Stolen U.C. Berkeley Laptop Recovered

linuxwrangler writes "Following up on a previous Slashdot story, the laptop with personal data on 98,000 former U.C. Berkeley grad students which was stolen in March has been recovered. Shuki Alburati, A San Francisco State freshman who makes money selling computers and cell-phones online, says he bought the laptop for $300 from a woman who fits the description of the suspect in the original theft. The drive was reformatted and investigators can't tell if the personal info was accessed but they have believed all along that the thief was only interested in the computer. Alburati, who says he was suspicious of someone looking to sell an expensive laptop so cheaply, nonetheless took the woman's word that laptop was not stolen. He then resold the laptop on eBay for $1,159 - just $18,805 short of his bail after police arrested him."

Comments

How did they catch him?

[autopr0n]

Did he sell the laptop to someone else, or was the school just buying every laptop on Ebay that fit the description?

Re:How did they catch him?

[ThaFooz]

A not-so-bright thief could have plugged it into the campus network. Universities have total control of their networks, and if they happen to know the MAC address of the stolen machine, its easy to pinpoint. My school (UMass Amherst) recovered several stolen machines this way.

Re:How did they catch him?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, the buyer called IBM tech support, and they asked for the serial number, which lead back to UC Berkeley.

Re:How did they catch him?

[The Angry Mick]

Mercury News says the laptop was sold to a South Carolina man who apparently called IBM's tech support line.

Re:How did they catch him?

[Loconut1389]

Now if the guy who bought it from the lady was arrested, you'd think they could go after the ebay guy too...

Re:How did they catch him?

[secolactico]

A not-so-bright thief could have plugged it into the campus network. Universities have total control of their networks, and if they happen to know the MAC address of the stolen machine, its easy to pinpoint

Most thief aren't too bright. But they usually don't steal laptops (or whatever else they steal, except money) to use it themselves. My guess is they usually unload them to a fence who will probably route it to someone who "moves" this kind of merchandise. This someone is probably someone who knows enough to erase the HDD and get rid of other tracable info (serial numbers, etc). Then he will sell it claiming that it "fell of a truck, really".

In this case, the thief sold the laptop herself. Amateurs. That's a sign of the times for you... ;-)

Re:How did they catch him?

[jimi the hippie]

The guy who bought it from the lady was the guy who sold it on EBay. They arrested him after the purchaser (from his EBay auction) called up IBM.

Re:How did they catch him?

[Loconut1389]

right, but so why didnt they arrest the ebay purchaser too?

presuming the guy who bought the laptop to sell on ebay didn't know it was stolen goods, the guy who bought it on ebay is just as guilty. (this is sort of supposed to be a sarcastic type question ultimately asking why they arrested the seller)

Re:How did they catch him?

[Halfbaked Plan]

Is the NIC in this machine hardwared into the motherboard? Is the MAC address changable?

Re:How did they catch him?

[Halfbaked Plan]

It's reasonable to assume that the eBay seller, who was probably regularly buying machines for $300 from unknown strangers and selling them on eBay for 4 times that amount, should have questioned his sources a little more, to avoid being seen as an obvious fence for stolen merchandise.

The guy who bought it on eBay has no way of knowing the source of the laptop. He has no idea that dirtbag eBay seller bought it from some skinny chick for $300.

Re:How did they catch him?

[yesteraeon]

Well...either way, it's spoofable.

But I guess you're not going to warn someone you're selling a stolen laptop to not to plug it in at a certain location unless their spoofing their IP.

Re:How did they catch him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Five foot-two and 200 pounds ain't what I'd call skinny.

I'm confused

[captaincucumber]

It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it? Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?

---------
theTshirtClub.com - you've got problems, we've got t-shirts.

Re:I'm confused

[spyder913]

Yes, but usually if you're not in possesion of a lot of stolen property, they will just confiscate the goods and/or money recieved from the sale of it.

On the other hand if you bought a LOT of 'questionable' goods then they might actually go after you. Fencing is not a legal activity.

Re:I'm confused

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it? Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?

Well, currently he's the only person linked to said laptop in a definitive manner. And for what it's worth - though impossible to prove - if you believe him when he says he didn't know it was stolen, I've got a rather large bridge to sell you in a lovely area of New York.

This guy's making money by selling laptops and cell phones online. He's a fence.

Re:I'm confused

[LightningBolt!]

> This guy's making money by selling laptops and
> cell phones online. He's a fence.

I guess that makes Dell a fence. And Cingular.

Re:I'm confused

[ackthpt]

It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it?

Illegal is such a generic term -- think of it this way, the owner of stolen property has a right to retrieve it from someone who bought it unwittingly. Knowingly buying a stolen item can get you charged and convicted.

Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?

Depends what congress has been passing in the way of legislation lately.

I haven't looked, but eBay gives sellers of autos the ability to list the serial number. Do they offer the same for other mechandise, such as computers, musical instruments and bicycles? Seems a good practice to require it.

Re:I'm confused

[Reality Master 101]

As others have pointed out, if a "reasonable person" could think it was stolen (i.e., $1800 laptop for $300), then willful ignorance is no excuse. If you think about it, it makes sense. Otherwise, criminals could launder stolen goods with impunity. All they have to do is claim "I didn't know it was stolen".

In practice, if you buy something stolen but naively thought you were just "getting a good deal", then you'll probably get off with a slap on the wrist. Make it a habit, though, and you'll be in big trouble.

Re:I'm confused

[photon317]

It's illegal to steal a laptop, and if you're caught possessing and/or selling stolen goods, that's automatically probable cause for arrest on charges of theft. Arrest is only the first step in a long process which may or may not lead to the conviction of you or someone else you ratted out on criminal charges.

Re:I'm confused

[rainman_bc]

How many pawn shop owners have been arrested for selling stolen goods unknowingly? They surrepticiously obtain goods below market value all the time.

Re:I'm confused

[slazzy]

It's pretty much the way the law has to work to catch theives. It's rare to catch someone in the act of stealing something, but easy to catch them with it afterwords. A good thing to do before buying anything used is to ask for the serial number before paying, then check with the police to make sure it is not stolen. When the item arrives, check to make sure the serial they gave you matches and the decal is unaltered.

Re:I'm confused

[myth_of_sisyphus]

One night around midnight on Market and 5th in San Francisco, a guy came up to me--he was totally tweaking and said he had a brand-new laptop that he needed to get rid of quickly. I looked at it and it was a Sony Vaio laptop box completely shrinkwrapped with a UPC code sticker on it.

He wanted $200 and I said I had $50 but I wanted to open it. We sat down at a bus stop and I proceeded to open it. He said "Oh shit, cops cops cops...give me the money quick." I gave him the money and walked away. He went the other direction. I went home and opened it.

Guess what was in it? Newspaper wrapped around a block of wood. It had the right heft and it was shrinkwrapped.

I laughed--chalked it up to experience and went on with my life. I saw him later trying the same scam and I kind of smiled to myself. Dumb dum dum dum.

Re:I'm confused

[acsinc]

There are many legitimate business that cell used laptops and cellphones online. I used to work for one. The first thing we would do when we got a computer was to format the hard drive, seems prefectly reasonable to me. In the year I worked for that company we probaly sold over a thousand used computers on eBay and I would be horrorified to find out if any of them were stolen. I would also be pissed if I got arrested for it.

Selling used computers to a used computer dealer is as reasonalbe as selling a used car to a car dealer. The economics are even the similar in terms of dealers paying less than the item is actually worth so that they could make a profit.

It's not like there is a list of stolen computers to look out for when you are in that business. There are no VIN numbers or anything like that.

I have seen a business here in Denver that will list items on eBay for you and treat it like a consignment. Are they running a fence too?

Re:I'm confused

[Reality Master 101]

Hmm, good question. I would imagine that's a hard nut to crack, but I found this link which is interesting regarding some local regulations.

Re:I'm confused

[Vellmont]

This guy's making money by selling laptops and cell phones online. He's a fence.

There's an article in the SFGate that says he posted an ad on craigslist for laptops. If true at the very least he's not a fence that you see in movies where there's an established and re-occouring relationship between the thief and the fence.

I guess I don't see enough evidence in what's come out so far to establish that the guys a fence. I think he must have thought there was something up with the laptop from it being sold at such an incredibly low price ($300, worth $1200). But I'm not sure that a low-low-price alone is enough to establish that something is stolen. If the police search his place and find tons of stolen property, that'd be convincing evidence for me.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I guess that makes Dell a fence. And Cingular.

Except neither of those are obtaining the goods they sell in used condition from random "suspicious looking, but I will take their word anyways" strangers, who part with the said equipment at 1/5th of the going market rate in cash and disappear, just so that he can innocently, in blissful ignorance of the items' origins, resell them later at 500% profit ...

Erhm. He is a fence.

Re:I'm confused

[misterpies]

Maybe that's the position in the US, but in the UK you have to be sure the item was stolen to be convicted for handling. Reasonable suspicion isn't enough.

Re:I'm confused

[MythMoth]

"She seemed suspicious, because she sold me an expensive laptop for such a low price. If the laptop was stolen, I did not know about it. I just took her word for it."

If you're "suspicious" that an item you're going to buy is stolen, then you shouldn't buy it. In the UK at least it is an offence to buy stolen goods while knowing or believing them to be stolen. I'd be very surprised to hear the law was substantially different in the US.

If the facts are as reported, he doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

It's not like there is a list of stolen computers to look out for when you are in that business.

A woman shows up with a laptop worth 4 times the price (in used condition, never mind new) and that would not raise a red flag or two? You would just merilly accept the goods, pay cash and do not bother getting her personal info? Right. Now pull my other leg.

The difference between a fence and a legitimate business is that the fence asks no questions, feigns ignorance and looks the other way when conditions of sale are highly suspicious so that he can make outrageous profit.

Re:I'm confused

[Yumi Saotome]

Actually in this situation, you would liable for the tort of conversion, even if you were a purchaser in good faith (i.e. you didn't know that the laptop was stolen). You could get taken to civil court.

This is one of the basics of American tort law. I'm surprised that there are people who still don't know this.

Re:I'm confused

[KarmaMB84]

Considering the number of people that are throwing away perfectly good computers and buying new just because theirs has a case of spyware and don't know any better? I dunno if them selling it for a couple hundred bucks is suspicious. Perhaps they think the buyer is taking several machines apart and piecing them together into a working machine because they don't know any better.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy working cars for $300, let alone a laptop. What are you talking about?

Re:I'm confused

[moviepig.com]

This guy's making money by selling laptops and cell phones online. He's a fence.

Yes, he's a fence who knew enough to wipe the disk... but apparently not enough to erase the hardware's serial number (nor would I). Even so, is the used-computer market that small, or was he just way unlucky in his choice of buyers?

Re:I'm confused

[dougmc]

A woman shows up with a laptop worth 4 times the price (in used condition, never mind new) and that would not raise a red flag or two?

Yes, but people do sell stuff for a fraction of it's value on a regular basis. If you need $250 right now to bail your boyfriend out of jail, you might sell a laptop for $250 when you know that you might get $1000 for it on eBay if you listed it now and waited seven days. Or maybe she just has no idea what it's actual value is, and just think `it's an old laptop, can't be worth much.'

Or maybe she doesn't doesn't really care -- after all, getting top dollar for something is a lot of work, and requires some skill. If you're selling on eBay, you have to write up a good description, work out your exact specifications of what you're selling, have a good feedback rating, etc. `Top dollar' rarely just falls into your lap, unless you find a sucker. And lots of people are unwilling to go to the extra trouble, even if doing the math means that your two hours of extra work gets you $400 extra, meaning you made $200/hr. People rarely work out the math like that.

Just because something is cheap, that doesn't mean it's stolen. Yes, it should make you consider that as a possiblity, but it's certainly not a given.

Re:I'm confused

[SoLO]

And that is a crime???

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I dunno if them selling it for a couple hundred bucks is suspicious.

It is. A honest businessman would notify the person who is selling of a potential higher value of the equipment, given some service work, and offer a reasonable price. He would also make sure to take personal details of the seller, regardless. It is only because the buyer is a slimey rip-off artist whose morals are non-existant in the fist place, and whose greed is the overriding factor in his actions which leads to him completing such transactions in a hurry as not to "spook" the potential victim. And in the process he becomes a fence as this tactics leads to thieves realizing that he will buy anything, no questions asked, as long as the price is "right".

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Yes, but people do sell stuff for a fraction of it's value on a regular basis. If you need $250 right now to bail your boyfriend out of jail, you might sell a laptop for $250 when you know that you might get $1000 for it on eBay if you listed it now and waited seven days. Or maybe she just has no idea what it's actual value is, and just think `it's an old laptop, can't be worth much.'

In all of these cases it is the buyers fault then if something goes wrong. If you are a businessman who routinely purchases such items, if you are honest, you would notify that person of their error and offer a reasonable price. And you would make damn sure that you knew the item's origin. That tactics would not only guarantee you great reputation and repeat business but also would frighten away all thieves and put your business beyond any suspicion as far as cops are concerned. If you are, on the other hand, a greedy slimeball into taking advantage of people in need ... then you get all the lumps that go with that and I, for one, will offer no sympathy to you.

Just because something is cheap, that doesn't mean it's stolen. Yes, it should make you consider that as a possiblity, but it's certainly not a given.

Which would, of course, were you a legitimate buyer, make you take her personal details and take other precautions. Unless you do not care, which makes you a fence.

Re:I'm confused

[Monte]

Yes, but people do sell stuff for a fraction of it's value on a regular basis. If you need $250 right now to bail your boyfriend out of jail, you might sell a laptop for $250 when you know that you might get $1000 for it on eBay if you listed it now and waited seven days.

Generally those types of "crash" sales aren't going to happen over the internet - which is where this laptop was sold according to TFA. You'd take it to an aquaintence, or a pawn shop or such, and you'd have no problem leaving a copy of your ID as bona fides that it's not hot.

Just because something is cheap, that doesn't mean it's stolen.

Just because smoke is pouring out of a house doesn't mean it's on fire - but a reasonable person would call the fire department anyway. And a reasonable person would think this was a stolen laptop.

Re:I'm confused

[scowling]

A woman shows up with a laptop worth 4 times the price (in used condition, never mind new) and that would not raise a red flag or two? You would just merilly accept the goods, pay cash and do not bother getting her personal info? Right. Now pull my other leg.

Yes. That's exactly what happens in the trade of virtually any form of non-durable goods. You sell it to a dealer, who pays you a tiny fraction of its retail value, often as little as 10%. It raises no red flags at all. People need money fast, and sell things to ready buyers for much less than actual value. Happens tens of thousands of times a day every day, without any laws being broken or any stolen moerchandise being exchanged.

I used to buy used books at 5-10% of face value and resell them for as much as ten times what I paid for them. I'd bet that the vast majority of those books were not stolen. It's not my responsibility to`ensure that they aren't even if they were. Joe Student needs fifty bucks to cover the rent and sells me five hundred bucks' worth of paperbacks. No red flags.

This is legitimate business.

Self-rightousness and ignorance never go together well. Learn how the real world works before you go off half-cocked, OK?

Re:I'm confused

[ArtStone]

>>The first thing we would [...]was to format the hard drive[...] In the year I worked for that company we probaly sold over a thousand used computers on eBay [...]

I think Microsoft may be interested in knowing if any operating system software was installed after the reformat of the hard drive.

Re:I'm confused

[Pantero Blanco]

I've done that three or four times with people selling used computers. Every time, their response has been "I just want to get rid of it so it stops taking up space in my closet." One time the person told me they'd just give it to me if I donated a few dollars to a charity fund they happened to be running. If it was something that doesn't degenerate in value so quickly with age (and get replaced by those who have money even before it degenerates), I might be suspicious, but with a computer? Not likely. Given that it was eBay, I probably would have written down their information, but I wouldn't have sweated over buying it.

Re:I'm confused

[tsm_sf]

A honest businessman would notify the person who is selling of a potential higher value of the equipment, given some service work, and offer a reasonable price.

Every now and then you run across a /. post so far removed from daily existance that you can't help but wonder who's behind it....

I WANT TO BELIEVE

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Yes. That's exactly what happens in the trade of virtually any form of non-durable goods. You sell it to a dealer, who pays you a tiny fraction of its retail value, often as little as 10%. It raises no red flags at all. People need money fast, and sell things to ready buyers for much less than actual value. Happens tens of thousands of times a day every day, without any laws being broken or any stolen moerchandise being exchanged.

Spoken like someone who identifies with dishonest, greedy, slimy fences of the world. Honest businessmen do not buy items at 1/10th price, they buy them at going market rates for such purchases. Slimeball crooks, on the other hand, take advantage of people in need and try to resort to connivery and mis-information to rip the seller off.

I used to buy used books at 5-10% of face value and resell them for as much as ten times what I paid for them. I'd bet that the vast majority of those books were not stolen. It's not my responsibility to`ensure that they aren't even if they were. Joe Student needs fifty bucks to cover the rent and sells me five hundred bucks' worth of paperbacks. No red flags.

Ah yes, the "I didn't get caught so no laws were broken" approach. I have news for you: they very likely were broken. Even though you are unable to comprehend this fact, your not obtaining personal details of goods whose sell price and origin could indicate they were stolen, and doing so routinely, made you a classic fence. You were very lucky to not have one of these "students" getting caught with someone elses' expensive books and then telling the cops of the vast volumes of stolen crap he fenced through you. Or you would be now enjoying the hospitality of the State.

This is legitimate business. Self-rightousness and ignorance never go together well. Learn how the real world works before you go off half-cocked, OK?

Given the above, I gotta ask: you are a libertarian, are you not?

Re:I'm confused

[dougmc]

Generally those types of "crash" sales aren't going to happen over the internet - which is where this laptop was sold according to TFA. You'd take it to an aquaintence, or a pawn shop or such, and you'd have no problem leaving a copy of your ID as bona fides that it's not hot.

If you say so. I buy all sorts of stuff cheap on the Internet, and I don't think it's stolen. And I don't usually take or give ID, though I might if something really didn't seem legitimate, though I'd be reluctant to have a complete stranger making a copy of my ID.

Just because smoke is pouring out of a house doesn't mean it's on fire - but a reasonable person would call the fire department anyway.

Bad analogy. In fact, that analogy is worse than most.

And a reasonable person would think this was a stolen laptop.

Nope. I find stuff listed on austin.forsale and the local craigslist that's sold for a small fraction of what it's worth on a regular basis. I generally don't think it's stolen, even though I know I could turn around and sell it on eBay for 3x what I bought it for. Sometimes I even buy it, much to my wife's dismay.

Of course, in these cases, I usually know their email address, often a phone number, where they live (since I picked it up) ... it's hardly anonymous.

About two years ago I picked up a 20/40 GB DLT drive at a garage sale for $10. Works fine. To buy one would cost hundreds of dollars, perhaps close to $1000, yet I have no reason to believe it to be stolen.

Now, if somebody were to come up to me on the street and say `psst, want to buy a laptop?' then I'd be very suspicious. The odds would be very good that it's stolen, or that it's a block of wood wrapped up in paper (preying on my greed.) I don't usually work that way.

But just because something is cheap, that does not mean it's stolen.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

If it was something that doesn't degenerate in value so quickly with age (and get replaced by those who have money even before it degenerates), I might be suspicious, but with a computer? Not likely. Given that it was eBay, I probably would have written down their information, but I wouldn't have sweated over buying it.

Note that in our story the laptop was sold later for $1100. So what you allude to is not the case here, it must have been of recent manufacture and reasonable quality. If the item was worth only $50 when you resold it, I could see you argument. But we are discussing items which these people resell at 4 times the price after some quick "cleanups". Ergo a dishonest practice.

Re:I'm confused

[myth_of_sisyphus]

Maybe I should have posted anon on that story.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Every now and then you run across a /. post so far removed from daily existance that you can't help but wonder who's behind it.... I WANT TO BELIEVE

You might be surprised to hear that most legitimate businesses do precisely what I described (at least around here in Canada). Sure there are crooks but a typical business person is actually afraid to purchase something at such low price because he is concerned that there is something in the items history he is unaware of, and thus he is anxious not to get stung. In most cases the potential profit is simply not worth the exorbitant risk.

On the other hand your experience could be dealing exclusively with pawn shops and the like in suspicious neighbourhoods. Of which, around 100% are in the "fence" business.

Re:I'm confused

[scowling]

I despise libertarians as much as I despise know-it-alls who actually know nothing and ignorantly accuse others of malfeasance because their actions don't suit some form of misplaced self-righteousness.

I have news for you: no, they weren't. The conceit that you must have to summon in order to make some kind of prediction about the bulk of the thousands and thousands of books I bought and sold -- the sheer gall that you, who are utterly ignorant, know more about what I did for a living than I, who did it for seven years... ...fuck, man. There are things that are wrong with you that no doctor could cure.

I am not "lucky" to never have been arrested. I have done no wrong. I had no reason to believe that any of those books were stolen. Know why? Because I have myself sold books, when I have needed the money, at 5% of face. Therefore, it happens legally. Therefore, a reasonable man could claim that he didn't know they were stolen, if they were. And they weren't.

Honest businessmen don't buy items at 10% of retail? Are you fucking kidding me? I have to wonder if you have ever bought anything used, sold anything used, or for that matter worked a day in your life. The sheer blinkered stupidity you are exhibiting is what I would expect from some silver-spoon Ivy League asshole who has utterly clueless about ow the real world works and whose parents provided them with every dollar they ever needed. Sometimes 1/20th of face IS fair market value. If I have too much stock of Item X, and you offer to sell me another, I'm going to pay you less than I would if I had no stock. Or I could offer you nothing. If you need the money, would you prefer that I pay you 5% or that I refuse to buy it at all?

You are an idiot. You are worse than an idiot; you are an idiot who doesn't understand that he's an idiot, despite his appropriate nickname.

Re:I'm confused

[Lally Singh]

I'm not trying to take sides in this, but a lot of businesses that do that, take in a fraction of its worth, do it because they're not sure they can sell it.

Buy 3 laptops @ 300, sell 1 @ 1000, try and recycle the parts on the other two for $10. Profit: $110. Not terribly great. And lots of used electronics businesses go under for exactly that reason.

Pawn shops have lots of useless inventory. Stuff they'll often have to trash. There's value in a guaranteed sale. Ever look at how much a car dealer offers you for a car, compared to what you can get if you sell it yourself? The dealer's offering less because he's also offering the service of a zero-hassle sale.

My point is that risk is a major factor in price. A $300 laptop is only worth $1200 if you can sell it. Did this guy even know it was working? A laptop with a flaky LCD is suddenly worth a lot less.

Re:I'm confused

[rainman_bc]

My favourite line from that line:

Often times you can pay the pawn shop the amount of money they paid for the property and have the money returned to you.

So a pawn shop owner buys stolen property, and you have to pay them to recover it??? Crazy...

So if an individual is in posession of stolen goods it's a felony, but if it's a pawn shop it doesn't matter? That's just stupid.

Re:I'm confused

[tsm_sf]

Ahh, I see what you're getting at. I think the point of contention here is the $300 price tag for a (let's say) $2000 laptop. Is this such a good deal that someone who looks for great deals for a living would pass it by? Is someone who looks for great deals for a living morally compelled to offer fair market value when buying low? I'd say no to both.

It would have been smart of him to photocopy drivers licenses though.

Re:I'm confused

[Emperor Cezar]

If I would have seen him again. I would have beat the money back out of him.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I have news for you: no, they weren't.

How would you know? Either you are truly duplicitous or are incapable of understanding these simple facts: you yourself claimed to be reselling large amounts of fire-sale priced items with no verification. Thus: volume+suspicious pricing+no checks = very high probability of resale of stolen goods. It is dead simple.

The conceit that you must have to summon in order to make some kind of prediction about the bulk of the thousands and thousands of books I bought and sold...(emhasis mine)

Ah I see, so now in order to be a fence, a bulk of ones sales has to be in stolen goods? Glad to know, I am sure this will be the new defense of every fence in the USA and abroad. "No your Honour! I only sold 20% of dodgy goods! I am innocent!"

Also, quite a nice strawman here, since at no point did I mention "bulk" of anything.

I had no reason to believe that any of those books were stolen. Know why? Because I have myself sold books, when I have needed the money, at 5% of face. Therefore, it happens legally. Therefore, a reasonable man could claim that he didn't know they were stolen, if they were. And they weren't.

This is insane logic. Because, you, once, felt that it was "legitimate" to sell your stuff at 5% value (and some asshole took advantage of you paying you that), therefore, it is happening all the time to everyone. Furthermore, all your "customers" were in such a jam all the time and under no circumstances there could be other possible reasons for such low price to be offered to you, right? And they were all honest and upstanding citizens, you would give your right hand for .... cause they were ... err ... like from the same school! Yeah, thats it!

As I said, it is near certain that you were at some point or another fencing goods.

Honest businessmen don't buy items at 10% of retail?

Dont try to weasel out now, it is unbecoming. We were discussing 10% of going market value of the items, in their current condition. Not 10% of some hypotetical retail price in an upmarket, exclusive store. In the case of the parent article, the laptop's market value was at $1100 and it was bought at $300, i.e. around 1/4th the going rate. Its retail price, which is utterly irellevant and was not even mentioned was very likely far in excess of $1100.

Are you fucking kidding me? I have to wonder if you have ever bought anything used, sold anything used, or for that matter worked a day in your life ... [more rantings at strawmen skipped] ... You are an idiot. You are worse than an idiot; you are an idiot who doesn't understand that he's an idiot, despite his appropriate nickname.

Perheaps your pitiful insults would have more sting, had you not managed to make such a complete fool out of yourself by not even being able to comprehend the topic of the discussion which you are attempting to join.

Re:I'm confused

[Karma Farmer]

Is this such a good deal that someone who looks for great deals for a living would pass it by?

Every single person I've ever met who look for "great deals" for a living was either a fence or a con artists. Every. Single. One.

There is a huge difference between people who routinely buy used goods at a reasonable discount and people who routinely buying used goods at an unreasonable discount. And, the people who buy used goods at an unreasonable discount usually go to jail.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK at least it is an offence to buy stolen goods while knowing or believing them to be stolen

Out of curiosity then, is it an offence to buy goods if you believe they're stolen, but they actually aren't?

Do you brits have mind reading machines to find out what people believed when they were purchasing?

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I'm not trying to take sides in this, but a lot of businesses that do that, take in a fraction of its worth, do it because they're not sure they can sell it.

Most will do so on consignment then. If the items are hard to sell, their market price suffers accordingly. You know, supply/demand, aka that old thing called the "free market".

Pawn shops have lots of useless inventory. Stuff they'll often have to trash.

But pawn shops are consignment stores. You can get your stuff back should you bring the cash they "lent" you back. And for that reason they are specially prone to being involved in fencing and thus continuously monitored by the cops.

There's value in a guaranteed sale. Ever look at how much a car dealer offers you for a car, compared to what you can get if you sell it yourself? The dealer's offering less because he's also offering the service of a zero-hassle sale.

True, you are paying for the service of the dealer in reselling. But the discount is measured in 5-20% range, at most. Not 75% of the price.

My point is that risk is a major factor in price. A $300 laptop is only worth $1200 if you can sell it. Did this guy even know it was working? A laptop with a flaky LCD is suddenly worth a lot less.

That is why most legitimate businesses wont touch such items, at such low proce, because they would fear precisely such a problem. If they would sell the laptop at $1100 and then get the irate customer screaming back at them, the thing is not worth the hassle. Such low price would raise these and other red flags and would prompt a legitimate dealer to be extra vigilant. The dude did precisely the opposite. He got greedy.

Re:I'm confused

[Sj0]

Interesting. You can tell all that from the fact that this guy bought a laptop. I think someone needs to lay off the self-rightousness.

Re:I'm confused

[tsm_sf]

Yeah, I took it at face value until I went back and read all of his posts on this thread...

I'm calling troll.

Re:I'm confused

[Sj0]

omg i bot this dell for 300 dollers cud i go to jail!!!!!1111111

omfg im not joking dude i dun wanna go to jail!!!11111111111

Re:I'm confused

[tsm_sf]

Why post on a 2nd account? This is getting weirder and weirder, dude. Nobody is going to buy into your bizarre up-is-down economic theory, and yet you post the exact same proposal again and again.

Perhaps you could simply point us to your website? I read the timecube one, rest assured I'd give you a fair hearing.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Interesting. You can tell all that from the fact that this guy bought a laptop.

... and the fact that it was a stolen one ... and that he bought it at 1/4th market price ... and that he did so from a "suspicious woman" (his words) ... and that he did not ask for her personal information but instead greedily bought the thing with cash ... and that he was in "business" of selling such items before ... you get the idea.

I think someone needs to lay off the self-rightousness.

Self-rightousness? And here I thought it was mere common sense. Silly me.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Is this such a good deal that someone who looks for great deals for a living would pass it by?

If you are in business, this is simply a warning that there is something potentially wrong with the item. Thus you should assess the risk/profit ratio. A typical, legitimate businessman will shy away because of the uncertainty. Or he will at least take stingent precautions (such as take the item to be evaluated on consignment first etc). A crook will jump at the opportunity to make a quick buck and will look the other way if there is something suspicious about the item.

Is someone who looks for great deals for a living morally compelled to offer fair market value when buying low?

Compelled? No. He is merely well advised, from a business stand point, to do so. If he is a honest, legitimate businessman, that is. Some one-off bargrain hunter might try to get greedy and take the risk but even he should take precautions, such as verifying the sellers identity and keeping records.

Re:I'm confused

[vandel405]

I'm sure the police thought he was the theif.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

btw your tshirt site is boring. And the way you explain what brand of shirts you use... sad. Why not tell the truth, that you use whatever was the lowest price at the time. Which means you always use sweatshop made shirts.

Re:I'm confused

[Mr. Underbridge]

There are many legitimate business that cell used laptops and cellphones online. I used to work for one. The first thing we would do when we got a computer was to format the hard drive, seems prefectly reasonable to me. In the year I worked for that company we probaly sold over a thousand used computers on eBay and I would be horrorified to find out if any of them were stolen. I would also be pissed if I got arrested for it.

The question is where you were getting them, and what you actually did to ensure that they were legitimately owned by the people selling them to you. If you value your reputation and want no trouble with the law, you should probably make an effort to not resell stolen goods.

As you should know if you're in the business, you can quite often tell if the person trying to sell it stole it. Does it come with all the accessories, or at least the bulk of them? Do they have any of the manuals? Do they actually know anything about the computer? Can they tell you what programs they used with it? Can they log on to it successfully? None of these is a guarantee, but by spending a few minutes you can eliminate most of the thieves, and probably deter the rest.

You should be able to tell within a couple of minutes whether someone is selling a stolen computer over 90% of the time. To follow your analogy, this guy basically bought a car from someone who didn't have the title, registration, or keys, and was happy to take 25% of the car's value to be rid of it. Yeah, if the buyer goes for that, they should definitely suspect the car is stolen.

Re:I'm confused

[Sancho]

Dumb dum dum dum? I hope you aren't talking about him. It's not at all "dumb" to learn that you can get $50 for pretty much nothing. Now if you'd caught him early and beat the crap out of him, yeah, it'd be dumb to try again.

Re:I'm confused

[loraksus]

And you're a fucking idiot.
There have been several times in the last couple of months where you could buy modern laptops (new, from retail stores) for as cheap as $300. Even so, the price on laptops has dropped quite a bit and you really don't even have to look around very long to find a laptop for $600 and change.
In fact, here is one for $674.
It took me all of 15 fucking seconds to find it (literally). Had I wanted to find something better, I easily could of have. Sadly, Dell got anally raped last quarter, so it will be a bit harder to find something for 5 and change, but during the past couple of months, I don't believe that there was one day without a $500-$600 dell laptop deal.
This totally ignores government auctions and the fact that some people need to sell their shit "now" to pay for rent or so that Guido won't break his legs, etc.
So, really, $300 isn't completely off the wall when it comes to someone selling a used laptop and is a perfectly reasonable price unless you're a mouthbreathing redneck who goes to "Best Buy" to decide what laptop prices are.
Feel free to yell "fence, fence!" and apply that label to everyone who sells "hi tech" stuff online, but perhaps you should Try Thinking (TM).

Re:I'm confused

[scowling]

You said "vast volumes", which implies "bulk".

You're a liar, a moron and a troll. Fuck off.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not my responsibility to ensure that they aren't even if they were. Yes it is. It's called "receiving stolen property".

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

You said "vast volumes", which implies "bulk".

I said "vast volumes" which implies... "vast volumes". Pehreaps hundreds of these "thousands upon thousands" of books of yours. Perheaps more. The term is purposefully imprecise, as to imply a potentially large quantity, without defining it. If I meant "bulk of" I would have said "bulk of" or "majority of" or "lion share of" or some such. All of which are relative terms. You, yourself made that extrapolation and now are attempting to bluster your way out of it.

You're a liar ...

Except that I told no lie, you imagined so.

... a moron and a troll. Fuck off.

Ah yes, the inevietable appearance of the word "fuck" once all other "arguments" fail. A sure sign of a great intellect.

Re:I'm confused

[Cylix]

That's not completely fair.

I've made plenty of good buys just because someone either tires of what they have or needs some extra cash.

If you want to scrounge and look for deals then you can really move. If you can afford to do this and have the desire, energy and time... a modern day trader is born.

I see it all the time on major auction sites. (Not ebay which I rarely see good deals on and no I'm not telling... I don't need any more competition... I'm just a consumer fighting among the big fish)

So if you can afford to move lots of cheap stuff to other consumers... it might look like a fence, but it's more then plausible.

I know... you are thinking... cheap laptop... gotta be hot. This is entirely not always the case. I've had already a handful of offers this year, but I generally pass the info onto my friends. Sometimes it's great and sometimes you get bitten six months down the road. (Yeah, I should really fix my friends laptop soon... he probably hates me now)

So do I think he knew it was stolen? I'm really divided on this, but I have to apply past experience and understand it is plausible.

So now, it comes down to the courts and if I'm correct recieving stolen goods is certainly illegal despite ignorance. I still believe that can be over looked if the jury feels its genuine and they should not harm this soul in society.

Re:I'm confused

[name773]

"Fencing is not a legal activity."

En garde!

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say, you're both living up to your nicks. He sure seems grumpy and scowling and you're proving to be quite ignorant.

Kudos to you both.

Re:I'm confused

[spiritraveller]

It's illegal to buy a laptop from someone if it turns out that laptop was stolen, even if you didn't know that when you bought it? Is it also illegal for me to think that's excessive?

No. It's illegal to buy a laptop when you know or should know that it is stolen. Obviously, this guy should have known that it was stolen... And we don't necessarily believe him when he says that the lady told him it was not.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nice, but why should anyone outside Microsoft care? Even "contributory infringement" (the most fscked-up part of copyright law) doesn't apply to merely selling an erased medium on which infringement may or may not occur later, and there's a lot of free software which can be used for smoke tests.

Re:I'm confused

[E8086]

"A woman shows up with a laptop worth 4 times the price (in used condition, never mind new) and that would not raise a red flag or two?"

1000 12" iBooks for $50 each?

Not everyone knows the resale value of a computer. I've seen plenty of Dell and Gateway commercials advertising laptops for $400-$500 so it's possible she didn't know the real value of it, that is if she wasn't trying to unload stolen merchandise.

"The difference between a fence and a legitimate business is that the fence asks no questions, feigns ignorance and looks the other way when conditions of sale are highly suspicious so that he can make outrageous profit."

"freshman who makes money selling computers and cell-phones online, says he bought the laptop for $300"

He's obviously not a legitimate business, he's a college kid possibly trying to make some spending money. When I make a person to person transaction in cash I don't ask for personal info. If I'm buying I'll listen to their story of why they're selling it and if I believe them I'll agree to the sale, but I don't deal in items over $100.

It's a college, lots od people leave lots of things laying around and I don't think the finder has any legal obligation to try to return it. It may not be considered morally right, but it is legal. A friend found a PC, at most a few months old, in a dumpster when moving into his dorm room, he kept it. I worked for the housing dept for part of a summer until I got more hours with my computer lab/help desk job. The policy is if items are left in the room they're thrown out and the former resident is fined for "failure to leave room in move-in condition" and everything is thrown out. Once it's in the trash it's free game for anyone who wants it. Most of the time it's old clothes and no one wants to touch it with a 10' pole. If it's a nice chair or a fan it's appropriated for the staff rest area. We found an older eMachine and it was taken by one of the full time staff for her son.

I consider it clear that she's guilty, but it is understandable that someone will accept something no questions asked if they're poor and they can make a profit.

Re:I'm confused

[Kadin2048]

In your last paragraph you actually make the most salient point I've seen so far in this discussion: what a "reasonable" person would do.

I think this is the best point so far, because (at least where I live, and have been advised on good authority) it's how the law works. If a reasonable and prudent person would have had good reason to suspect that the goods were stolen, then you're in trouble. If not, then no harm done.

It's to combat the old scenario of a police officer catching someone who just bought a VCR out of the back of a truck and saying "well gee, officer, I didn't think they were stolen!" Yeah right. So you throw the case in front of a jury box and see what a few more-or-less randomly selected people think. Generally it's not hard to predict which way they'll go.

If you're buying something at significantly less than the prevailing market price, in cash without a receipt, anonymously, chances are something is wrong either with the situation or the item in question. Not always, but usually.

In this case, I'm immediately suspicious because the police chose to arrest this guy, but not the end buyer (the dude who called IBM's support line). Obviously they think something's hinky with him. Unless he pleads out, it'll be between him and his lawyer and the prosecutor and the jury to figure out whether he should have known better.

Re:I'm confused

[scowling]

I'm ignorant? I have real-world experience. He doesn't. He's full of shit. I'm not.

Fuck off, coward.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

He's obviously not a legitimate business,he's a college kid possibly trying to make some spending money.

All the more reason for him to be on the lookout for scams and stolen goods. Last thing a kid in college wants is a rap sheet.

Once it's in the trash it's free game for anyone who wants it.

If this is a written policy on the campus and the students are aware of it and signed off on it in their agreements with the college, then by all means. Except that this has nothing to do with the problem at hand. If he was buying one such "found" items (and I am not sure what the legalities of selling found items are) he would still need some sort of record confirming that it was so. In that case the cops would simply leave him be and go after her. And we would not be having this discussion.

I consider it clear that she's guilty, but it is understandable that someone will accept something no questions asked if they're poor and they can make a profit.

That is a very dangerous and wrongheaded attitude. No one is suggesting that people who can use such gifts do not accept them, only that they are aware of the need to keep proper, hoever minimal, records of them. Because otherwise not only you are exposing yourself to legitimate charges of possession of stolen goods, but also to all sorts of abuse of the legal system from various underhanded individuals, who might find it advantageous to "give" you things, with which they can later harm you greatly by notifying the police of their "stolen" status.

Re:I'm confused

[E8086]

"A honest businessman would notify the person who is selling of a potential higher value of the equipment"

It was a person to person sale on ebay, not a full business transaction. A lot of people use it the way they would a garage sale or flea market, they really don't care how much they get for the item as long as they can get it out of their closet and get a few dollars for it. Think of me as you want, but when I'm lucky enough to find something on ebay with with a 'buy it now' of $5 I'm going to buy it for $5 even if I've seen the same item in similar condition selling for $30 or more. I'm not going to tell them they could possibly sell it for 6 times the amount they're asking.
A slight variation on that would be asking BestBuy to sell their products for what they're really worth, without the 40% markup or telling people where they can they can get it for less.

Ebay is a mostly open unsensored forum for used goods. By using it your risking buying a stolen or bootleg or broken item. We don't know the story the thief told him when selling it, full of malware and would her cost too much to have it serviced or it was a used ibook she got for $50 and selling at $300 is s 500% profit for her or a friend or roommate got a new PC and was going to throw it out and she offered to take it. If I were to buy a used laptop I wouldn't pay more than $300 either because of the chance I might be the one getting ripped off. For all I know it may have a faulty fan and overheats after 20min of use and she didn't get one of the fancy extended warranty packages and the repair isn't covered.

As far as I'm concerned the ebay buyer and seller are the innocent people who got scammed. For all we know she knew he had a hobby of buying and selling electronics and fast talked him into thinking she was the legal owner of the laptop, after all she was a thief trying to sell off stolen goods.

Where did all the info on the ebay seller come from? The post has a link to CNN which says nothing of the ebay seller and the purchase and sale price.

Re:I'm confused

[Lord Kano]

As far as what he "knew", unless the person told him that the property was stolen how would he have "known"?

He should have believed. He should have suspected. He should have thought; and I have no doubt that he did all of those things, but he wouldn't "know" unless he was told.

Unless you have actual constructive knowledge, you don't "know".

Regardless, it's STILL illegal to traffic in stolen goods, even if you don't know that they're stolen.

LK

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Kelley Blue Book says my used car's suggested retail value is $2860 but its trade-in value is only $850. That means the typical dealer markup in this range, after negotiation, is over 230%. Retailers of new consumer goods commonly add 100% markup over their wholesale cost, and they've already avoided a lot of risks. Hardly any arbitrageur could survive on a pathetic 5-20% markup, unless they're handling something completely fungible like fuel or financial instruments. The fair (market-clearing) price varies tremendously depending on which participants are under pressure.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Think of me as you want, but when I'm lucky enough to find something on ebay with with a 'buy it now' of $5 I'm going to buy it for $5 even if I've seen the same item in similar condition selling for $30 or more.

In that context you are OK as the whole mechanics of eBay sale indicates that the seller is aware of the going market prices (from the very eBay itself) and is commiting regardless. You are also covered legally because the eBay transaction is your "proof of purchase". Should the item be stolen, you have a reliable way of deflecting the law onto the seller.

Things turn ugly when you are the seller on eBay as it was the case of the anti-hero of the article, since now you need the record of your "upstream" source of the items.

As far as I'm concerned the ebay buyer and seller are the innocent people who got scammed. For all we know she knew he had a hobby of buying and selling electronics and fast talked him into thinking she was the legal owner of the laptop, after all she was a thief trying to sell off stolen goods.

The buyer, yes. You did notice that the law was not interested in him, he had his "proof of purchase". The seller, no. He was involved in a shady, face-to-face, cash only deal where even he (according to the article) felt the lady was acting "suspicious". And yet, overpowered by his greed, he decided to forego any inquiries into the source of the laptop and accepted her word at face value and demanded no identification of her. At best he was reckless, but more likely, he was quite acutely aware of the shady nature of the deal and yet gambled on not getting caught. And lost.

Where did all the info on the ebay seller come from? The post has a link to CNN which says nothing of the ebay seller and the purchase and sale price.

From the Slashdot writeup. But it would not be the first time if the Slashdot editors are out to lunch.

Re:I'm confused

[E8086]

"Every single person I've ever met who look for "great deals" for a living was either a fence or a con artists. Every. Single. One."

Then you have unfortunately met the kind that gives that kind a bad name.

Buy something for free or over 50% off after rebate, cut off barcode without opening the box, send in rebate, resell as new. Even if it only sells for 75% of the market price it's still a 25% profit. Or buy used PC for $200, add more memory and maybe a larger hdd and sell for $500. The price difference depends on the value of your labor. A professional repair or upgrade can be $90 a session plus $75/hr. Or make some connections with a whole saler and buy at wholesale+5% and sell at wholesale+30% or more depending on how the ebay auction goes, it's still less than the at least wholesale+50% retail price. It's win-win, the buyer pays less than rip-off retail and you make at least 25% profit.

Dell frequently has 50% off offers. You can buy a new Dell laptop for $750 and post it on ebay with a 'buy it now' of at least $1250. Anyone who doesn't know about the 50% off offers will be happy to pay less than the $1500 retail list price and you make around $500 each.

Then it depends on you definition of "con artist" Is someone who buys new at $750 and resells new at $1250 a con artist, I'd say no.

Re:I'm confused

[Halfbaked Plan]

That's very similar to the Nigerian Scam on a certain level.

The crook 'involved' you in the conspiracy in a way, by saying 'cops cops' and forcing you to a decision to collaborate with him 'against the system' to get a good deal.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

$300 is completely off-the-wall for a laptop high-end enough that you can turn around and sell for three and a half times that. Only a "fucking idiot" wouldn't take little details like that into consideration when commenting on a story. Perhaps you should "Try Thinking" yourself?

No, nevermind. I wouldn't want you to strain yourself, you're probably a big enough drain on society without being hospitalized from a stroke.

Re:I'm confused

[jred]

Any car that you can drive away is worth $500. If it'll pass inspection it's worth $750+

Re:I'm confused

[E8086]

sounds familiar

from a co-worker:
a guy walks into the bar he and a friend are in asking if anyone wants to buy a new comuter for $400. His friend haggles it down to $250, he goes home opens it and finds a case full of cut up phone books. A few days later he sees the guy walking down the street in the same area and runs after him. A cop drives buy and is told the accusation. The cop makes the seller open his van and they find a couple cases full of phone books and potatoes.

Re:I'm confused

[E8086]

"Obviously, this guy should have known that it was stolen... And we don't necessarily believe him when he says that the lady told him it was not."

It may not be so obvious,
Most of the comments seem to assume that since the thief is female she doesn't know how to operate a computer and that the buyer/reseller being male should have known better. I know a few girls who can find their way around a PC and I know guys who don't, they're called PROFIT. It's obvious he knows how to buy and sell computers, but reformating and reinstalling Windows is mostly automated and doesn't require much skill.

The laptop was stolen from a restricted area so she may be an experienced laptop thief. It doesn't take that much effort to reformat and reinstall windows then install kazaa and click on a bunch of banner adds to get Windows full of spyware to the point of unusability, a perfect checkable cover story in about 2hrs. Someone says she just got a new computer and knowing you buy used computers offers to sell you her old one. You turn it on and have her login and the screen promptly fills with popups. You examine the outside and do not see any markings to even suggest that she is not the legal owner. The posting says sold for $300, but doesn't say who made the offer and called the laptop "expensive" but that's a relative term, I consider a laptop over $1000 to be expensive while someone else may call over $2500 expensive, it only sold for $1159, it couldn't have been that expensive. He could have made the 'generous' offer of $300, thinking she didn't know any better, realizing the chance for a larger profit($800) from the resale. Or he made the low offer of $300 because he wasn't sure how easily he could sell it.

If the sale happened that way I don't see how he could have known he was buying stolen goods. Sales of computer hardware like that happen all the time at colleges and are almost always cash&carry sold as is, no returns, refunds, or exchanges and checking ID doesn't happen. I wouldn't let an individual have/make a copy of my ID. Yes, he was doing something business-like by selling on ebay, but he's not a registered business and I woundn't even let him see an ID card. All he'd be guilty of is poor record keeping and if he doesn't make enough he doesn't have to report it to the IRS so good book keeping probably doesn't matter. The most he probably has is a notebook or office doc with a brief description and the puchase and sale amounts to keep track of PROFIT.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC the Kelly Blue Book trade-in value makes fewer assumptions about the condition of your car then the Kelly Blue Book retail value does. Basically it former assumes some shitty cars get traded in but the latter doesn't assume that they are sold again.

Re:I'm confused

[MythMoth]

Out of curiosity then, is it an offence to buy goods if you believe they're stolen, but they actually aren't?

I'm not a lawyer. My guess is "yes", but that it never arises in practice.

Do you brits have mind reading machines to find out what people believed when they were purchasing?

No, we have courts of law that convict people when an offence is proven "beyond reasonable doubt". Since the guy has apparently said that he thought it was suspicious, it seems unlikely that a jury would acquit him of handling stolen goods.

And if you think that's unreasonable, you've presumably never had your stuff stolen.

Re:I'm confused

[Mr. Underbridge]

And you're deliberately being a douchebag. I imagine because you can find a black and white TV for $10, that I shouldn't be suspicious when I find someone selling a big screen for $5? Just because you can find some piece of shit laptop for $300 doesn't mean that every laptop has a similar value. Good Christ, use some damned logic.

Is the guy who bought it an idiot, he paid 4x as much as the fence bought it for! The fence in this question knows what market value for a laptop is, and I do not believe there was no way he could have figured this thing was stolen.

Feel free to yell "fence, fence!" and apply that label to everyone who sells "hi tech" stuff online, but perhaps you should Try Thinking (TM).

Fuck off moron, take your condescending, insulting bullshit and strawman arguments elsewhere. Or are you so sensitive because you sell stolen goods online too?

Re:I'm confused

[Karma Farmer]

Then it depends on you definition of "con artist" Is someone who buys new at $750 and resells new at $1250 a con artist, I'd say no.

He is a scumbag. And, if he's doing it enough to make a living at it, full time, then he's probably breaking a few laws...

Re:I'm confused

[cableshaft]

We were discussing 10% of going market value of the items, in their current condition.

I brought a lot of my games in to EBgames recently after checking the price they go for used on ebay/amazon (before shipping, even), and they offered less than 20% of that amount (and the price they go for in their stores) on all but 4 of the games I brought in. 5 of the games they offered 10% of what they sell them for in the store. Needless to say, I only said yes to the 4 they offered about 35% for, but only because I really wanted to knock the price down on the DS and wanted to walk out with one.

But my roommate did the same recently without even bothering to check their market value and traded in most of his collection (I can always buy them back later, he said). And I'm sure he's not the only one who does this, or else I have a feeling the prices they offer would be better.

And EBgames is a large, corporate company. So are they honest businessmen? (I'd argue not, but I'm actually willing to sell these things online, the only alternative in the games world anymore since Gamespot and EBGames --soon to merge into one company, by the way-- are the only brick and mortar places to find used games nowadays in most places in the US).

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Dell frequently has 50% off offers. You can buy a new Dell laptop for $750 and post it on ebay with a 'buy it now' of at least $1250. Anyone who doesn't know about the 50% off offers will be happy to pay less than the $1500 retail list price and you make around $500 each.

I knew about the offers, but unfortunately due to parasites like you, all the decent laptops get snapped up within seconds of appearing on the site. So I got to pay a middle man a substantial portion of what I would have saved. I hope you get cancer.

Re:I'm confused

[ComputerSlicer23]

Lets see, that makes Baseball cards sales, and diamond wholesalers in close to in the market of "dishonest practice".

I know that when I was collecting cards you could only get 40-50% of their face value when selling them to a store. Diamonds are generally sold at 2-3 times their wholesale price at jewlery stores. You surely can't sell them back to the stores for more then 25-50% of what you paid for them.

Now in computers generally the margin is much lower, but I've known lots of reputable resellers who sold stuff at way over a reasonable price. They also way under paid. That's just how the second hand market works.

All that said, there's nothing to say this guy isn't a fence dealing in stolen goods. However, the change in price by a factor of 4 isn't that far from any number of reputable business practices you see all the time.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So are they honest businessmen?

Apparently not.

by the way-- are the only brick and mortar places to find used games nowadays in most places in the US,

Actually, this specific problem could be related to the legal risk factor, which such a place as EB is exposing itself to by trading in DRM/"Intellectual Property" encumbered material. It is a can full of lawsuits waiting to happen.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Lets see, that makes Baseball cards sales, and diamond wholesalers in close to in the market of "dishonest practice".

Of course. Both are scams for the gullible. Both of these types of items have value which is arbitrarily assigned to them trough hype, connivery, lack of basic unerstanding of commerce etc, instead by true supply/demand equations. If anything, the baseball cards are more resembling of a marketplace although their supply is also completely artifically constrained. Thiose things are in the same boat as the 1970s "pet rock".

It is a well known facts that diamond mines produce many times the amount of the market demand quantity of diamonds, and so vast multi-national cartels which control 100% of the market are stockpiling literally metric tons upon metic tons of diamonds in order to manipulate the retail price. If true supply/demand mechanisms were allowed to take effect, the price of cut diamonds would be close to that of high-quality quartz. There are even at this point several companies capable of manufacturing diamonds which are for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the real thing and which have to be now artifically marked so that the dealers do not get confused. It is one of the examples of a complete and utter failure of laissez-faire capitalist marketplace and a prime example of what happens if the governments are not aggressively busting cartels, oligarchies and monopolies, which, contrary to what various wacky libertarians will tell you, are the natural apex of progression of laissez-faire capitalist corporate structures.

However, the change in price by a factor of 4 isn't that far from any number of reputable business practices you see all the time.

Skip the word "reputable" and we will agree. Diamonds, baseball cards, mass "pop" culture and similiar scams, pyramid schemes and other marketplace aberrations are not "honest" nor "reputable" business.

Re:I'm confused

[loraksus]

And you're deliberately being a douchebag.
Yeah, I agree with you on that. I can't tolerate idiots.

I imagine because you can find a black and white TV for $10, that I shouldn't be suspicious when I find someone selling a big screen for $5?

And you accuse me of using strawmans.
ooh kay... Can you even consider it a strawman if it is so blindlingly stupid?

Is the guy who bought it an idiot, he paid 4x as much as the fence bought it for!
uhh, yeah. $1200 for a 6 month old (at least) X40, off ebay at that. Dur Cletus, lets buy Anna-May-Beth a laptop for school!

Fuck off moron, take your condescending, insulting bullshit
Heheh, that would be more amusing if you ended that with "you fucking stupid cocksucking son of a cum guzzling whore" or something. Nice try though.

Or are you so sensitive because you sell stolen goods online too?
Ooh. Good one. I guess you read ignoramusmaximus's posts and picked up one of his lines. Long live YUO STOLZORZ TEH LAPTOPS AND $ELL$ DEM ON TEH INTARWEB!

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

He should have been watched, not arrested. He's at college, a stolen property nexus. If he's a fence you could just sit back while he rings up the charges. And an arrest for one offense isn't going to scare anybody else.

Re:I'm confused

[Mr. Underbridge]

I imagine because you can find a black and white TV for $10, that I shouldn't be suspicious when I find someone selling a big screen for $5? And you accuse me of using strawmans. ooh kay... Can you even consider it a strawman if it is so blindlingly stupid?

Really? It was exactly the same as your original "logic." If it's so stupid, you should certainly be able to express why.

Your insistence on using ad hominem attacks and insults in the place of logic to attack people for no particular reason on a message board smacks of a lack of intelligence and some sort of social pathology. I'd seek some counselling, that sort of thing really isn't healthy.

Re:I'm confused

[Fastolfe]

Though you didn't specify which "congress" you were talking about, I should point out (for the benefit of other readers) that these laws are not defined at the federal level.

For the most part, any laws related to theft, or receiving/selling stolen goods, are defined at the locality (or perhaps state) level in the US. To put it another way, while most localities will have similar laws in this regard (you're only guilty of selling stolen property if you had reason to believe it was stolen), they're not guaranteed to be identical. Some localities may treat this situation differently.

Re:I'm confused

[Fastolfe]

Replying to myself, I did just note another post that said he sold this to someone in another state, which I didn't realize. This could potentially make the crime a federal one, and subject to federal laws. So nevermind.

Re:I'm confused

[Lally Singh]

Actually, I was thinking about normal retail. Retail often has 5-10x markup on its products, just to cover operating costs.

Also, game shops that buy back your old games have the same problem. They won't call you back if your game doesn't sell.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Actually, I was thinking about normal retail. Retail often has 5-10x markup on its products, just to cover operating costs.

That is a highly unusual markup for typical goods. Most stores would be extremely happy with 20%, which is considered "very, very good" for most items. I am exempting the so called "luxury" stores (read "idiot bait") which routinely sell, say, a leather bag which costs $20 to make for $8000 because it has a meaningless name of a "designer" of the hour engraved on it. That is simply a scam and beyond this discussion.

During my days as a dealer of professional electronic eqiupment, we were sometimes lucky to get 5%. You are probably thinking useless, Chinese, plastic crap which sells at $5 but costs $.50. That is true, but you forget that for these items the overhead is very significant due to the cost related to the sheer volume required to make resonable profit on this, such as handling, storage and transportation. And when you factor these costs, the profit shrinks back to the 20% range, not to mention the steep competetive pressure on this, since just about any idiot can order this junk from one of a zillion Chinese slave-labour outfits, thus making these generic, undistinguishable from each other items extremely price point sensitive.

Also, game shops that buy back your old games have the same problem. They won't call you back if your game doesn't sell.

Again, apples and oranges. The games have additional, unique to them legal risks involving possible violations of the so called "intellectual property" rights, thus exposing the store to all sorts of troubles. That is why very few stores even bother with this.

Re:I'm confused

[Sj0]

I've bought AND sold items at a fraction of their market price in the past year. Nothing unwholesome about it; sometimes you need money fast.

According to you, I'm a fence, and probably a thief too.

Yeah. Lay off the self-righeousness.

Re:I'm confused

[Sj0]

Yes...Buying goods, then selling them at a markup full time is a crime... ...

Re:I'm confused

[loraksus]

The next step, after the "Oh, I've been so civil and intellectual lately, look at my current post" is
"I fought in the great usenet wars while you were still in diapers! Don't mess with me child!"

Carry on mensa master.

Re:I'm confused

[spiritraveller]

If the sale happened that way I don't see how he could have known he was buying stolen goods.

She was selling him something fairly new for about 1/5th its actual value. It would not have been reasonable for him to think she didn't know its value. It was new.

People are frequently convicted of theft by receiving. The knowledge element is frequently proven by large pricing discrepancies.

You can speculate about the possibility of innocence, and it is something that a jury will decide rather than ourselves. However, at first glance, it looks like a common case of a thief and a fence.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I've bought AND sold items at a fraction of their market price in the past year. Nothing unwholesome about it; sometimes you need money fast.

Err, if you do not see the contradiction inherent in your statement, there is nothing I can do to help you. Let me translate what you just said into plain language: "I ripped off some people who were in need, nothing unwholesome about it, cause I got away with the loot, and I, me and mine are the only things that count! Yeah!".

According to you, I'm a fence, and probably a thief too.

You are a dishonest trader at the least. The "fence" part depends on how well you were keeping track and documenting the sources of your purchases.

Yeah. Lay off the self-righeousness.

No, you mean "Become a budding sociopath, like me, for fun and profit". Well, some of us have this thing called "a conscience" which, for better or worse, makes us into, what you would probably term, "bleeding heart socialists". And this very aspect of our personalities, none other, is which divides the so called "right" and "left".

Re:I'm confused

[Sj0]

Interesting that you totally skipped the part where I have SOLD items at a fraction of their value.

You're just more self-righeous human trash. This conversation is over.

Re:I'm confused

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Interesting that you totally skipped the part where I have SOLD items at a fraction of their value.

No, I have simply misunderstood your statement. I thought you were reselling them at the full market value, like everyone else who was arguing with me here.

You're just more self-righeous human trash. This conversation is over.

I would be, if I was advocating the other position. But I am not. If you are not reselling them at a crazy profit and merely passing them on at a reasonable one, while still many times below market value (although I am having a hard time imaginging the mechanics of such a business), you are only practicing a strange type of trade and if anything, are being a victim of others. The "fence" part still applies if you are not keeping records or track of your sources.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd prefer people in need be unable to sell at all, simply because they can't find anyone willing and able to immediately give them the full market value?

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Stores that buy computer games are rare? Consumer goods are commonly resold for under 20% markup? Selling computer equipment on consignment is common?

What color is the sky in your world?

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Retail often has 5-10x markup on its products

Do you have examples? I can't think of any normal cases.

Better Article

[AKAImBatman]

The CNN article seems to be missing many of the facts presented in the summary. Here's a better article, though I still find no mention of the fellow "being assured" that the laptop was legit.

Re:Better Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Reg. links makes slashdot cry :(

Re:Better Article

[AKAImBatman]

Whoops. Sorry about that. Try going through this link first. I didn't realize that news providers are looking at the referer when deciding whether they should show the article or not. I just thought the Google links were "special" somehow. :-)

Re:Better Article

[frying_fish]

That indeed does work, thanks, may actually be able to read the article now

Re:Better Article

[The Angry Mick]

Here's the article where he claims:

"The whole transaction only took about one minute," Alburati said in a statement to police. "She seemed suspicious, because she sold me an expensive laptop for such a low price. If the laptop was stolen, I did not know about it. I just took her word for it."

Re:Better Article

[pHatidic]

Summary for those who don't want to RTFA: After the thief turned on the computer, the computer dialed into Microsoft's mainframe and personally alerted Bill Gates that the laptop of a very important person had been stolen.

(If you don't get the joke, listen to the original audio file)

Re:Better Article

[Jherek Carnelian]

I didn't realize that news providers are looking at the referer when deciding whether they should show the article or not.

Interesting.

I use the refcontrol plugin for firefox. I just added "http://google.com/" as the referrer for all access to mercurynews.com and now your original link works for me, as well as all the other news articles on the site that I tried.

It used to be you could spoof your user-agent and set it to the googlebot to get into a lot of sites, but that's becoming less and less useful as they wise up. So this is kind of a riff on that old trick.

Was it ever revealed HOW...

[screevo]

... it was stolen? Did someone leave it laying around?

Re:Was it ever revealed HOW...

[Heian-794]

... it was stolen? Did someone leave it laying around?

Doesn't seem like it, and I find it appalling that so many posters are going back and forth about whether or not this reseller is a criminal because he acceped an abnormally low price for the computer, and almost completely ignoring the woman who actually stole the thing from the university.

There's only one person who completely, unambiguously, without-a-doubt knew that this laptop was stolen goods, and that's the woman who actually stole the thing. Why isn't she getting the ire she so rightfully deserves?

Re:Was it ever revealed HOW...

[screevo]

If you are standing on a street corner, and a man with a gun and a pair of nylons over his face runs up to you and hands you a sack of cash and takes off, and you proceed to go spend that money... You are gonna be considered guilty of recieving stolen property.

If someone is looking to get rid of an expensive piece of equipment for a really low price, no questions asked, it stands to reason the same results occur if you proceed to sell that too.

Theft

[mysqlrocks]

he bought the laptop for $300 from a woman who fits the description of the suspect in the original theft

I don't think she would have bothered selling the computer if she was interested in the data. I'm sure the data is worth much more than $300 to the right person.

Re:Theft

[chucks86]

You don't backup your computer, do you?

Re:Theft

[Kickersny.com]

Backup has little to do with this. The point is that the thief could have sold the personal data of 98,000+ students to any competitor for much, much more than $300. Not including the laptop.

Re:Theft

[Monkelectric]

Thats the thing ... When I heard this story, I thought the ENTIRE point of the story was to laugh at the teacher making up all this bullshit to scare the thief into getting the laptop back ... are we meant to believe that laundry list of data he claimed was on his laptop was actually there?

Re:Theft

[MichaelSmith]

I don't think she would have bothered selling the computer if she was interested in the data.

It could be like the classic cop show scenario: murderer steals victims wallet to make it look like theft.

Data thief sells hardware to conceal theft of data.

Re:Theft

[chucks86]

I'm not entirely sure what our point is... The post that I responded to inferred that if the seller was interested solely in the data, she would not have sold the laptop.
I hinted that she could have backed up the data she was interested in and sold the laptop for an additional $300.

Re:Theft

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are mistaken here. There were _two_ separate instances laptops got stolen. One was this laptop (containing personal information on UCB grad students; stolen on the day before the data on it was to be encrypted) and the other was the bio professor's laptop (containng some information on a court case that the professor cluelessly left on the laptop; which hasn't been found yet).

Now, are you the student who got scared by that "bullshit" after stealing his laptop to get the midterm a few days before? The clueless twit you are... I can believe that.

Trust your instincts, Mr. Alburati.

[The Angry Mick]

Alburati, who says he was suspicious of someone looking to sell an expensive laptop so cheaply, nonetheless took the woman's word that laptop was not stolen.

Nice to see that, although his instinct is sharp as a tack, he stayed true to his business goals.

Re:Trust your instincts, Mr. Alburati.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that kind of like taking the tall, slender, great looking hooker's word that she's not a cop?

Possession of Stolen Property

[Stargoat]

Can a person be convicted of solely possessing stolen property, when it was purchased in good faith from the thief? It violates the idea of intent to commit a crime, namely that there must be intent and knowledge for an action to be morally wrong. It means that no matter what you purchase, if it ever happened to have been stolen, you could be held liable. I'll be contacting my local congressmen if this is the case.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[bensafrickingenius]

You're all forgetting the "reasonable person" test thingy. Since IANAL, that's the most technical name I have for it. Basically, the it goes like this: Would a "reasonable person" believe that a laptop worth $1800 is really going to be honestly and legally sold for $300? If you fail the reasonable person test thingy, they can dismiss your claims of ignorance. Yes, I am a graduated of the Jake Johannson Vocabulary Builder-Upper Class.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[lasmith05]

I wondered about this as well. I'm sure the prosecutor will point out that there was no way that you could reasonably expect a laptop that worth 1100 to be only 300.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a legal concept called strict liability, which means exactly what it sounds like. I don't know where you heard that there must be intent for something to be illegal (or for that matter that something must be morally wrong to be a crime) but it's simply not the case.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[bensafrickingenius]

There's some kind of legal thingy called the "reasonable person" standard. Since IANAL, you can take all this with a pound of salt, but, as I recall, it goes something like: Would a reasonable person really think that this expensive laptop would be honestly, legally, legitimately available for sale at $300? If you fail to meet the reasonable person standard, they can use that as evidence that you did, in fact, have a pretty good idea the stuff was stolen.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[The Angry Mick]

He hasn't been convicted as yet, just charged, which is pretty common. His defense will consist of trying to prove that he had no idea it was stolen and did, in fact, buy it in good faith.

It's not looking too good for him, though. A little more info on this guy's reasoning can be found here as well.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Doctor Memory]

Can a person be convicted of solely possessing stolen property, when it was purchased in good faith from the thief?

Yes, if your story is as bad as this guys was. "Well, I kinda wondered if it was stolen, but she said it wasn't, so I bought it..." Kind of hard to prove "good faith" when the deal is as obviously skewed as this one was.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Vellmont]

I'd hope you need actual evidence to prove intent. Likely what would happen is the police would raid his house/apartment and confiscate anything that might be stolen (big stacks of electronics sitting around unused for instance). They'd then try to find out if any of this stuff was stolen. If most of the things he's selling can be shown to have been stolen, I'd guess the courts can get a conviction on that.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[techno-vampire]

Actually, he doesn't even have to prove he didn't know it was stolen. All he needs to do is make the jurors doubt the claim that he knew what was going on. Here in the USofA, if a juror has a reasonable doubt as to the guilt, they are expected to vote Not Guilty. I've read the article linked to in the Parent, and he just took the woman's word that it wasn't stolen, making no effort to check. By his own admission, he didn't know her, and the transaction took only a minute or so. If I were a juror, I'd be inclined to vote Guilty as of now. It's hard to think of anything he or his lawyer can come up with that's going to raise the slightest doubt, let alone a reasonable doubt.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[aldheorte]

The general conclusion of replies here seem at odds with yard sales and other venues when people selling property do not know the actual value of items, which could happen easily with computer equipment, or have a serious need for the cash quickly (such as to pay rent). Therefore, I think the prosecution will have to prove more than 'the defendant knew the item had a very low price compared to market value' as many people make a living off of spotting such opportunities. Arbitrage rests on this very concept. I expect that the prosecution must establish some evidence of knowledge of theft aside from just an unusually low price to get a judge or jury to agree.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[abscondment]

According to this site, this is only a crime when you know that the property is stolen.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[soft_guy]

Can a person be convicted of solely possessing stolen property, when it was purchased in good faith from the thief?

You better believe it. Possessing stolen property is a crime.

If they really believe you didn't know, the DA may choose not to prosecute.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[MichaelSmith]

only a crime when you know that the property is stolen.

From the article:

says he bought the laptop for $300 from a woman who fits the description of the suspect in the original theft

If he admits that he know this before he put the laptop up for sale then he could be in a lot of trouble.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[LoRdTAW]

Yea but some people dont know what they are selling or dont care, they just want some money for fancy computer thingy. A while back on eBay I found a 3 com 8 port gigabit switch. It was an older model and used it still ran for over a grand. Well it was said to be broken they just plugged it in said the lights didnt light properly and sold it to me for 20 bucks. I plugged it in and used the console cable and what do you know it booted and passed all tests. The admin password was even cleard to default. I then bought 2 gigabit nics to test it and everything worked just like it should. The port lights are screwed up but have no effect on any function. I now have an 8 port layer 3 fully managed gigabit routing switch for 20 bucks.

So yea people are either ignorant of an items value or improperly diagnose its condition. My friend bought an $1100 laptop off ebay for 600. The auction looked legit and they guy had good feedback.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[dgatwood]

If they were dumping it for $50, yes, you could. For a fourth the value of a working machine, if the machine seemed to be misbehaving... well, I've frequently seen mostly working machines go for as little as a tenth their original price. Sometimes its as simple as replacing a $3.00 BIOS battery to get a working machine, all because somebody didn't know enough to fix it and didn't know anyone who did.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad was hired as a contractor on some home remodelling project. He came on site one day and found that several dozen pails of paint were missing.

He scratched his head a bit and wandered around the area and spotted the pails: in the next door neighbor's yard, "hidden" on the far side of their house.

He called the police.

The police came on the scene. The neighbors swore they had no idea how they got there. The police fined them $150 for possessing stolen property.

End of story.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Yumi Saotome]

In any case, you could be held liable in a civil action. Purchasing a stolen item, even in good faith, makes you liable for conversion of chattels. The true owner can sue you under that tort.

That's one of the basics of American tort law. The social reasoning behind it is to encourage people to do due diligence and be wary of what they buy and to prevent thieves from profiting off of stolen property.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[incom]

If(hypothetically) he is found innocent, does he get the bail money any lawyers fees paid back? If not, it's a sad reflection of our apathetic society that this behavior is "pretty common" and nobody cares about it.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[techno-vampire]

He gets back his bail, as that's just money he puts up to guarentee he'll show up for trial. He even gets it back if convicted, as once the trial's over, there's no need for it. In either case, however, he's out his legal fees.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property

[Anonymous Coward]

If you made the purchase in good faith, and with no reasonable suspicion that it was stolen, then by the letter of the law you should be let off. Note that this risks a crapshoot if you do something borderline, since you'll be trusting the judgment of other human beings (cops, prosecutor, judge, and jury).

However, in this case, there's nothing borderline.

The guy who bought the laptop from this dealer in South Carolina isn't getting into any trouble. He wound up with stolen goods, but he had no reasonable way to suspect the laptop was stolen. He made a regular, above-board transaction over eBay; while certainly some items auctioned on eBay are stolen goods, there's no particular reason to believe that of any given item.

But a regular dealer in easily stolen expensive goods (like laptops and cell phones) is someone who should reasonably know that some thieves are going to try to resell things through him. If he spends less than a minute buying a laptop for $300 that he can flip for almost 4 times that, he should be reasonably suspicious that it's stolen. At which point, at the very least, an even marginally above-board dealer would get the seller's identification before completing the transaction, and then check the goods with the police to see if it's been reported stolen.

Further, he made a statement that he was suspicious of the seller; he's admitted to reasonable suspicion that the laptop was stolen. That he did not act on that suspicion is reasonably strong evidence that he's a regular fence, and certainly enough to put him afoul of stolen property laws.

Receiving stolen property is a federal crime

[Anonymous Coward]

"Receiving stolen property" is a federal crime in the US. If he knew the laptop was stolen, bought it, and kept it, he's guilty. 50 years.

How did they find the laptop?

[lasmith05]

Did one of IBM's crazy security recovery chips really work?

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[Zatar]

According to the SFGate article (Top link here as posted by AKAImBatman above), the buyer called IBM tech support.

I imagine they just asked him for the serial number and it popped up on their screen as having been reported stolen. Sometimes the low-tech approach works. :)

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[schwaang]

According to the SFGate article (Top link here as posted by AKAImBatman above), the buyer called IBM tech support.

I imagine they just asked him for the serial number and it popped up on their screen as having been reported stolen. Sometimes the low-tech approach works. :)

This is, to me, the most interesting facet of this whole saga.

How many times has IBM done this before? Are their tech support staff trained to keep a straight face while asking for the caller's address? Do most other vendors do this too? Or was this done specially because the UC laptop was high-profile?

[And actually, the SFGate article does not mention the IBM tech support connection, but the Murky does.]

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[petermgreen]

How many times has IBM done this before? Are their tech support staff trained to keep a straight face while asking for the caller's address? Do most other vendors do this too? Or was this done specially because the UC laptop was high-profile?

why would they need the address? surely they could just look at thier phone logs to get something the telco could identify the call with and give that to the police.

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[ramblin billy]

Only on /.

The laptop is stolen in San Francisco. It is sold to a guy in South Carolina in an online auction. He calls tech support in...India(?) In seconds the tech support guy knows the laptop is stolen.

This is the low-tech approach?

billy - see...I warned you about tech support

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[Zatar]

Uh, yes - for the world of computers, relying on someone picking up a telephone and reading a list of numbers to you over it is pretty low-tech. It's the net equivilent of noticing someone's picture on the post office wall.

The high-tech version would involve automatically recognizing the NAT or soft/hardware installed on it that sends out a tracking signal of some sort.

The fact that the people involved live in 3 different places and can communicate with each other isn't exactly cutting edge.

Re:How did they find the laptop?

[Audguy]

I know Dell did back in 1999/2000.

Don't sell stolen property

[soft_guy]

He then resold the laptop on eBay for $1,159 - just $18,805 short of his bail after police arrested him.

Ha ha!

Re:Don't sell stolen property

[Gates82]

He gets that money back, or at least the firm that fronts the money for bail. Typically they charge you 10% (so 2 grand for the bail money in this case) and then the firm gets the money back when he shows up to court. So it is going to cost him less then 1,000 bucks from the price of the laptop. Although maybe he makes bank on ebay and fronted the 20G's himself. Still sucks either way.

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's sister?

Re:Don't sell stolen property

[soft_guy]

If he's convicted, the bail will be the least of his worries.

Methods

[gunpowda]

Forensic tests showed files on the laptop had been erased and written over with a new operating system installation

And they couldn't have just figured this out by turning the laptop on? Do you need forensic tests to work out that a new OS is on there?

Re:Methods

[Meagermanx]

It was probably Linux.

Re:Methods

[Aranth Brainfire]

Who says just turning it on wasn't part of the forensics?

Re:Methods

[forkazoo]

Forensic tests showed files on the laptop had been erased and written over with a new operating system installation

And they couldn't have just figured this out by turning the laptop on? Do you need forensic tests to work out that a new OS is on there?

Turning it on probably is a forensic test. Maybe they ran a scan disk. Have you ever talked to one of the guys who handles forensic data stuff? My uncle is technically trained in it, being a high up in the prosecutors office, but he still has his wife send all his emails when he is at home, that's how much of a computer person he is.

Re:Methods

[ChaseTec]

If you do a quick format during the OS install then it's very possible that someone who knows what they are doing can still read the files mentioned in the article. They had to make sure that data was copied on top of the important info.

Re:Methods

[miratim]

Why do you think it's a different OS than what was originally on the laptop? Could just be a new installation of the same thing.

Re:Methods

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they wanted to verify that the original drive was still in the system. It would be easy to drop in a new drive, install OS and sell. Then sell the drive with the important data for some real money.

Re:Methods

[Desert Raven]

Among other things, the forensics will show that it was the original drive, written over, not a replacement. If it was a replacement, you have the issue of wondering where the original went to.

The Chron's article, and a fence on ebay.

[nweaver]

San Francisco Chronicle

However, said Froshling is SCUM. To buy a $2000+ laptop ($2500, but how old?) (X40 IBM) laptop for $300? He KNEW it was stolen. He's being nothing more than a fence with an EBay account. And he'll get off with just a misdemenor. SCUM!

Re:The Chron's article, and a fence on ebay.

[drsquare]

$300 for a laptop seems pretty reasonable to me, especially second hand. People sell things cheaply on ebay all the time, does that mean we're all criminal scum?

Re:The Chron's article, and a fence on ebay.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're butt ugly scum. Please, take that picture off your website.

His bail was $19,964?

[jeblucas]

He then resold the laptop on eBay for $1,159 - just $18,805 short of his bail after police arrested him."

Lemme see, carry the 1..., 9, yeah... hmm. What? Just a capricious judge?

"Bail is set, to, I don't know, $27,648.33. I'm a judge and I can do what I want."

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[Cyberllama]

I was thinking the same thing . . .

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[linzeal]

Bails are set to rise with inflation in some states it was probably like 15k in 1990. I am pretty sure this happens in California where almost all bails are standardized to prevent capriciousness.

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/ 09/16/BAGSGEO6CE1.DTLthe more informative article from the above post...

The computer was actually sold for $1,195.50 -- *not* $1,159. Bail was set at $20,000.

$20,000 - $1,195 = $18,805

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[jrallison]

Seems like this could be a case of dyslexia as the selling price of $1,195 would give us a nice round $20,000 bail. $1,159 -> $1,195 ?

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[Anonymous Coward]

having figured that out, you are a genius.

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[Audguy]

Maybe that was the profit. (sale price - ($300 purchase price + packaging + ebay fees + shipping))

Re:His bail was $19,964?

[NimNar]

this and the fact that nowhere in any article is bail even mentioned. So the slashdot editors just put out crap without any fact checking. Cheers slashdot

Been there, done that...

[Afecks]

I got arrested for buying a stolen Army laptop, except I didn't get a good deal. I paid basically full price but it was still new in the box. I think that was the only thing that saved my ass. This guy may be in a little trouble for "receiving stolen property". RSP is pretty hard to prove but usually the biggest factor is getting too good of a deal on something. If you have reason to suspect something is stolen, you are guilty of aiding the thief.

This guy bought a ridiculously cheap laptop and then sold it in a public auction. This guy is doubly stupid. I have no pity for him.

Re:Been there, done that...

[Anonymous Coward]

f you have reason to suspect something is stolen, you are guilty of aiding the thief.

Ding! You win.

edit: the captcha for this post was `morally'.

the Reasonable Person standard

[bensafrickingenius]

Man, hard to find a good link to a legal concept. This one should do: http://www.duhaime.org/Tort/ca-negl.aspx.

Re:the Reasonable Person standard

[techno-vampire]

A good cite, but there's another principle here: Res ipsa loquitur, or, "The act speaks for itself." Usually used in negligence cases, it refers to times when there's no way to demonstrate just who caused an accident, but the event is so outrageous that there's no other way to account for it. the Wikpedia article includes a description of the case that produced the principle if you're interested. Here, I think it might apply, because as the defendent himself admits, he bought the laptop in the street from a stranger, never tried to get her name, took her word that it wasn't stolen and completed the transaction in under a minute. It's going to be very difficult for his lawyer to come up with a believable explanation for that that doesn't include the idea that he knew it was stolen.

Re:the Reasonable Person standard

[Anonymous Coward]

The Reasonable Person standard applies to Tort cases. If you RTFA, you'll see that this was a Criminal proceeding, thus (disclaimer: IANAL) the Reasonable Person standard does not apply. Furthermore, receipt or sale of stolen property is, I believe (again, IANAL), one of those few crimes that requires no mens rea or Criminal Intent.

You're an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

You never turn a system on when performing a forensics investigation.

Just fucking google it instead of posting asinine questions in the comments section of an article.

If you are too stupid to google, this would work better for you.

PRO TIP: My no bots word was "degrade", that worked out well for this comment.

No No No!

[conJunk]

"Receiving stolen property" is a federal crime in the US. If he knew the laptop was stolen, bought it, and kept it, he's guilty. 50 years.

ugh.

IANAL, but, I'm right: A federal crime is a crime that involves a violation of federal law. Federal laws are those which (in theory) the congress is authorized to make under the constituttion. Most of the rational for these has to do with "interstate commerce".

Receiving stolen property, like, murder, rape, arson, kidnapping, and you-name-it, is ALWAYS going to be a state law. There are no federal laws against murder. There are no federal laws against kidnapping. There are federal laws against interstate transportation of a minor with unlawful intent (interstate kidnapping).

There are no federal laws against receiving stolen property. There are federal laws against interstate transportation of stolen goods (which doesn't seem to have happened in this case).

If you aren't American, then fine, but if you are American, why didn't you learn this in school?

Re:No No No!

[GregAllen]

There are no federal laws against kidnapping.

Actually, there has been at least one for more than 10 years: International Parental Kidnapping

Check my sig to know why I know these things. :)

Re:No No No!

[KarmaMB84]

Which explains why the federal government sometimes prosecutes murderers...for murder.

Re:No No No!

[durdur]

Longer than that. Kidnapping (not just parental) has been a federal crime ever since Charles Lindbergh's baby was snatched.

Re:No No No!

[Anonymous Coward]

My ex disappeared with my son who'd be 8 now also. Agonizing, isn't it? But different circumstances..

Re:No No No!

[alan_dershowitz]

Incidentally, the anti-car-theft act of 1992 made it a federal crime to steal a car (not just if it was taken across a state line.) There is a long history of the Federal government invoking "interstate commerce" for anything that might even _potentially_ cross a state line. There are also federal firearms laws, which frankly have no connection to interstate commerce whatsoever. I'm pretty sure you're right that there are no federal laws against recieving stolen property, though. But the federal government regulates all kinds of things that have nothing to do directly with the commerce clause.

Re:No No No!

[Anonymous Coward]

All those laws you mentioned can be against the federal laws--violation of civil rights. The SCOTUS ruled that double jeopardy does not apply ( crazy as that seems to me ) in separate jurisdictions ( federal versus state ); so, the feds can come in and charge someone with violating a citizen's civil rights even after a state jury finds them not guilty; rarely done but it happens, look at the Australian who was stabbed in NYC and in the LA police beating trials.

Feedback

[Chairboy]

I think the real question here is, did he receive positive or negative feedback once the transaction was complete?

$19,964?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

He then resold the laptop on eBay for $1,159 - just $18,805 short of his bail after police arrested him.

What kind of judge sets a bail at $19,964? Is this the Walmart Court? *pictures what the Walmart Court would be*

"Always Low Bails." "We're Rolling Back (tm) your execution date!"

Re:$19,964?

[JM Apocalypse]

It's $18,999.95 Plus Tax.

Re:$19,964?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Always Low Bails." "We're Rolling Back (tm) your execution date!"

Um, wouldn't you wan't that rolled forward?

Re:$19,964?

[Anonymous Coward]

Likely a type - The sale price was probably $1195.

$18805 + $1195 = $20000

Forensic tests require not booting the Hard Drive

[dananderson]

Do you need forensic tests to work out that a new OS is on there?

Yes, because you don't know a priori what happened—whether it's a new OS or if a few files were removed or what. Once you boot the HD, you stomp on files and write over possibly valuable erased files. Forensic tests require looking at the drive read-only and also recovering previoulsy-erased files (which are often a gold mine)

Re:Possession of Stolen Property - It depends

[conJunk]

Can a person be convicted of solely possessing stolen property, when it was purchased in good faith from the thief?

I don't know how many of you folks ever have run-ins with the man, but while IANAL, I've had more than my fair share of encounters with the system:

If they want to fuck you, they'll fuck you. If you bought the computer in good faith, and genuinely couldn't have known it was stolen, but are poor and black, don't count on an easy time of it.

If you are white, middle class, and can pull off the plausible deniablity without insulting the cops' intelligence, then you are all set.

Also, some cops are good reasonable people too. They'll get a vibe on you, and either charge you or not based on how the interview goes.

It really isn't a boolean opperation, the cops are always playing these things by ear.

How did he know?

[brakk]

How did he know it was worth $2000+? Maybe the battery was dead and it didn't have the power supply so he assumed it didn't work and was going to use it for parts. She could have come up with some story that it was hit by lightening or something and was selling it as a broken laptop. He could have later hooked it up, found out it worked and just thought he got a good deal.

His possession of the laptop was only circumstantial evidence and they didn't have anything actually tying him to the crime. There is no way they should have arrested him and charged him bail for making a good business deal.

(Even if I was a lawyer, I couldn't give legal advice on an internet forum, so there is no point in telling you.)

My first assumption

[phorm]

Would be that something didn't work quite right on the laptop, not that it was stolen. Quite often people will bugger up a perfectly good laptop and assume it was 'broken.' Some of these people sell at a fairly low price... but a little easy tech-work or just even a reinstall will have it working just spiffy.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Some of these people sell at a fairly low price... but a little easy tech-work or just even a reinstall will have it working just spiffy.

And those people frequently want cash and you do not bother making sure they own the stuff because you are busy salivating at the prospect of huge profit after some of that "easy reinstall", right? In other words, your greed blinds you in your mad rush to rip the "sucker" off when buying these items. Tell me, what do you think a thief says to the fence? "Hey Sparky, I swiped this the last night. Fence it." or perheaps "Hey, Sparky, here is another 'busted' laptop, this one from my ... err.. other, other cousin, sumtin' wrong with this one too, pay me $200 (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)". The activity of attempting to rip the "sucker" off by paying a fraction of the cost of the goods, without bothering to check their origin is a variant of ... fencing.

Re:My first assumption

[Omnifarious]

There are people who toss out their computers because they're infected with spyware. If I were buying from them instead and tried to tell them I wasn't going to take it because it was too low a price and they could easily re-install, they'd just throw it out instead of selling it to me, letting me do the re-install and making a profit.

I don't know if this guy is a fence or not. But I think there needs to be some sort of provision in the law for people who do not habitually deal in stolen stuff.

Re:My first assumption

[dougmc]

Quite often people will bugger up a perfectly good laptop and assume it was 'broken.' Some of these people sell at a fairly low price... but a little easy tech-work or just even a reinstall will have it working just spiffy.

That is an excellent point. Remember this article from the recent past? If somebody's computer is spyware-riddled, they may just think it's broken beyond repair, and buy a new one. The old computer will be sold, probably very cheaply, even though all it really needs is just a new format and install.

You might feel bad about buying it from somebody for so cheaply, when it's so easily fixed, but there's nothing illegal about it. Immoral, maybe (especially if the seller is poor), but not illegal. (And of course, you don't actually know what's wrong with it until you try and fix it. It may be that the computer is truly buggered -- it's a gamble.)

Re:My first assumption

[networkBoy]

In a way there is. If he kept a photo copy of the sellers drivers licence with the make/model/serial of the computer he bought the law would have left him alone upon production of said photo copy (they would likely still take his proceeds from the sale though).
-nB

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

There are people who toss out their computers because they're infected with spyware. If I were buying from them instead and tried to tell them I wasn't going to take it because it was too low a price and they could easily re-install, they'd just throw it out instead of selling it to me, letting me do the re-install and making a profit.

Sigh. A conversation with a honest reseller goes like this:

Customer: "Hey I got this junk PC to sell, it is broke, spyware ate it, gimme $50"
Buyer: "You should be aware that this PC can be fixed and its worth around $300 for a dealer like me to buy on the market."
Customer: "Hey! I had no clue. So will you pay me $300?"
Buyer: "Sure. I will need your personal details.".

Following which the dealer re-sells for $450 or whatever reasonable market price is. But if the dealer is a greedy slimeball, he will shell out $50 in cash and be quick about it so that the "idiot" customer does not get wise to him. He will be reluctant to ask personal data as not to sour the rip-off. And thus he is not only a jerk but just became a fence.

I don't know if this guy is a fence or not. But I think there needs to be some sort of provision in the law for people who do not habitually deal in stolen stuff.

A typical fence obtains only a portion of his stuff from thieves. Otheriwse he would not be able to pretend to run a legitimate business, which is the pre-condition of operating as a successful fence. What is a charactertistic, defining feature of a fence is his unscrupulous and dishonest greed, like, say, buying stuff you know is worth 5 times more without making a beep to take advantage of a mis-informed or desperate customer.

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

So Ignoramus, was this your laptop or something? It sure sounds like you've got an axe to grind based on all your posts calling this guy a fence...

Granted, everyone hates thieves, but here in the US - we're actually supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty". Supposed to be anyway...

Sheesh.

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Brother, is that you?

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

What the fuck planet do you live on?

Buyers buy at the cheapest price they can. This is economics 101, and pretty much the foundation of capitalism.

What do you do for a living?

Re:My first assumption

[scowling]

Almost certainly as little as possible, in an enclosed room with very little contact with the real world, if anything at all.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

What the fuck planet do you live on? Buyers buy at the cheapest price they can. This is economics 101, and pretty much the foundation of capitalism.

Right. So when a man shows up on a corner and offers you a "slightly used" Corvette for $10, you then, being a good "capitalist", buy it real quick with no questions asked, lest someone else get the deal. What planet do you live on?

Never mind that, with an attitude like that, you will soon live in whatever (juvenile, I assume) correctional institution that planet has.

Marketplace operates based on a set of complex relationships, supply/demand and pricing are only some of them (albait the simplest to grasp for feeble minds). There are also wee things like risk/reward ratios and legal consequences some of us adults have to contend with.

What do you do for a living?

I run my own business for a very long time now. Pehreaps that is why I understand how things work in real life instead of that "finder's keepers" fantasy of yours.

Re:My first assumption

[Sancho]

I wouldn't let someone make a copy of my driver's license unless I really felt I could trust them, regardless of whether or not I'm selling something legally.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

It sure sounds like you've got an axe to grind based on all your posts calling this guy a fence...

Err.. he sold a stolen laptop and has himself admitted to not taking any precautions or keeping records. That makes him either (by definition) a fence or, I am not sure if that is any better, the thief himself, should the story about the mysterious woman turn untrue.

Take a pick.

Granted, everyone hates thieves, but here in the US - we're actually supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty". Supposed to be anyway...

Quite true, but the evidence (if one is to believe the article) is rather overwhelming.

Re:My first assumption

[Random832]

Certain types of property (such as your "slightly used corvette") have well-established systems for establishing that someone has valid title to it.

Re:My first assumption

[log0n]

I like how you offer a ludicrous example as a retort to defend your point to the previous poster.

Buying/selling a 'slightly used' (whatever that means) laptop for $300 isn't uncommon - even if it is a rather decent laptop. Buying/selling a 'slightly used' corvette for $10 resides solely in the land of fancy.

Hell, I sold a perfect Powerbook 17 (purchased by me at the local Apple store) for roughly half the price I could have gotten for it if I really cared half enough to get the extra cash (keep in mind - Apple has very high resell value). But I was done with it - having served it's use completely and though I really didn't need the money right away, I knew it would only lose value by the time I got around to actually selling it properly.

Basic Capitalism: buy low, sell higher. That's it. Anything you else you have in your personal business strategy is your unique perogative. What you call greedy business practice (and yes, no doubt it is) is shrewd business.

Very long time now? Didn't you get on another poster about intentionally implying grand vagueries? I too run my own business. Fortunately I don't sell goods, rather services. But you can bet I'm not going to undervalue myself because I don't want people to think I charge to much. If they find my services worth the money, then they hire me. If they don't, I don't get their business. Period.

And give it a rest already. Clearly you think everyone else is wrong, we get it. Move on. Your 3 dozen+ indignant replies just make you look more and more like you have very little insight into the real world and someone that should end up on just about everyone's ignore/foe list.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Certain types of property (such as your "slightly used corvette") have well-established systems for establishing that someone has valid title to it.

Most property has, laptops for example do have serial numbers, that is how the one which is being discussed in the article was identified. Which is precisely the point to demolish the AC parent's inane assertion that "the lowest price" is the only thing that counts in a market transaction. Legal considerations and subsequent risk factors play a significant role in assessing the legitimacy and viability of a purchase. Something which many people here on Slashdot have difficulties grasping, it seems.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Buying/selling a 'slightly used' (whatever that means) laptop for $300 isn't uncommon - even if it is a rather decent laptop.

Err, no. Buying computers from shady strangers for $300 and then immediately selling them for $1100 is not "common" in the civilized parts of the society.

Buying/selling a 'slightly used' corvette for $10 resides solely in the land of fancy.

Since people seem not to comprehend that this is an exaggeration to make the point obvious, let's say it was $10000 for a 2005 "slightly-used" Corvette wich sells, used, for $40000 (I am guessing here). Is it ok now? It would be the same ratio as for the laptop, 1/4th the price. Happy now? Still think there would be nothing suspicious for someone to sell a $40000 fair-market value ($60000 retail) car for $10000 and you would not ask any question of him? Would you accept his word and not bother taking his personal details?

Hell, I sold a perfect Powerbook 17 (purchased by me at the local Apple store) for roughly half the price I could have gotten for it...

And if the buyer did not check you out, he is a complete fool.

Basic Capitalism: buy low, sell higher. That's it.

Err, no. There are also these niceties like laws and all those property rights and all these related risks affecting the price, all sorts of other factors dealing with quality, item's origin, customer's preceptions, brand recognition, marketing, advertising, consumer education etc etc etc. What you describe is a never-never land fantasy. A gross over-simplification for the benefit of a kindergarten class.

Anything you else you have in your personal business strategy is your unique perogative. What you call greedy business practice (and yes, no doubt it is) is shrewd business.

Only if you have no repeat customers and you do not mind getting hauled to the city jail once in a while (assuming you keep records as incomplete as our anti-hero had).

Very long time now? Didn't you get on another poster about intentionally implying grand vagueries?

I will be specific. Running on 15th year now.

I too run my own business. Fortunately I don't sell goods, rather services. But you can bet I'm not going to undervalue myself because I don't want people to think I charge to much. If they find my services worth the money, then they hire me. If they don't, I don't get their business. Period.

That has nothing to do with the topic of discussion. In your case, it would be similar if you were to offer your services as, say, a doctor at 1/4th going hourly rate and the clinic who hired you did not bother to check your credentials for fear of spoiling such a good deal. Following which a little "oops" occured involving a surgical saw and someone's leg. I dont think there would be anyone here defending the clinic from accusations of negligence.

And give it a rest already. Clearly you think everyone else is wrong, we get it. Move on. Your 3 dozen+ indignant replies just make you look more and more like you have very little insight into the real world and someone that should end up on just about everyone's ignore/foe list.

For your low user ID you are remarkably unaware of the nature of Slashdot. Nearly every "discussion" on nearly every topic here is like this. If people were to heed this advice, no one would ever post due to fear of being disagreed with, or worse, the unspeakable terror of getting put on someone's foe list.

Just so you know, these posts consume very little of my time and I consider the whole thing as a form of mildly amusing enterntainment, with a side benefit of improving my ability to spar in a polemic.

Re:My first assumption

[networkBoy]

Ever been on a test drive?
All the dealerships in my area require it.
3 of the pawn shops require it.
I really don't think it's all that unreasonable.
-nB

Re:My first assumption

[Kadin2048]

Something which many people here on Slashdot have difficulties grasping, it seems.

So true. I was going to make a point earlier in the thread about the "reasonable and prudent person" standard, but realized that it's probably only a minority of Slashdot readers who, at least when it comes to buying a computer at a suspiciously low price, would act in either a reasonable or prudent manner.

Re:My first assumption

[scowling]

I like how he uses a ludicrous strawman example and then (falsely) calls others on arguments he calls strawmen, but aren't.

He's a tool and a troll.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

... but realized that it's probably only a minority of Slashdot readers who, at least when it comes to buying a computer at a suspiciously low price, would act in either a reasonable or prudent manner.

You can say that again. It never ceases to amaze me how much of an intrinsic disparity there seems to exist in many Slashdotters, who appear to be otherwise very intelligent people, capable of complex abstract reasoning when it comes to science and technology, but who at the same time possess all the moral skills and societal graces of a baboon.

It is quite fascinating.

Re:My first assumption

[Halfbaked Plan]

Buying computers from shady strangers for $300 and then immediately selling them for $1100 is not "common" in the civilized parts of the society.



To counter your arguement, I've resold computer equipment with an equivalent or greater markup.

I bought two skids of Dell computers at a school auction. Aprox. 80 machines that I got for $40 (good day at the auction). I sold two dozen or so of the machines after testing/reconditioning them for a range between $20-80 on eBay to various people.

Similar markup in price, and an entirely legitimate undertaking.

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no evidence in the article. It is far from overwhelming. The police will happily arrest a ham sandwich seen near the laptop when there is a case with nationwide coverage involving tech and identity theft with a large educational institution in their home state in the mix. How naive can you be? When you work in a tech field you can sometimes forget that to a lot of people computers are just tools (and if the tool was a gift then they may not even know or care how much it cost). Many people don't know how fast the cpu in the box is how much memory is in the box, etc. Perhaps all they know is that the they want to sell the PC that their parents bought them because they are done with it. It is in no way your responsibility as a buyer of goods to educate others as to the value of their possesions. If something is suspicious then yes, you are well advised to steer clear. However your $20 SPARCs and $10 Vettes are pathetic examples. In this case the price for the laptop was low in a competetive matketplace where the tech-savvy would shop but not so low when you factor in the general ignorance about hardware that most non-techs have along with the 'who knows if it works' factor. Comparing the transaction with a fence's repeated purchases from the same individual is also total crap. From TFA it seems that this was the only time the accused ever saw the person who sold him the laptop. Perhaps you are projecting your technical, socialist self a bit much onto others. Here's another tip, don't confuse business with morals, see you next tuesday.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Similar markup in price, and an entirely legitimate undertaking.

Yes, err, except you bought the things bulk in an auction. Complete with proof of purchase, not to mention the outraged school board trustees pulling their hair out at the outrageous misuse of school funds and what not.

I am sure you can find more examples of army surplus or some other, wonderful, government related boondoglery. But these do not constitute "common" activities, "wild exceptions" are more likely and virtually all are accompanied by reams of paperwork, leaving no doubt whatsoever as to what occured.

Re:My first assumption

[Random832]

The presence of a serial number is nothing like a title document.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

The presence of a serial number is nothing like a title document.

Of course it is not, but it is sufficient to track down stolen goods. If you buy a laptop, the invoice from the store has the serial number on it, which for most items is equivalent to a "title document", at least as far as identification of the original ownership is concerned.

Re:My first assumption

[Halfbaked Plan]

Reams of paperwork? Boondooglery?

I probably have the recitpt somewhere.

It is customary at many schools and businesses to stack the old machines on pallets when the new machines arrive. The pallets then 'go away' because the machines on them won't run the latest Redmond bloatware. It's not a 'wild exception' to get deals like that. It was a somewhat unusually low price, as it's more typical to pay $5-6 each for similar machines at similar auctions (Dell Optiplexes with Pentium III processors, 128M of RAM...)

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Boondooglery?

Of course. Sane government would be cost aware and not allow itself to be pushed around by wacky monopolies into exorbitant expenditures which bring nothing positive to the operation of government. But that is another discussion.

It's not a 'wild exception' to get deals like that. It was a somewhat unusually low price, as it's more typical to pay $5-6 each for similar machines at similar auctions (Dell Optiplexes with Pentium III processors, 128M of RAM...)

Listen, we are talking apples and oranges here. In the case of $5 computers, the very act of unpacking, dusting and checking them out, adds some serious value to the damn things. The work of putting these silly things on eBay, combined with the handling, brings your "profit" margin to something like 20% as the rest is the cost of labour. If you had sold them "unchecked", "as-is", "no clue if it even runs" for $80, then my hat off to your salesmanship. Still, you have a documented, legitimate source of these. And that makes all the difference. Not to mention that this is nothing like dealing with recent equipment at $1100 a pop. Deals of $300 -> $1100 are rarely available to amateurs from legitimate sources, specially if these sources happen to be restricted to a nervous female who wont look you in the eye.

Re:My first assumption

[Random832]

Except that we don't have a tradition of keeping store invoices to have on hand in case of resale.

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

But if the dealer is a greedy slimeball, he will shell out $50 in cash and be quick about it so that the "idiot" customer does not get wise to him. He will be reluctant to ask personal data as not to sour the rip-off. And thus he is not only a jerk but just became a fence.

Apparently almost half of your arguments seem to be based around bitchslapping this person for having dubious ethics, rather than the legality of things. Your arguments would have more value if you were actually able to separate these two aspects out.

Re:My first assumption

[fbjon]

True, I think slashdot contains at least 10 shelf-meters of potential research material.

Re:My first assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

The receipt for a laptop has the serial number? Is there some special law regarding this, or is it just something high-end stores often do? I can't remember ever seeing a serial # (rather than just a model #) on a receipt....

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

Except that we don't have a tradition of keeping store invoices to have on hand in case of resale.

In which case you are probably also not entitled to warranty or insurance coverage, and what not. Also, in absence of a retail receipt, there are still ways to determine ownership. For example if someone reports a laptop with a certain serial number as stolen and subsequently you are found to be selling it, the courts will decide that there is high probability of you being in possession of stolen goods. Plain common sense. That is why it is prudent to keep track of the serial numbers and to retain the receipts. Personaly I keep the receipts until the moment the unit is either sold or destroyed.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I like how he uses a ludicrous strawman example and then (falsely) calls others on arguments he calls strawmen, but aren't. He's a tool and a troll.

I just noticed, when replying to someone, that you are running this lovely side-commentary about my posts. Being clearly too cowardly to actually confront me directly, you are reduced to making these nebulous snide remarks, without actually having to present any logical arguments.

And then, you, who are engaged in this utterly childlish and dishonest activity, dare to call me a "troll".

That is, in addition to accusing some random bystanders of being me in disguise. Which only exposes the very conceited way in which your rotten psyche operates. You simply assumed that I would be engaged in something you would do and thus are projecting your ways onto me.

I hear thieves are always whining that people are stealing from them, and seeing themselves as "victims" of theft, are, in their convoluted way, "justifying" to themselves their thievish ways.

Ponder that. It might do you some good.

Re:My first assumption

[scowling]

That is, in addition to accusing some random bystanders of being me in disguise.

You are incredibly stupid. Go back and read the post where you were accused of such, when you learn how to read.

Ponder the fact that when everyone calls you a fucktard, you probably are.

Re:My first assumption

[IgnoramusMaximus]

You are incredibly stupid. Go back and read the post where you were accused of such, when you learn how to read.

Oh, I am sorry, it was "tsm_sf" accusing the "Karma Farmer" of being me, or so it appears. I had my tin-foil hat wearing participants of this brawl confused. In your defense, you were "only" making the snide, cowardly remarks in paralell to my posts, like the one I replied to. My bad.

Ponder the fact that when everyone calls you a fucktard, you probably are.

Ah yes, the "everyone" crowd made up of a fraction of slashdot posters. On this particular thread, this being mainly you, with something like 90% of your posts containing words "fuck", "idiot", "troll" etc. But in your estimate, you also apparently included those who merely politely disagree with me. But that is to be expected. In your view, even those who explicitely agree with me are also "calling me names". Otherwise it would be impossible for you to claim that "everyone" did so, right? That fiction is clearly necessary for you to maintain your delusion of grandieur, the one in which the whole world revolves around your rear end and in which everyone applauds you all the time. With deference, naturally. If you keep this up, your ego will soon snuff out the sun. Have mercy on your neighbours.

No, they couldn't.

[deft]

Sure you can turn it on and see if the files are still visible to the OS, but its another thing completely to turn it on and see if the files have been OVERWRITTEN, which means they are unrecoverable.

BIG difference.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property - It depends

[Anonymous Coward]

f you bought the computer in good faith, and genuinely couldn't have known it was stolen, but are poor and black, don't count on an easy time of it.

Link? Or is this something you heard from your brother in law that works with someone's sister in the legal system?

Bad math? or unusual bail?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that $19,964 is an odd ammount of money to charge for bail...

Re:Bad math? or unusual bail?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, 19964 is an even amount.

Re:Bad math? or unusual bail?

[Man Eating Duck]

Probably a typo. $1195 + $18805 = $20000

Security 101 folks

[msaver]

Personal information of nearly a hundred thousand former students has no business whatsoever on a laptop.

Who let this happen? Sheesh... you'd think the birthplace of the *BSD's could work out something a little safer than putting others' personal data on a tiny device that screams "steal me! steal me!" OpenSSH is good (w/ X tunneling if needed) and Remote Desktop (preferably tunneled though SSH) will do the job.

Re:Security 101 folks

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't work in education, do you?

I'm assuming you don't, because if you did, you'd know that being in education (particularly higher education) requires that the administrative staff compile and submit lots and lots of reports. Some to the state, some to their bosses, some to department deans and managers, with varying kinds of information.

It's not surprising at all that there was personal information on a laptop. All it takes is pulling information from the school's student information system down to a spreadsheet on their computer...

Re:Security 101 folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Personal information of nearly a hundred thousand former students has no business whatsoever on a laptop.

On a cleartext (unencrypted) fs, in any case.

Re:Security 101 folks

[Anonymous Coward]

Twit. You didn't even read the articles that came before this, did you? The information on the laptop was scheduled to be encrypted either on the day it was stolen or one or two days after that. Don't assume everyone is as stupid (... though it somehow gets modded up as insightful by /. voodoo) as you are.

Federal laws against murder

[Guanix]

There are no federal laws against murder. There are no federal laws against kidnapping.

Try 18 USC 1111 (murder, punishable by death or by imprisonment for life) and 18 USC 1201 (kidnapping, punishable by imprisonment for any number of years or for life, or by death if someone dies). These are federal laws.

(Still, you are kind of right; these laws only apply within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, but your statement that there are no federal laws against murder or kidnapping are a little misleading.)

Re:Federal laws against murder

[Tiger4]

And going further, there are laws against murdering Federal officials, which generally people tend to think of as the President or members of Congress. But it also applies to Postal workers and Social Security clerks (you can't kill them just because your check is late).

And yes, this applies not only on Federal reservations, but anywhere the official may be, inside or outside the US. When they executed Timothy McVeigh, he was Federally prosecuted for killing a few dozen FBI and Secret Service agents on duty in the building at the time, plus for using an explosive in a crime (a form of arson). Oklahoma wanted to prosecute him for murdering the rest of the 168 dead, but it turned out to be unecessary.

Re:Federal laws against murder

[Anonymous Coward]

From the page on special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States:

(4) Any island, rock, or key containing deposits of guano, which may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.

I wonder if the president is often called upon to decide which shit covered rocks do or do not appertain to the US...

Standard policeprocedure in investigating a theft.

[morgan_greywolf]

It's basically what they always do. They're arresting him in order to work out a deal to find and convict the actual thief. He'll probably cop to possession of stolen property (a lesser offense than actually selling stolen property) and be sentenced time served + community service.

Only 18

[Dogmatron]

Come on, the kid is only 18 years old! I'm usually not the one to underestimate intelligence on the basis of age, but I think a lot of 18 year olds would have made the same decision, unknowingly.

Get some perspective.

Re:Only 18

[typical]

Yes, the large number of extremely stupid Berkeley college students who *are in the business of reselling laptops* and buy a laptop at fifteen cents on the dollar.

Don't get me wrong -- I'd be willing to believe that he wouldn't have purchased the thing if it had a big "I'm Stolen!" sign on the thing, but at some point, you're just working to get yourself some iota of justification to be able to buy the thing.

Also, keep in mind the number of people that buy laptops on eBay. You *know* that a hell of a lot of the laptops on there are stolen ones being fenced, but you buy anyway...because, hey, why do you care whether the thing was stolen?

Perhaps this will help

[linuxwrangler]

I've quoted some California law below. As with many sections of law, there is a "reasonable man" standard. In other words, "She said it wasn't stolen" doesn't wash in court if the prosecutor can show that a "reasonable man" would find the transaction suspicious. In this case that may be pretty easy since Alburati said, "She seemed suspicious, because she sold me an expensive laptop for such a low price..."

It's likely that he reformatted the computer for sale on eBay. If, while working on it, he noticed anything that would further lead him to believe that the laptop was actually stolen (UC Berkeley property tag, data that would lead him to believe the laptop actually belonged to UC, etc.) and he continues to conceal the computer from its rightful owner then that also makes him guilty.

Additionally, this guy had an active business of buying and selling used laptops and phones. While you don't generally need licenses for the occasional garage sale, you usually do for an ongoing business operation even if most of it is handled on eBay and Craigslist. If he is not in compliance with the appropriate zoning, business license, sales-tax, income-tax and other laws then moving stolen goods may just be the beginning of his fun.

Here's the law:

496. (a) Every person who buys or receives any property that has been stolen or that has been obtained in any manner constituting theft or extortion, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained, or who conceals, sells, withholds, or aids in concealing, selling, or withholding any property from the owner, knowing the property to be so stolen or obtained, shall be punished by imprisonment in a state prison, or in a county jail for not more than one year. However, if the district attorney or the grand jury determines that this action would be in the interests of justice, the district attorney or the grand jury, as the case may be, may, if the value of the property does not exceed four hundred dollars ($400), specify in the accusatory pleading that the offense shall be a misdemeanor, punishable only by imprisonment in a county jail not xceeding one year.

Re:No No No! -- you're wrong

[ffflala]

UANAL, and... you're wrong. There ARE federal laws against stolen property including the receipt of it (18 USC sections 2311 to 2322) as well as kidnapping (18 USC sections 1201-1204), and murder and other homicides (18 USC sections 1111 to 1122.) While it is one distinction, state/federal jurisdiction is not reserved only for the crossing of state or federal lines. But in this case, a California guy sold it to someone in South Carolina; it crossed state lines, it's federal.

and

[Anonymous Coward]

So will I have a slashdot article when my laptop gets stolen?

His crime was trust

[RocketRainbow]

Who ARE you people?

The general Slashdot opinion is
*He was a thief because he bought something at a low price with the intention of selling it - without caring whether it might be non-legitimate

*He was stupid because his greed stopped him from seeing that it was clearly stolen and he could go to jail

You know what? People sell things cheaply all the time! I'd be more concerned at $300 that the thing was a lemon - it would never cross my mind that it had been stolen. I'm an honest person - a fundamentalist. I believe that using a stolen computer is bad karma for me - but you ask and you have to trust other humans. Otherwise you're just another hater.

So you ask the person "why are you selling it?"

And the person answers "Well I'm about to go overseas, I need to get cash pronto for an operation, my wife left me and I'm buying her out of the house" or whatever story the person has. If it's not a valid reason, then you apply your ethical belief appropriately (with extra caution for merchants!)

What sort of paranoid fool checks up on every arrangement she makes? Who does it take to say "I don't believe you - prove that you don't know the value of this item!"

Pawn shops are always full of great deals on specialist items such as camera lenses, because even pawnbrokers don't know the value of things. So why distrust someone selling a computer?

Are you really all so caught up in this culture of fear that you check and double-check everything you do? Just in case the Thought Police come and take you away?

What next? I know, you won't be able to buy a hard drive because what if it once contained copies of songs? In fact, you won't be able to buy the computer used to obtain those copies - and that could be any computer! New network card? Practically fraud! And don't forget your new OEM microsoft software as you buy your shiny new computer! Good consumer!

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that difficult to understand the law, really.

Basically, if you're buying it for your own use, and you have reason to suspect that it's stolen, you ask for the seller to show you proof of ownership before you buy it. And you ask for them to provide you with a receipt for the sale, including their name, address, etc. If they refuse, then you think to yourself, "hmmm, this is fishy." Then you call IBM tech support and ask them if this laptop with serial number xxxxxxxx has been reported stolen. Apparently, it was.

If you're buying it for resale, and you've bought and sold hundreds or thousands of these things in the past, then you are expected to know better.

You say that sometimes requiring proof of ownership will cause you to lose out on a great deal? Tough.

Re:His crime was trust

[MarcoAtWork]

Pawn shops are always full of great deals on specialist items such as camera lenses, because even pawnbrokers don't know the value of things.

bs, pawn shops are full of great deals on lenses (and bikes, and DVDs/CDs) because of all the crooks that steal them and the pawn shop owners looking the other way.

You don't really think that a pawn shop owner sees a, say, Canon 300 f2.8L and can't figure out that it's worth a lot of money? Plausible deniability lets a lot of people get out of things even if they are dirty as sin.

I mean, with the (low) amount of money a pawnshop gives you on stuff, what honest person would sell their stuff through them vs selling on classifieds or at a garage sale or even at a specialist camera shop who a) would give you more money upfront and b) would give you even more if you give it to them for consignment.

Especially these days with google and everything where it takes 10 seconds to figure out the real value of an item there is no excuse (save theft or scams) from anything being offered at a fraction of its retail value.

And to all the people who say "it's not my duty to ascertain if it's stolen or not, if it's a good deal I'll buy it": you shall reap what you are sowing.

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Who ARE you people?... You know what?... Otherwise you're just another hater... What sort of paranoid fool checks up on every arrangement she makes? Pawn shops are always full of great deals on specialist items such as camera lenses! New network card? Practically fraud! Good consumer!

I WANRT VIAGARAR YES PLAESE!!!!!!

Re:His crime was trust

[zakezuke]

You don't really think that a pawn shop owner sees a, say, Canon 300 f2.8L and can't figure out that it's worth a lot of money? Plausible deniability lets a lot of people get out of things even if they are dirty as sin.

Well, most pawnshop owners subscribe to some form of bluebook. I had a web version at some point but long since lost the link. Something like a Canon 300 f2.8L for example is the sort of thing that the owner would lookup in a book and charge what the book says for it. However for something like Nikor enlarger lenses that they don't have a clue what they do... twenty bucks. Small lens... twenty bucks... big lens $40. Even some vivitar series one lenses end up there for twenty bucks.

I could have bought a Konica UC Hexanon 28mm f1.8 28mm lens attached to a camera for $100. I imagine it could have been stolen, or was part of someone's estate and no one knew it's value. Hell I don't actually not it's value other than it's rare and spendy. I imagine if I bought it and later found out they were stolen... even if I was arrested for having stolen goods, i'm sure I could show the judge proof I bought it from a pawn shop who as a rule keep records of who sells them crap.

While you may be right, you can "google" something, you have to know what to google.

Some of the best things to buy in pawn shops are trivial little items like lens filters.

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well I'm about to go overseas, I need to get cash pronto for an operation, my wife left me and I'm buying her out of the house"

There is probably one of these people for every 100 that are just selling stolen property.

Are you really all so caught up in this culture of fear that you check and double-check everything you do? Just in case the Thought Police come and take you away?

No, I just use common sense. If something is too good to be true, it probably is. Why haven't you learned this?

Re:His crime was trust

[goofballs]

bs, pawn shops are full of great deals on lenses (and bikes, and DVDs/CDs) because of all the crooks that steal them and the pawn shop owners looking the other way.

maybe back in the day, but i don't think that's the case so much these days, but it depends where you are i suppose; in many places, pawn shops are required to take the seller's information, the items are held for 30 days, and the police check the items against their list of stolen goods.

You don't really think that a pawn shop owner sees a, say, Canon 300 f2.8L and can't figure out that it's worth a lot of money?

depends on the pawn shop. there's a pawn shop in hollywood that specializes in guitars; you walk in with a camera lens, they probably wouldn't even know what the mofo was. ;D

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

What sort of paranoid fool checks up on every arrangement she makes? Who does it take to say "I don't believe you - prove that you don't know the value of this item!"

She?

Death To women's Rights.

Re:His crime was trust

[patternjuggler]

I'm an honest person - a fundamentalist.

I was so taken aback by this bizarre non-sequitur I had to look up the term in the wikipedia to see if there was any reference to a Fundamentalist's honesty- nope.

I believe that using a stolen computer is bad karma for me

The other fundamentalists will probably revoke your membership if you go all new-age wishy-washy talking about karma and so on...

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say a fundamentalist WHAT. He could be fundamentalist zen buddist, or wiccan.

If he's talking about fundamentalist christian, they all BELIEVE themselves to be honest. If they're spouting lies, it's because they believe them themselves. People can believe all kinds of goofy stuff.

Re:His crime was trust

[RocketRainbow]

Unless I'm a Hindu fundamentalist, or something in the Dharmic tradition.

Then it's definitely not new-age or at all wishy-washy: it's quite well defined.

Re:His crime was trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. You're a fucking maniac.

I bet people can't even stand near you without being uncomfortable.

Re:His crime was trust

[patternjuggler]

Unless I'm a Hindu fundamentalist, or something in the Dharmic tradition.

Then it's definitely not new-age or at all wishy-washy: it's quite well defined.

Or a slashdot fundamentalist, where karma is so well defined there's a definitive rating you can find on your user page and you can read the code that governs it. Either way, you would have to qualify the honesty bit with the reasons why whatever flavor of fundamentalism you subscribe to requires you to be honest.

Re:His crime was trust

[RocketRainbow]

My karma is excellent! Thanks for asking.

Honesty? Well I believe in these fundamentals:
Right Understanding
Right Thought
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration

Or, put slightly differently and more usefully: (But it all comes out in the interpetation)

Propiety
Wisdom
Benevolence
Righteousness
Trustworthiness

Honesty is fundamental to any religion that expects you to spritually develop yourself.

Re:Possession of Stolen Property - It depends

[conJunk]

If you don't think poverty and race are factors in arrest and prosecution, then I'm willing to bet you haven't left your suburb for quite a while. Either that or you've never been outside. Or you live in denial. It's 4 o'clock on a friday, so I'm loath to dig in to a google search for links for you, but good grief man.

Across all analysis, youth who were African American or Latino were consistently more likely to be placed in secure detention.
Minorities not charged with resisting arrest subject to unequal force compared with whites.
Race continues to play a central role in police brutality in the United States.
Seaside man sent to prison for crime he didn't commit

but i don't know why I bother... if you haven't learned all this stuff by now, a few links won't change anything

moralknigths???

[goarilla]

why the fuck is everybody so hypocritical about this post i would buy a 300 euro sold laptop which is worth >= 2000 euro fuck you even if it was stolen i just wouldnt let myself get caught whats this shit i mean if u saw a wallet and the wallet hides 200 euro in it i would take it take the money and bring the wallet to stolen & lost goods the guy would be happy enough to have his identification card (o wait u americans dont have that) and his creditcard back !!! and then im one of the good guys the bad guys would go out eat in fancy restaurants and deplete the credit card as well! so plz dont be so jerky, you would have bought it too its an awesome deal stolen or not capitalism works this way ! have u ever bought ganja, spliff, weed although its been legalised here for 3 years (no i'm not canadian nor am i a civilian of the nederlands, although nederlands is our neigbourcountry) but would u like to be prosecuted for worldwide softdrug smuggling as well coz u were aiding in distributing drugs !!! this is bullshit

Re:moralknigths???

[jrallison]

uhh ... that must be some good weed ...

Re:moralknigths???

[melonriel]

Drivers license=identification. Oh wait, all Americans run around without any form of ID... that's how we can just buy alcohol without any age verification or make certain purchases without proving our identity. And let's put it this way - with the current US administration, would you trust the government here to have an organized database of every citizen's information that tracks everything you've ever done/bought/etc? Consider the potential for abuse... you seem to be the rabidly anti-American type, so I'm sure you can think of something to start incoherently babbling about related to that topic. Anyway, anyone with half a brain cancels their credit card after their wallet is stolen in order to prevent a jerk from buying expensive things with it. Hell, most credit card companies have anti-fraud protection so you don't even have to pay if someone steals it and makes fraudulent purchases. I don't know about you, but if my wallet was lost, I'd appreciate it if someone gave it back completely intact instead of stealing my money. Oh, it's ok because you just stole the cash and not the ID or credit cards, right? Stealing is stealing, no matter what spin you put on it.

Re:moralknigths???

[Anonymous Coward]

You broach some interesting topics. I am the host of a world-syndicated political talk show. I am interested in having you as a guest. Would you consider that possibility?

Re:moralknigths???

[Anonymous Coward]

There's this awesome button usually above the right shift key. When you press it, a new line pops out! On top of that, shift will even let you make capital letters!

So basically, you're saying you're a 'good guy' because you'd steal 200 euros out of a wallet, THEN return it? There's a big difference between buying/selling goods you SUSPECT to be stolen and literally stealing cash out of somebodies wallet.

Re:moralknigths???

[Anonymous Coward]

Marijuana isn't legal in Canada...

Decriminalized? Yes.
Illegal? Yes.

It means this- you'll get a fine over a certain amount if the cop is having a bad day. It doesn't mean I can grow it. That's illegal.

yes, personal information *was* stolen

[Anonymous Coward]

i personally know at least one person who was affected by this; she was a UCB student at the right time, and someone opened an Equifax account using credentials that were correct at the time she attended UCB.

wow...

[JustNiz]

someone steals a laptop, deceives person2 into buying it in good faith, then person2 gets punished? Damn, US law is fucked up...

Re:wow...

[The MAZZTer]

Imagine you're the one who buys a $2000 laptop for $300. Now, you understand this person is selling the laptop for MUCH less than they can get for it. They obviously want to get rid of it quickly. Now list some of the reasons they would do this... oh wait, there's only one possible one... bad things happen if they're caught with it. Which means you shouldn't want anything to do with it, or you should report your suspicions to the authorities.

This is actually one of the few places where US law WORKS.

Re:wow...

[bombadier_beetle]

deceives person2 into buying it in good faith

Do you really think person2 was deceived? Or buying the laptop in good faith? Puh-leese.

Re:wow...

[JustNiz]

how about...
I'm broke right now and need money?
I've been in that situation several times because of unemployment, student loan running out, etc.
If you don't have anyone you can borrow from, whats next?

Re:wow...

[drsquare]

Yeah, cos no-one EVER sells things for less than the retail price. If anything is sold for even a penny less than it was bought for, it's obviously stolen.

It's not like people ever try to sell usable computers because there's spyware on them or anything...

Re:wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar situation at work the other day - a customer walked in and needed a bus ticket bad. He had no money but a pretty decent laptop with him. So he offered my coworker(who was dealing with him) the laptop in exchange for the ticket. The ticket was about 60$ and the laptop is probably worth something like 1200$. My coworker questioned the thing of course, but the guy gave him all the passwords needed and a detailed run-down of what was installed and eventually my coworker bought the laptop for 100$. To what lenghts can you then reasonably go to verify that the laptop isn't stolen? You just have to trust the seller(who is really anxious to get on the bus). According to the majority here my coworker is a criminal scumbag now, but I mean - you wont shell out more than 100$ in that situation, you dont really know what you're getting. So I can't say that the guy in question, paying 300$ for a 1100$ laptop is a fence - I certainly would be a bit suspicious of such a deal, but people sell things for all sorts of reasons. And the right price for any product is the price both seller and buyer is willing to settle for at that moment, so I dont see how buying something for 25% of market value necessarily is a dodgy thing?

Re:wow...

[Legion303]

I was about to buy a friend's laptop for $300 until I opened my mouth and told him how much they were going for on eBay. Some people really don't have an idea of how much things are worth sometimes. On the other hand, it's not the police force's job to punish people; they arrested him on suspicion of receiving stolen property (or something similar)...it's the job of the court system to determine whether it was intentional and hand out punishment if needed.

Re:wow...

[Karma Farmer]

So he offered my coworker(who was dealing with him) the laptop in exchange for the ticket. The ticket was about 60$ and the laptop is probably worth something like 1200$... According to the majority here my coworker is a criminal scumbag now

He is a criminal scumbag. That computer was stolen, and you know it, and your co-worker knows it.

You're trying to justify it because apparently the guy who sold the stolen computer to your friend took the time to install a bunch of warez before reselling it. Frankly, that doesn't make any damned sense to me. Why the hell would a stolen computer full of warez be more morally right than a blank computer without warez?

3-5 times is a standard markup

[infonography]

I have worked in both Used Computer and Book shops. A business does not view that book you loved so much and held on to for all those years as being worth much. A USED dealer hopes to get maybe half of the original price in the first 18 months after whatever it is came out, after that they buy for parts and those parts maybe worth more then a live unit. Much of the rest of the stock turns to Gomi.

I just bought a Sunblade 1000 maxed out w/ 2 gigs mem and dual 750mhz Ultrasparc 3s for $700, the config it's in sold for $3500+ new. If I find a stupid buyer, I maybe can get $1000 for it. But I didn't buy it to sell so I paid more then a dealer would.

here's his ebay info

[usererror3000]

heres his ebay info: http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage &userid=shukiaa

his username is "shukiaa"

Re:here's his ebay info

[Elminst]

And it looks like Ebay yanked his registered membership??
From his feedback page:

No longer a registered user
Member since: Jun-19-03

[OT] Dice ad banner

[Anonymous Coward]

what the hell?

if (salary_sucks) {
goto = dice.com();
find_great_jobs();
/*
PROJECT ENGINEER
SALES ENGINEER
[etc. etc.]
*/ }

At least they indented it. That's almost on par with the banner with the IP addresses that run up past 255...

Yes I would think a reasonable person would.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are any number of reasons someone might sell an $1800 laoptop for $300.

For one, it's used. That right there reduces the value.

Then on top of that, you could have a person who doesn't have a clue how much the computer is actually worth. An old lady whose only son died. Some middle aged person who isn't very good with computers who got a virus or spyware and decided it was time to "upgrade" because their pc was slow.

Are the chances of getting lucky like that good? No. But it's certainly not outside the realm of possiblility.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[IgnoramusMaximus]

A USED dealer hopes to get maybe half of the original price in the first 18 months after whatever it is came out...I just bought a Sunblade 1000 maxed out w/ 2 gigs mem and dual 750mhz Ultrasparc 3s for $700, the config it's in sold for $3500+ new... etc

What you missed completely is that these items, used, have the average market prices you described. But in the case we are discussing, the laptop was purchased at 1/4th of the going, at that time, market price for such an item, in its used condition. So in your examples: a dude shows up to sell you 100 3 month-old books at 10 cents each. Or he offers you the Sunblade at $20. Etc. And you do not ask any questions, and quickly shell out the money before he changes his mind, right?

I'm suprised they ever found it...

[jwigum]

Who would have thought they'd be able to find it after a reformat.

Maybe there was a little goodie inside it.

think it through

[Quadraginta]

Well, I believe caveat emptor is a very old principle in English common law. The idea, I expect, is that taking ownership of property means taking ownership of any hidden and unknown advantages and disadvantages at the same time as you take ownership of the known and obvious advantages and disadvantages. You're expected to take into consideration the fact that there might be hidden features of the property, and adjust your buying price, willingness to buy, et cetera accordingly.

In this case, for example, as many others have suggested, you're expected to be appropriately suspicious of a very low-priced laptop, and even perhaps insist that the seller provide you with some proof of his ownership before you plunk down the cash. (This is, after all, routine in larger transactions. No one would dream of buying a house without proof that the seller really did hold good title to the property. And if you buy the Brooklyn Bridge from a guy standing on the sidewalk, well, you're an idiot.)

If you think it through, you'll realize that if caveat emptor does not generally apply, things become a mess, because buy/sell transactions are never final. You can always revisit the transaction and perhaps revoke it, based on some novel aspect of the property that one or the other of you discover.

For example, in this case, you're wanting the buyer to be able to void the transaction if he discovers the property is stolen, so as to avoid the consequences of possessing stolen property, and thereby depriving the rightful owner of its use. Sounds nice I guess.

But then we have to give the seller a similar right to void the transaction if he discovers something untoward about the property. For example, suppose the laptop is legitimately owned and offered, but the buyer discovers some previous owner has left a file on it with detailed engineering drawings of a fusion power plant that would cost $2000 to build and fit under the hood of a Corolla. Whoa! Soon as you file the patent, the owner comes to you -- sorry, I sold that laptop "in good faith" meaning I thought it was no more and no less than what it appeared to be. Having now discovered it is far more valuable than I thought, I'm going to void the transaction -- give it back!

These are extreme cases, but the idea is simple: a sale transaction must be final at some point, or else the whole idea of ownership is thrown into chaos. We have to pick a point where every consequence of ownership passes from seller to buyer. It's an old tradition that this occurs when physical possession changes. But it's got to happen sometime. You can't allow endless revisiting of contracts and transactions as new information turns up. Nor, as you almost seem to be suggesting, award ownership and the consequences thereof to he for whom you feel the most sympathy (and anyway that way lies the socialist worker's paradise, the largest incarnation of which self-destructed in 1991).

Why do you hate America?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our legal system is the embodiment of freedom. You obviously must be a terrorist.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[infonography]

likely he thought there was something amiss in the laptop. Flaky circut or an intermittent harddrive issue and something on top of that like the seller was behind in the credit payments and was afraid they would take it in for service and not give it back. Maybe it was just a case of "hopelessly stupid user syndrome" and the seller was a complete idiot about computers and had had enough. Who cares???

This year I bought for $300 a Thinkpad T30 P4 2ghz that somebody's girlfriend had flung across the room. It still ran and I parted it out making about $200 in profit and used the lightbulb to fix another laptop and I still have the 30 gig drive and legal copy of XP Pro. So I am up about $400 or so.

As a different poster stated, there isn't a main database for stolen laptops. Cops don't care. They don't rouse used dealers and not because they all work online. The only time I ever saw a cop in the stores I worked in was when we called them to kick out a drunk or something. They didn't catch this guy with hard work, they found it by a fluke.

What your really asking is that every sale have a moral pettigree. Ain't no such thing.

Dude...

[supachupa]

Dude, you're getting a jail.. sentence that is.

That was definitely what saved your ass

[Sycraft-fu]

In all states that I'm aware of, to be guilty of recieving stolen property laws, you have to have reason to believe it was stolen. Now just what is enough that a reasonable person should have believed it is something that would be argued in court. However an extrenely good price would certianly be something. If you get a $2000 item for $300, you really should suspect something was up. You are basically turning a blind eye to ignore it.

However if you paid full price, it's a good indicator you didn't think it was stolen. Why would someone pay near full price for stolen goods? You could get that from a store.

Re:That was definitely what saved your ass

[Profane Motherfucker]

That's to be found guilty. To be arrested, however, is another deal entirely. You could be guilty of nothing and still be arrested.

Re:That was definitely what saved your ass

[jafiwam]

People pick up stuff cheap all the time. For example;

- dumpster diving
- rummage sales/fleamarkets
- freecycle groups
- student moving day in a college town

I personally gave away a color laser printer because I had to move in 2 weeks and had a tractor trailer size pile of stuff that had accumulated over 20 years that couldn't go to the new office.

The printer worked, and when one messed with it enough it worked well for about 8 pages. The company wrote it off and bought TWO newer ones they were using a couple of years before.

Yet the thing sat there and became my job to dump.

I am sure it was worth well over $1k to someone who could get it working. But had neither the time nor the patience for it (and had two other working printers already, so why bother?).

So some guy from some computer shop got it for free because he could take it that day. I am sure he made a huge profit on it.

So don't be too quick to assume someone dumping cheap stuff must have "stolen" it. It could have been dumped for lots of other reasons at very low cost and be totally legit.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[IgnoramusMaximus]

likely he thought there was something amiss in the laptop. Flaky circut or an intermittent harddrive issue and something on top of that like the seller was behind in the credit payments and was afraid they would take it in for service and not give it back. Maybe it was just a case of "hopelessly stupid user syndrome" and the seller was a complete idiot about computers and had had enough. Who cares???

No, these are excuses which one makes after the fact. I you were buying a beat-up laptop for spare parts, or to use yourself, I can see your argument. But he was buying to resell. In such a case, if the laptop was busted, it would be in his interest to know how. Otherwise he would keep losing when people sell him busted stuff for full price. Thus he had to be knowledgable enough to determine the condition of the laptop. Which means that he knew that he was buying an under-priced item, which he intended to resell, because that is what he was doing all along. But because of its price, his greed blinded him and made him not ask any questions of the seller. Which nicely backfired.

As a different poster stated, there isn't a main database for stolen laptops. Cops don't care. They don't rouse used dealers and not because they all work online. The only time I ever saw a cop in the stores I worked in was when we called them to kick out a drunk or something. They didn't catch this guy with hard work, they found it by a fluke. What your really asking is that every sale have a moral pettigree. Ain't no such thing.

All that was needed is a photocopy of her driver's license. Thats it. Not exactly a rocket science, $1 billion computerized national database thing, is it? Had he done that, his ass would be covered. Instead, driven by greed, he made a quick purchase with no questions asked. Say hello to consequences.

Because computers are a commodity item

[Sycraft-fu]

It's easy to find the price on them, they are very commonly sold, both new and used, and it's exceedingly rare to find an extremely good deal on one. This really should raise red flags.

As others have noted, it's the "reasonable person" standard. If a reasonable person would suspect the transaction was illegal, then you can be held liable. I think you'd find most reasonable people would find this highly suspicious.

I mean if I find a $2000 laptop for $1800 I think it's a good deal. For $1500 I start to wonder, for $1000 I would almost certianly think it's a scam. For $300? Forget it, I won't even touch that. Something is wrong, nobody undersells technology that much.

While we shouldn't have to be paranoid of checking every transaction, we should excersize common sense. As the saying goes if it sounds too good to be true it IS too good to be true.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[gcauthon]

I like how you equate selling a non-descript laptop for $300 with selling a Sun Blade (with a very well known configuration and price structure) for $20. If someone offered to sell me a $300 laptop then I would need to know more about it to see if it was worth the money. If someone offered me a $20 Sun Blade then I would know something was fishy. You're going to have to do a lot better than that to convince anyone that a $300 laptop is obviously a steal.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I like how you equate selling a non-descript laptop for $300 with selling a Sun Blade (with a very well known configuration and price structure) for $20. If someone offered to sell me a $300 laptop then I would need to know more about it to see if it was worth the money. If someone offered me a $20 Sun Blade then I would know something was fishy.

I did it to emhasize the point. Clearly the difference was "only" 75% of the price in the case of the laptop.

You're going to have to do a lot better than that to convince anyone that a $300 laptop is obviously a steal.

If that laptop then successfully sells on eBay (of all places, itself a cheepskate-central) for $1100 it must have been pretty obvious at one glance, specially to a seasoned reseller of such items, as it was the case here.

Some things that bother me about this...

[Hosiah]

(1) Just what was all that personal data *doing* in a laptop walking around in the first place? Shouldn't it be residing on a nice, solid server somewhere in a basement behind a couple of locked doors? Why, exactly, would you need to carry 98,000 people's worth of data around with you? Were they going out to print up birthday cards?

(2) Buy laptop for $300, sell for $1159 on Ebay. Hmmmm.. Sorry, those of you pointing the finger at the guy, I'm less inclined to believe he was intentionally committing a criminal act. Would one be so brazen as to openly sell it in so public a manner, particularly when this high-profile case was broadcast all over the internet? I think he was just stupid, not thieving. Besides, he could have made himself less suspicious by lying and saying he got it for...say...$850, low enough to still be a bargain, but not so low as to scream, "Hot goods!"

(3) What kind of idiot sells a stolen laptop for a measly 300 scoots? Even ghetto druggies of the most alley-bound (some of whom I've known...having lived in California) know to charge higher than that, no matter how desperate for a rock they are. And that makes me go...

(4) How do you let somebody who looks (and smells) like *that* much of a lowlife get on the property without calling security, let alone near your thousand-dollar, precious-data-encrusted laptop?

Re:Some things that bother me about this...

[rjune]

With regard to question 1.: There are a number of legitimate reasons for having a data set like this on a computer. For my job, I currently have 5 years of enrolled student data on my computer. These files contain ethnic, gender, and citizenship data that are routinely required for surveys. However, the first thing I do is to delete the name, address (both local and permanent), and SSAN data. The "emplid", which is different than the SSAN is used for counts. There is NO excuse for carrying around such a treasure trove of personal information for identity thieves.
As for item 4: Laptop computers have legs and should never be left unattended. Once again, the person who lost it showed a serious lack of common sense and good judgement.

Encryption

[Randseed]

Not surprisingly, nobody asks why such personal data on a mobile computer was not encrypted.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[infonography]

So, how many copies of drivers licenses do you have? Does every piece of gear that ever came thru your hands have a tracking number? How much did your portable photocopier cost?

Did you get a copy of the license of the guy who sold you your last batch of blank cdrom?

In a few months, they are gonna drop the criminal charge down in a plea and give him a fine w/ probation. In a year it will be wiped off his record if he's good. If he wants to fight it he may win and just get a stern warning to be careful from the judge. $300 is not unreasonable if a bit lowball.

Extortion by any other name.....

[King_TJ]

I always had a problem with justifying this sort of thing.... I know it might be effective, but it doesn't make it ethically ok.

For example, I once worked at a small computer store that sold new and the occasional used item. We had a guy come in around Xmas time once, offering to sell us a Toshiba laptop that seemed to be in brand new condition.

His asking price was reasonable, but not so low as to be suspicious. My boss went ahead and purchased it, since his story was that he got it as a gift, but needed the money to buy Xmas presents for friends and family more than he needed a new laptop.

Luckily, my boss also thought to photocopy the guy's drivers' license, just in case, and filed it away.

A few weeks later, the county sheriff showed up, asking about the computer. If my boss didn't have the photocopied information to hand the guy, I'm sure he would have been arrested - which seems ridiculous. Instead, he was forced to turn over the computer (which he still had on the store shelf), and was never compensated for the loss.

Now you've made me angry.

[hackwrench]

I just had two laptops stolen from me not too long ago. There was information on it that would have easily tracked it back to me, but now you tell me you format the drives without checking that sort of thing out. Computers are completely different than cars in that they contain data that can be tracked back to their real owners, and the thieves that steal them often aren't clever enough to be able to delete it. I just wish the laptop makers instead of splashing their stupid logo at startup made it easy for owner information to be there. Cars can have the VIN plate switched with a crashed car of the same make and model.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[IgnoramusMaximus]

So, how many copies of drivers licenses do you have? Does every piece of gear that ever came thru your hands have a tracking number?

You bet that every single thing I bought from shady characters for cash has some documentation (actually that would be very few things since I do not buy crap from strange characters as a rule).

How much did your portable photocopier cost?

Why would it need to be "portable"? My office one does very well, thank you. And if I were in a business of reselling used computers, I sure would not be doing so on foot and at random locations but in my office.

Did you get a copy of the license of the guy who sold you your last batch of blank cdrom?

I did not need to. The store receipt is quite sufficient for this purpose. Or are you to imply that you routinely buy batches of CD-ROMS from trunks of cars parked in dark alleyways?

In a few months, they are gonna drop the criminal charge down in a plea and give him a fine w/ probation. In a year it will be wiped off his record if he's good. If he wants to fight it he may win and just get a stern warning to be careful from the judge. $300 is not unreasonable if a bit lowball.

Quite likely but hopefuly he would have learned his lesson, which is the whole point of the excercise. Perhaps some resident Slashdot moral juveniles would also grok some of this. One hopes.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[infonography]

this goes nowhere, it makes as much sense as this I pulled this from the slashdot fortune at the bottom of my page.

Where there's no emotion, there's no motive for violence. -- Spock, "Dagger of the Mind", stardate 2715.1

This arguement has become overlayed with other issues. And like the quote it has no meaning, no sense and long since free of actual reality. I can only state that this guy didn't do anything evil. $300 is not completely unreasonable if a bit lowball a price for recent used computer. I don't trust any used gear whatever it is cars to computers. My stated rationals do hold water if you want to lump me in with your fictional resident Slashdot moral juveniles feel free.

If you want to get the plain truth, Be not concerned with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong Is the sickness of the mind." Seng-Ts'an

Bootup information...

[Tmack]

I just wish the laptop makers instead of splashing their stupid logo at startup made it easy for owner information to be there

My (fujitsu) laptop has that very option.. At POST, instead of your generic mem test, flash logo, etc, it prints my email address or whatever I want (limited to a line or two) on the bottom of the screen. A reformat will not get rid of it as its saved in the bios. Changing it requires knowing the bios password. While its fairly trivial nowdays to reset the bios and wipe away that password, iirc the info is saved such that the reset doesnt reset it, only erasing it or changing it specifically will. Think it also has the capability to encrypt the MBR or something, I havent played with the bios in a while. Granted, it is only a K6-2 450, but this shows they have had the ability to do this for some time now.

tm

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I can only state that this guy didn't do anything evil.

That is where we disagree. At best, he was reckless. More likely, his greed got the better of him.

$300 is not completely unreasonable if a bit lowball a price for recent used computer.

But it is sufficiently low for the kind of laptpop in question to prompt additional scrutiny and record-keeping. Unless of course one is either reckless or downright dishonest. See above.

My stated rationals do hold water if you want to lump me in with your fictional resident Slashdot moral juveniles feel free.

Unfortunately, its not just me. It's the law too. And while I am just a random poster on Slashdot and you have nothing to fear from me, the law is another matter alltogether.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[Kadin2048]

They're almost certainly not arresting him just for this. Even if the laptop was obviously stolen they probably wouldn't set the bail that high just for one incident.

In fact I know some people who had a similar thing happen to them, where they bought two laptops that were very obviously hot goods, with the idea of reselling them on eBay and they were pretty quickly tracked down by the cops when the fence got pinched.

Both of them got about six months of probation. Certainly no $20k bail. So it's not just this one laptop. This guy is described as someone who "makes a living" doing this -- so whatever he's doing, he's trying to make a profession out of it. Based on the size of the bail, which is not huge but not insignificant either, the cops probably think he's a professional fence.

A lot of people are acting as if this guy was just trolling Craigslist one day and picked up a really great deal on a laptop for himself. That's not how it sounds to me at all: this guy was trafficking in hot goods as a job, buying them from dodgy characters at suspiciously low prices in cash, wiping the drives and selling them over the internet.

It's not like we have access to all the information but this guy was not your typical retailer.

Reep The Benifits of Your Seeds

[my_haz]

Use it gbde

The reason is not the laptop it's the data

[infonography]

They don't give a hot damn about the laptop be he a low level fence or just a guy who got a extra special deal on a laptop. They want to find where the info went. If it was wiped fine, find a way to prove it.

So they grab the first guy and shake him and maybe they will get to the woman who did steal it or just a bit closer. $20k bail is a big barking dog, if he has more ties to the thief and they can scare the guy into squawking then got closer and if they didn't then the case goes nowhere and they give it back in a few months. $100k is a big bail, $500k is a big bail, murder suspects get that sort of bail. Car thieves get more bail.

Has to making a living doing that, I've made a living doing just that. The flip side is you get some old fart who can't seem to tell you the model number but you drive out 30 miles and he's has a 486 and wants $600 for that because he paid $2000 in '95. Or you get one where the battery holds about a 12 min charge and the charge bar lies because it's just been charged. Batterys are spendy, then the seller suddenly won't answer your emails. hmmm

No, they are after the data not the laptop or the dealer. They want the original thief and to know that that data got really erased not sold to a data fence.

As to the two who got six months of probation. Did the guy who sold it to them rat them out? Bet he did, and six months of probation is just that. You didn't really do anything worth jailtime, hold out your wrist [SMACK].

This isn't much of a story, except that it shows some of the workings of a police investigation. Proof of guilt or innocence here? Don't hold you breath, this isn't an episode of Law and Order. This is just part of the legal circus. Nothing to see here, move along.

I've had a friend in HS who was arrested for this

[cgenman]

Basically he was buying computer equipment NO QUESTIONS ASKED from someone for far less than their value and selling it to retailers, users, and other people for five or six times what he paid for it.

He felt that he was shielded from the law because he wasn't doing anything illegal, and he carefully made sure he didn't know of any illegal activities himself. However, the law says that if it is pretty clear that you are buying and selling stolen goods, and the goods turn out to be stolen, you're guilty. And the courts were right: while he technically didn't know for certain that he was fencing stolen property, he really did know. We're not talking about getting a great deal from a New Egg clearance, we're talking about buying dirt cheap computer equipment repeatedly from shady characters in order to turn around and sell it.

He did a little time. Last I heard, he had created an internet startup company.

Re:3-5 times is a standard markup

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but I'm guessing the presence of a brand and model name on a laptop means orders of magnitude more to your average person than your supposedly "very well known configuration and price sturcture".

If I said to someone I had an IBM Thinkpad to sell, I think most people would know what it was. If I said I had a Sun Blade rackmount to sell, the look on most people's face would be rather... blank.

So what does that make ebay ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A fence. It's pretty obvious that a lot of goods on ebay are very suspect.

I know of a case of somebody in the Warrington area of Lancashire in UK who was repeatedly ordering goods with stolen credit cards details and reselling them on ebay. The goods are delivered to squats/derelict addresses and appearing across about half a dozen accounts on ebay within hours of the post office deliveries. Ebay have refused to help our Credit control dept (who deal with fraud cases) to track the seller because we cannot prove the goods for sale are the fraudulent goods.

Well first things first...

[Elbowgeek]

Just why is a laptop allowed to roam around with that that sort of sensitive data in the first place? I personally can see absolutely no reason for this. Oy...

P-p-p-powerbook!

[Laebshade]

I have a laptop I'd like to sell your friend... P-p-p-powerbook!

Bail?

[Apro im]

$1,159 was $18,805 shy of his bail? The judge set bail at $19,964? Somebody mis-type $1,195, or did somebody misread 1,159?