Long Island (NY) - An open wireless network and a special memory card helped catch two camera thieves recently. Alison DeLauzon had accidentally left her new digital camera complete with an Eye-Fi SD card in a restaurant. Unknown to her, two workers took the camera and began snapping pictures of each other - why do camera thieves always do this?

The Eye-Fi card wirelessly transmits pictures to a host computer and certain models will connect through the Internet to do the transfer. The thieves passed by an open access point and the card did exactly what it was designed to do and beamed pics to DeLauzon’s PC. She recognized the smiley faces as the restaurant workers and told the management.

The thieves gave back the camera in exchange for not going to jail. They’ve been fired from the restaurant.

At this year’s PMA conference, we played around with the Eye-Fi card and found it to be a wonderful gadget. You can see that video and article here.

Read more ... Reuters.