VIDEO 01: Student filmmaker allows thief to steal his phone to spy on him

Have you ever thought what happens to a smartphone after it is stolen?

This was the core idea of a young filmmaker in Amsterdam who decided to produce a short documentary about a smartphone thief's life. All he needed to do were to bug his smartphone, wait for it to be stolen, and eventually, monitor the thief.

In the film below, student filmmaker Anthony van der Meer intentionally had his smartphone stolen which, prior to the theft, was loaded with a bugging software called Cerberus. Cerberus gave der Meer access to his stolen device's location and information including contacts and messages. It also allowed him to take control of the phone's camera and microphone via wireless connection.

It actually took quite some time before the smartphone was stolen. Right at the moment the theft took place, it was undocumented. For two weeks, der Meer spied on the thief, the details and clips of which were compiled and narrated into a 21-minute-long short film entitled "Find My Phone - Subtitled".

As of posting time, the film has attracted close to 3.5 million views since December 13, the date it was first uploaded.