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

good luck with that

[grapeape]

I had a laptop and 2 desktops stolen from my van in the parking lot next to the police station in downtown KC. One of my side windows as well as the windows of 3 other vehicles were broken out. The police department couldnt even be bothered to walk downstairs to file a report and told me I would need to phone it in, I called and the detective said I wasnt likely to get it back but he would get back to me. Later that night after I was home my work aim account logged itself online. I got the IP called the police department with the info, was called back the next day and reprimanded for "interfering in police work". Anyway I stopped interfering, 2 years later and I guess they are still busy doing "police work" because I have never heard back from them. I guess I learned my lesson, dont bother. Now when I have to be downtown I just leave the doors unlocked, its alot cheaper than replacing the windows. I've actually managed to make a game out of it, I no longer have to take old computers to the salvage place, I just load them in the van and take them downtown.

This could be fun

[RealityMogul]

First off, nice job with the script. Now, take it a few steps further. Let that script connect as it is, but let the server return a status indicator as to whether or not the machine is stolen. If it is - let the script modify IE, Opera, and Firefox configuration settings to use a proxy installed on a server you own. Preferably a proxy that can be set to log EVERYTHING. Just wait for them to log into something with clear text username/password, like most e-mail accounts from major providers use. Shouldn't be much of a leap to get enough info on him/her to pinpoint their street address.

Cheap != stolen

[davidwr]

It's urban legend but I'm sure similar things happen in real life:
Disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-wife sells husband's car or other stuff for pennies on the dollar.

Unless you are a pawn shop owner or otherwise "knowledgable," the fact you bought it cheap is not evidence you "knowingly" received stolen goods. However, you are still in possession of them and that's usually a misdemeanor. At best, you will be out whatever you paid the real crooks.

BTW, I've received working electronic goods for a very small fraction of their street value, usually because the owner wanted to do me a favor or he just wanted to get rid of the stuff. Now only if I could get a $1,000 laptop for 80% off :).

Re:Media

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a major PD as a Specialist Reserve Officer. My thing is breaking into computers to obtain evidence when the casual attempts fail. After a couple of conversations with a deputy city attorney , it appears that it is extremely difficult to obtain a filing, much less a conviction, unless the suspect is caught in an illegal act and seen doing so by the eyes of several officers. The greatest cases I've seen were never even filed. I've worked with the feds on some cases and we've been extremely careful not to pollute the original hard drives, but our cases don't even get filed because there's an element of doubt in someone's mind, somewhere along the line. We've handed felony cases to the DA that could be called Silver Platter, but they were not filed because they have higher priorities. Their focus is on violent crime, at least where I do this stuff. If you're just an average Joe like me, I think the police don't give a high enough priority on your loss to give you a second thought. I'm sorry for those in your shoes, but I tend to agree with their priorities.

Baltimore police: laptop theft... try kiddnapping

[Tronster]

My current situation: http://www.tronster.com/missing/

My friend's 3 kids was "kidnapped" yesterday by their father here in Baltimore, their location is unknown.

After a 4 day custody trial, which ended Friday, he was orded to turn them over at a Police station at 8pm on 8/18/06. He neve showed.

I've spent the day riding with her to and from multiple Police stations as well as the Towson commissioner's office. Everywhere we go we hear the same thing, "Without a bench warrant our hands are tied."

Today I learned 2 things:

1. It's nearly impossible to get a hold of a judge on a Saturday
2. Commissioner's can be downright cruel and unhelpful

While working with the Baltimore police, most all have been very friendly (many have agreed with us about Commissioner's!) but none of them are able to do more than write down what we say. We're quickly losing hope; and even if an amber alert goes out... it may be too late if he has left the country. I have almost no faith in the Baltimore legal system and how it interacts with the police is non-existant. (Note: I blame this interaction between the two, not the Police themselves.)

Regardless, I wanted to tred on the border of being on topic as the Baltimore police and their inability to act on this may cause us to lose 3 children to an unstable man. If any Slashdoter's have 5 seconds, please click on the web-page below I made, and let me know if you see him or the kids.

With luck and more leg work, we'll get the amber alert up ASAP.

http://www.tronster.com/missing/

ThatScript v2.0

[entendre entendre]

Phoning home is one thing, but even better would be to phone home and then download any little executable that it finds there. These could do a variety of things:

• Upload any non-trivial IP from the laptop to the server, since that's probably the last chance you have to keep it.
• Taunt your local police. ("Hi, I'm sending this email from a stolen computer and i just wanted you to know that you're never going to catch me because you're all a bunch of fat lazy slobs. Crime does pay, bitches!")
• Taunt the theives' local police. ("Wanna buy a laptop? I got three more just like this one, ready to go, super cheap.")
• Install a key logger, get his credentials. Post things all over the internet with the theif's ID (e.g. his next MySpace diary entry will be "so my friends and I stole some computer gear last week...")
• Append random obscenities into every email that exits the computer ("P.S. I fucked your mom too.")
• Random pseudo-malware "attacks" on police station web servers - nothing that would bring the server down, but enough to take the IT department's attention. It is possible that their heads are so far up there asses that nothing can reach their brains, but I think there's a fair chance that their IT depeartment can still get through to them.
• To be continued...

Surely there is more to add to that list. Remember - you have plausible deniability. Your computer was stolen by an egomaniac hacker who loves to taunt police and do unspeakable things to sheep.

However I do recommend against the P2P thing suggested earlier. That might just move your computer from the theif to an evidence locker while the RIAA does their paperwork. That sounds counterproductive.

John Doe Lawsuit can get you subpoena

[billstewart]

If Verizon requires a subpoena to justify violating the privacy of the person whose IP address you're interested in, and the police won't push the case enough to get you one, you've still got a tort action against the people who ripped you off. You don't know who they are, but you can generally file a civil lawsuit against "John Doe", similar to the way the RIAA files them against John Doe file sharers. That'll let you get the court to give you a subpoena, which should be good enough for Verizon's lawyers. You might or might not be able to do that in small claims court, depending on your local rules and the value of the computers; otherwise it'll probably cost you lawyer money, and therefore might or might not be worth it.

Do move fast - if the thief sold it to somebody, it might stay there a while, but if they're just checking whether it works or seeing what they can find, they may fence it or pawn it.