“No,” the 24-year-old Silliman said. “Nobody would ever turn in an iPod.”

Her boyfriend posted the message anyway. Within 24 hours, Silliman’s iPod was back.

In an increasingly cynical world, there are still places where people try to do the right thing. Everyday on Internet message boards, honest folks post notes about valuables they found: cash, bank cards, diamond bracelets, engagement rings, wedding bands, digital cameras, and even a cockatoo valued at $1,200.

In turn, when there is no place left to look for something missing, the desperate sometimes take the longest of longshots and look online themselves.

Occasionally, it works for both sides. People such as Silliman get back their iPod, still loaded with Radio Head and Broken Social Scene.

The impulse to be honest doesn’t surprise Lawrence M. Hinman, the director of The Values Institute at the University of San Diego.

“I think we perceive ourselves as being much worse than we actually are,” Hinman said. “There are people who live lives of quiet honesty.”

Take Monique Peddle, 48, in Hollywood, Fla., who posted a note online when she found a diamond studded gold bracelet that she could have just as easily slipped quietly in her pocket. Or Blake Facente, 30, who also turned to Craigslist when he discovered a Dell Inspiron laptop leaning against his building in San Francisco.

The same for Agnes Satoorian, 27, who climbed into a cab in Boston last month and found a pricey digital camera that another rider had left behind.

“I know that pain,” said Satoorian, who had recently lost her own camera loaded with sentimental pictures. “I decided I would try to make it right for someone.”

Craig Newmark, the namesake and founder of Craigslist, said that the company added the lost-and-found message board in March 2003 after they noticed a proliferation of people looking for things that they were missing.

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