Best Way To Get Back a Stolen Computer?

davidphogan74 writes "I have some stolen computers checking in with a server we have (software pre-loaded), and I have full access to the systems. What's the best way to deal with this situation? The local police (to the theft) have been contacted several times and seem to be clueless. I personally have no financial interest in these computers, I just don't like atom-thieves. What's the best way to handle knowing the IPs, email addresses, MySpace sites, the Google login, etc. when working with law enforcement? The officer I spoke with (who genuinely seemed to care) didn't know an IP address from a mailing address, so I called others. Nobody cared. Anyone have any ideas?"

Comments

Use a phone analogy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try explaining it to a cop as being like a stolen phone? You have the equivalent of its phone number and need police to ask the phone company to look up the location of the stolen property?

Escalate the Issue to the FBI

[celest]

You may want to escalate the matter to a different law enforcement agency, such as the FBI. They should be more responsive to this sort of thing, especially if you describe it as data theft, rather than property theft, as surely your company's computers that were stolen were loaded with company data.

If you live in a small county with elected/appointed law enforcement agents, perhaps you should raise this issue the next time they're up for re-election. If you live in a larger city, perhaps you should contact your city councilor about the issue and request that your city's police force be modernized for the 21st century.

You should avoid doing anything yourself, as you can land yourself in legal trouble. If you insist on doing something yourself, get legal advice first to ensure you aren't going to cause more trouble for yourself in the process.

Re:You need to use the police to get the ISP's inf

[ZeroFactorial]

One other idea would be to make a bogus MySpace account with a picture of a hot chick/dude (depending on the thief's gender) that lives somewhere in the same area as the thief.

Then befriend the thief over a couple weeks and get all the personal info you can (phone #, maybe even address, etc..)

Then just call the cops with a physical address and tell them the person committed grand theft of company property, and that you suspect they have the stolen property at their residence.

Grand Theft is committed when the money, labor, real or personal property stolen is valued at more than $400.

Re:Obvious Solution

[Sancho]

These are thieves. They're likely already using stolen credit card/identities. Taking that data and posting it publicly would probably just harm an innocent person.

Re:Obvious Solution

[billcopc]

You seem to live in a world where all thieves are super-thieves and there's a distinct absence of random stupid idiot thieves... must be nice!

They walked off with a computer. That doesn't automatically make them geniuses. If they were, the first thing to do would have been to wipe the disk and start over. There are TONS of phone-home apps on the market, any semi-professional thief would know this.

Re:Treat it as an Open Source problem

[Yvan256]

That's both +5 funny and +5 insightful. If only more people would understand how clueless their "if you don't like it the source code is right there" attitude can be.

Re:You have remote root? A few ideas :-)

[palegray.net]

Assuming the people you catch aren't the actual criminals who stole it in the first place, they'd better be prepared to tell you where they got the gear. Accepting stolen property is a crime, too... there's a difference between buying something in a small computer store (where you'll get a receipt, etc) and a guy who's got some machines in a van.