Slashdot Mirror
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.
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!
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.
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.)