to the baggage carousel. No big surprise. Frankly, I’d never check my laptop computer on an airplane.

A few weeks later, one of her assistants at Cheetah Project Management determined that the computer was being used by someone for instant messaging.

Turns out the computer ended up in Nicaragua. LaBrosse never got the computer back, but at least ahe figured out where it went… and she got the story published in the Times.

Photo courtesy of william c hutton jr through a Creative Commons license.

Related posts on billso.com

• 15 May 2008: Don’t check cameras in your luggage
• 2 May 2008: Never check your computer on a plane
• 11 March 2008: Using Facebook as a lost-and-found department
• 3 March 2008: Building the perfect laptop
• 30 September 2006: Don’t steal my laptop!
• 28 June 2003: Where’s my luggage?