The Mystery of the Cross-Eyed ShoZu Chihuahua

Posted on September 3, 2006

A photograph of a chihuahua taken by a camera thief has stirred up a lot of Internet discussion. The camera was stolen on an Amtrak train from Ben Clemens, a web designer and Yahoo Inc. employee. The camera has software from ShoZu on it that allows any pictures taken to be automatically uploaded to a photo sharing website. In this situation the photographs were uploaded to Clemens' Flickr account. The thief clearly did not know about the ShoZu software and several photos taken by the camera thief, including the one of a cross-eyed chihuahua in a filthy room, showed up on Clemens's Flickr account.

Clemens blogged about the strange ordeal. He wrote, "My cell phone was stolen last Friday. I had it disconnected and arranged to get a replacement. It had been set up with the excellent service from ShoZu to automatically upload all pictures taken with the phone to Flickr. So today, completely surprisingly, I find pictures on my Flickr account of the family of the person who took the phone. I'm not sure they knew what was happening (they replaced the SIM card with their own, clearly, but probably didn't notice ShoZu), I have no way to find my phone with these pictures.

A few bloggers are somewhat skeptical this could be a viral marketing campaign but it does sound like a legitimate story. So far, Clemens has been unable to find anything in the photographs that would help him easily identify the thief. There are apparently photographs of the thief's family but Clemens removed them from his Flickr acount. In his most recent update Clemens says that photographs are no longer appearing on his Flickr account meaning the thief may have figured out what was happening, stopped taking pictures or possibly even sold the camera. Clemens also insists he has no connection to ShoZu.

He says, "Update: I still have many people saying that this episode is a hoax, and/or I am a marketer. Please, this was not marketing, I have no connection to Shozu, the story is accurate and happened exactly as I've recounted. I simply posted the story to my blog, that's all. I really am just some guy that this happened to. Thanks."

What a nightmare for Clemens! A weird thing happens to him and then some people accuse him of running a marketing scheme. As far as the ShoZu service goes it sounds like there is some risk involved. What if a child grabs the camera or camcorder and starts taking pictures or video of someone in the bathroom or shower? Those aren't the kinds of photos or videos you want instantly uploaded to Flickr or YouTube.