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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."
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
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.
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.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Man, hard to find a good link to a legal concept. This one should do: http://www.duhaime.org/Tort/ca-negl.aspx.
I am not left-handed, either!
"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?
Mercury News says the laptop was sold to a South Carolina man who apparently called IBM's tech support line.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
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.
AccountKiller
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)
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.)
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.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
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.