The latest Psystar debacle has only proved one important note: the Internet is a mean place for alleged wrongdoers.
Readers at the technology blog, Gizmodo, physically hunted down the Psystar address to check its legitimacy and found it to be non-existent. Gizmodo's loyal fan base helped unravel this mystery by checking the variety of different addresses posted on the Psystar site as well as looking into the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations and more.
Meanwhile across the Web similar efforts were underway as Psystar's Web site would one hour be up and running accepting orders, and the next down. CNET's Tom Krazit has an excellent roundup of Web reports on Psystar showing how people as far away as the United Kingdom swapped notes with those in the same Florida city Psystar is allegedly located in.
Nevertheless, any legitimacy enjoyed by Psystar is now very quickly evaporating thanks to the investigative work done by an untold number of motivated readers and bloggers both digging into Psystar's past and watching its every public move like a hawk.
The Psystar uproar reminds me of recent examples when the Web has worked like one huge army of gumshoes working 24/7 to crack a case.
Automotive forum goers can be some of the most diehard and it's apparent as a car forum helped retrieve a stolen Nissan Skyline. The rare, right-hand-drive Nissan Skyline was stolen in Calgary, Canada. The owner, Shaun Ironside, posted about it on the Beyond.ca automotive discussion forum, which already has a history helping the police, and another forum-goer soon spotted the car out and snapped a picture. This lead to manhunt for an individual that included spamming the thief's Facebook page and using Google maps to locate the thief's home, eventually resulting in a arrest and return of the vehicle.
Another story included the users at the social new site, Digg, helping recover a stolen Xbox 360. Jesse McPherson had his home broken into and his Xbox 360, among other items, stolen. It was when he received a replacement Xbox 360, he found a ransom message left for his Xbox Live user account. After posting about it online, the users at Digg managed to round up the thief's name, address, high school, AIM screen name and harassed the thief until he told his parents and returned the stolen items.
These stories are just a few examples of how tight-knit online communities can be. With that being said, maybe next time it's better to fire up that Web browser instead of calling the police and waiting helplessly. As the adage goes, the Internet can be a scary place.
What is with the witch hunt? Apparently none of your readers are old enough to recall that Dell was started by a college dropout in his off-campus apartment. Michael Dell was marketing IBM clones in Popular Tech magazines well before he had a "factory" or office - or even anything more than a mail drop! If Dell had been hounded like Psystar, it is unlikely the Michael Dell would have been anything but another college dropout, insterad of the CEO of the most successful PC manufacturer in history.
As for Apple? Perhaps your readers are so uninformed as to not recall that Apple too was marketing its Apple I at computer shows and in Electronics magazines before they had a "real" office or factory. They too began in a garage.
Perhaps your readers are old enough, or at least informed enough, to know of a little company called Google? Well, guess where Goolge was when it first started marketing itself as a commercial enterprise - in a GARAGE!!! A borrowed garage at that.