Stolen Laptop Calls In! - Will Police Act?

broswell asks: "We rent computer equipment and occasionally our equipment gets stolen. I wrote a little VBS script that calls our webserver every hour (script below) and installed it on our laptops. Sure enough, some laptops went missing. One of the stolen laptops is now calling in from a Verizon Internet account which appears to be in a neighboring town. The Baltimore City Police grudgingly filled out a police report 'so we could collect insurance' but don't seem willing to subpoena Verizon, find the address of the end user, recover tha laptop and prosecute the thief. They seem clueless. The Maryland State police has a computer crimes unit. The have a clue, but they claim they don't have jurisdiction. It is not about the money (our customer signed for the computers and will pay for the stolen items), we just want justice." With all of the necessary information in hand of the proper authorities, how likely is it that the stolen laptop will be recovered?

For those interested, here is the script the laptop used to report itself back to its owners:

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objScriptExec = objShell.Exec("ipconfig /all")
strIpConfig = objScriptExec.StdOut.ReadAll
myvar = "send=" + strIpConfig

do until 0=1
on error resume next
a=HTTPPost("http://www.yourtrackinghost.com/cgi-bin/locator.pl",myvar)
WScript.Sleep 3600000

LOOP

Function HTTPPost(sUrl, sRequest)
set oHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHTTP.open "POST", sUrl,false
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", Len(sRequest)
oHTTP.send sRequest

HTTPPost = oHTTP.responseText
End Function

Comments

Re:RIAA

[MBCook]

Receiving stolen property, they are guilty. If they bought a nice laptop for $200 then they had to know it was stolen (especially since it probably had tons of business documents on it, if it's phoning home it hasn't been wiped). I doubt they bought it in good faith. If they DID (say they paid a decent amount that would buy them such a laptop) then they could get out of the charges by pointing out where they got it. I doubt the DA would press charges on them if they pointed out where they got it from and would testify to that fact.

If they bought it from a pawn shop or used computer shop or something, that shop is liable (I think) and they may still not have claim to the laptop. Both should have questioned the sale of this laptop with all the business stuff still on it (and even more.. selling it like that).

Still, crooks are, by and large, idiots. I would bet the original thief (or a direct relative/girlfriend/boyfriend) has the thing.

Either way, you would think the cops would be all over this one. Grand theft (the laptop cost over $1000 new, right?), known location (more or less, but it keeps phoning home), easy catch, and 100:1 odds that this is NOT the first/only crime the guy has committed (probably has a few other hot items near him).

I agree with one of the other comments. Go to the media. "His laptop was stolen, and he knew where it was... but the police wouldn't do a thing. Why your stuff isn't safe... tonight at 10." Or sue the department (that always gets things moving, just the threat with a nasty-gram should do). Or go talk to the DA. A case like this (likely a slam dunk) you would think they would want to take. They probably don't know about it and could get the police to go do something.

Re:Media

[Mr. Byaninch]

I agree. Police aren't very receptive to ordinary citizens solving crimes and then asking the cops to finish the job. I had a friend who had a check stolen from a USPS blue mailbox. The thieves 'washed' the check and rewrote it for enough to cover a bunch of Gateway computers. Gateway had some problem (that I don't recall) with something that was on back order and called the phone number on the order, which (dumb criminals) was the same as on the check. My friend already had found out a check had been hijacked when other stuff started bouncing. So she got the shipping info - address, tracking # and date - and then took it to the cops. All they had to do was go to the address and arrest whoever accepted the package. Guess if they did. NOT. All they did was 'take a crime report'.

Cops are probably offended when citizens bring them solved crimes. They're a strange bunch. Anyone who knows one will confirm that. Unless that someone is dating or married to one, in which case that someone is also a strange one. :)

So I agree. Go the police first, and when they won't 'solve' the crime, tell the media. A local news channel's 'Consumer Watchdog' or whatever they're called in your town is the best bet. It's not really news for the normal broadcast, but it's juicy stuff for those 'we help our viewers' segments.

Re:Media

[Anonymous Coward]

Good idea, but wrong order. Give Verizon a chance to be the good guy. Call their publicity department first. If they make excuses, then call local media.

Why do I get the feeling that you think "being the good guy" equates to giving out their customers' private data without a court order? It really isn't their job to substantiate the cover story or judge their customers. We have courts for that.

Going through the police is the right way. If they're not doing their job, then publicise that fact. If the shop wants an alternative then they should talk to a lawyer about the possibility of suing the John Doe for something (trespass to property?) and getting a court to order Verizon to provide details that way.

Re:Media

[bluprint]

Follow the money. There isn't any money in solving such crimes. They are too busy generating profits via traffic and parking tickets and such. Why bother with an actual crime that will use resources when they can target basically good people for cash?