Recovering a stolen camera
Well strictly speaking I left the 450SGD Canon S120 on the Airport bus (I think). I was so tired that day. I realised this and contacted the Palermo Airport bus company hours later to no avail. Also contacted Palermo Airport itself. No dice.
So I was thinking how I could avoid this situation or better find it in future. I did have my name and twitter id on a sticker on the camera. Obviously this wasn't enough for it to me returned to me. :(
Searching by serial number
First off, the Canon's serial number of the camera is NOT embedded in the images it takes.
/home/hendry/Downloads$ strings 14094833648_7703bd9cbd_o.jpg | grep PowerShot
Canon PowerShot S120
IMG:PowerShot S120 JPEG
/home/hendry/Downloads$ strings 14094833648_7703bd9cbd_o.jpg | grep 71805
Engraving it
Casey Neistat engraves his camera using a Dremel. I wish I did this since the photos / videos I took are worth more to me than the resale value of the camera.
Ibeacon whatever
I noticed http://www.thetileapp.com/ but I don't see how that would work. The tile itself could only be attached clumsily. And only people RUNNING THE TILE APP ON AN IPHONE in very close vicinity (0% chance) could ever possibly report this back to me.
Invisible markers and stuff
I think this stuff rubs off and the fact that it's invisible is a bit dumb. UK police say they use this to identify stolen goods, but I doubt its utility.
Stolen database of stuff
AFAIK there is no place to say XYZ serial of equipment is stolen. Wish there was.