Prey actually does it as part of their reports on stolen laptops: http://preyproject.com/

Probably not with PhotoBooth though :)

that's what I was thinking. make it send the pics to a web archive whenever it finds an open connection. then you'd almost want your laptop to get stolen

You could create a honeypot netbook and take it with you to places like Starbucks and just leave it out when you go to the bathroom,etc.

Do this, follow it up, expose the thief, make a blog of it, and the advertising income from the blog will probably recoup the laptop cost.

That's pretty close to entrapment.

But wouldn't a slightly smart thief be able to beat it by using a small sticker on the webcam?

I know a smart lady who (after reading about webcams on compromised machines being used to take snaps without the knowledge of unsuspecting users) used a simple fix; stick a bindi(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bindi.jpg) on the webcam.

I just recently submitted an app called iTried to the Mac app store which was kinda built for this (http://bit.ly/hEDJTw)

iTried listens for screensaver stopped events, and then takes the picture. I disabled tweetpic'ing the picture when submitting to the app store, but will re-enable in an update.

Before reading the article I thought it was going to be about catching thieves.