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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."
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.Bradley Holt
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.
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.
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!
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!
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 ?
(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?