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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?"
See what this guy did with his irrigation controller:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/04/1228208
- Ismo
That's a sound idea. It might be a good bit of preventive maintenance to use a dynamic DNS client like No-IP to map the computer's current IP, whatever it may be, to a unique domain name. If your PC goes missing just ping the domain and if it's plugged in you're that much closer to finding it.
Disable volume control, load up a wav that screams "I'm stolen" in a loop, then after a couple of minutes trigger a program that reformats the hard drive and puts a garbled GRUB loader in the boot sector.
Essentially, brick it after letting the thieves know you know they stole it.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Tell the police that since they were stolen, people keep sending you notices that you have signed up for child porn websites.... bet they can find the IP then, and subsequently the location and thief.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Flash the bios with something unusable.......
If they want stolen stuff, then break it.....
Good luck fixing that!
I really would second that. But you should ring up and (whilst trying to, as much as possible, avoid being condescending) talk the nice guy at the police through what he will have to do stage by stage to get the people who've robbed you.
Basically saying "I have this data which can be varified in these ways, which will give you reasonable suspicion that these people are thieves. If you ring up the number and say you are with the police they will give you their physical address, which you can then make a quick warrant application for permission to go in, and then you have the criminals"... of course, as someone else mentioned, if you can get the FBI involved it would be better for you - probably.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
In fact, recently a crooked Australian cop by the name of Mark Standen working as "NSW Crime Commission investigator" was spied on by way of hacking his computer and recording the webcam output. What was ironic was that the guys job as said investigator meant that he was that he knew (almost) every surveillances tactic in the book! It was a case of a (police anti-corruption) watcher being watched by an inner circle of the same watchers...
I'll tell you what worked for me when my laptop was stolen in grad school with my thesis on it and my laptop "phoned home" with screen shots of the desktop and the ip addresses it was connecting from.
Setup a fake myspace page with pictures of a cute girl. Friend the dumbass thief, flirt awhile, and then get them to come out on a "date". When you finally meet up with them, bring a few of your own friends with any weapon you deem necessary. Once you meet them and they figure out what is going on, tell them how you found them and let them know if you don't get your property back you will do damage with whatever weapon you chose to bring.
In my case the guy who stole my laptop passed out when he was confronted (very pathetic) and we had to wait for him to wake up. When he woke back up he was still so confused and frightened by how we tracked him down that he gave me twice what the laptop was worth just so we wouldn't call the cops on him because it would ruin his chances at becoming a doctor (apparently he was a med student).
Some people don't like vigilante justice but from what I've seen in the past from my own experience and the experience of my friends and acquaintances, the cops aren't very good at recovering stolen property and I'm not rolling in enough money to be robbed and just shrug it off.
Posted anonymous for the obvious reasons.
Unless you are extremely lucky (which you aren't, since you tried), you will not get police who cares or knows - one of either, but both is highly unlikely. Not to put them down - most officers with the know-how simply have more important things to deal with than some theft.
If your machines are brand-machines, and registered to your name or company, my suggestion would be to remotely disable them to the point where they need to be brought in for repairs, clue in the manufacturer, and they just might return them to the owner they have on record, i.e. you.
And even if not, you probably made sure the thieves can't use them any longer, which according to your words you'd also judge as a victory.
Make sure it's something a non-geek can't solve, like with a re-install. Setting a BIOS or EFI password and then pointing the boot device to a non-existant one could work great.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You then run the risk of alerting the thieves that the systems are remotely accessible. This might prompt them to re-format and re-install which loses you the ability of remote access.
If it was me, I'd be installing keystroke loggers and seeing what kinds of information I can capture. Credit cards, phone numbers, email addresses, etc. can give you the ability to inflict deeper wounds than than the cd tray can cause.
Now, I'm not suggesting that you commit credit card fraud with captured numbers, but you could submit those credit card numbers to a newsgroup on the net read by people that would be more than happy to commit the fraud for you.
Heh, steal a computer and destroy your credit rating. All of their friends in the address book get spammed to death, their email accounts are suspended for spam. Capture a phone number, submit it to companies that will try to sell them crap during dinner. You get the idea.
Why annoy, when you can inflict real and lasting damage.
"Lame" - Galaxar
The police are really clueless when it comnes to this as well as cyber crime.
A few years ago a had a debit card number stolen from a site where I purchased a CD. All of a sudden we started seeing odd charges (for body piercing jewelery). Within 24 hours, I had contacted the places where the purchases were made and had the person's name, home address, and home phone number. I did nothing illegal since he had put my name on the orders as the person paying the bill. I managed to get most of the money refunded to my account in a day but the police did NOTHING.
The bank still insisted that I fill out a theft report - which the cops did even they didn't quite understand why. I gave them the information when I filled out the report and they were kinda stumped what to actually do about it.
So this seems to be the norm (not having cops understand what to do with technology).
UPS Sucks
Police have two criteria in setting their priorities. The first and least important is the priority placed on the crime itself. Theft of goods worth $1000 or more ranks pretty highly, second only to violent crime.
The second criteria is the probability of an arrest. Here speeding and parking tickets rate at the top of the list.
Computer crime is only low on the list because the probability of an arrest is very low. But these circumstances make an arrest very likely and that changes the priority.
Why so many AC's wanting to diss this particular advice? They couldn't be like computer thieves upset about the risk to their careers?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Just get in touch with your local news reporter that covers City Hall and give them the story of public servants not doing their job. Just make sure to give them all the information, in fact you may want to write the story for them to make if ultra easy for them to use.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
How about turning on the Mic or web cam and start taking recordings and sending them back to your computer, or better yet, email them directly to the police.
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
Check this with an actual lawyer first (I'm not one). Since you (by being an employee of the rightful owner) presumably have a right to install anything you want on the machines, install keyloggers and other spyware.
If a webcam is available on the laptop, by all means take some snapshots!
Read the new user's em,ail to find hints as to who and where they are. If they admit to further crimes in email or ICQ, turn the information over to the police. Even if they have been resold, a person who buys a hot laptop might well receive other stolen goods as well. Email would help you (and polike/courts) to decide how knowingly they bought stolen goods.
Do not do anything that could tip them off that you are there or they might get someone to do a reload and you lose them.
If the police still show no ability to deal with it, copy all personal info on the machines and pop a note yup on the desktop stating that you have it and will publish it (including a nice email to everyone in their address book) if you don't get your machines back. (REALLY check with a lawyer here!!!). Note that the last one would be bad news even if the person is the thief and everyone they know is a thief or a fence. Who wants hot merchandise from someone who's being watched over the net?
THEN, mess with them. Crank up the volume and play audio files that say things like "POLICE, FREEZE!!" at 3AM.
Sadly, that requires a court order - which would require a police department (and DA) who understands the matter well enough to initiate such proceedings. (it is interesting that when "big money" is involved - such as in RIAA proceedings - suddenly everyone involved on the enforcement side becomes far more knowledgable).
On that note, you may wish to see if your local PD has a dedicated "Internet Crimes Division" - you may just be talking to the wrong people in your local PD. Failing that, try contacting the state police (who should have such a division), explaining to them that your local PD is not equipped or sufficiently knowledgable to assist you.
Failing that (and this one is a remote one), if it was purchased with a credit card that has loss/theft coverage, contact your credit card company and explain both the situation and the information you have to assist them in tracking the laptop...
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Turn on the microphone. Turn on the webcam. If you already have their myspace, you probably know what they look like and what town they're in, but this will help you locate them in real time if they are out using the machine at a coffee shop or something. If not, then get the info on the wifi nodes around them and you might be able to pinpoint them with the help of WiGLE.net. Hell, read all their gmail. If you can get a phone number google it to see if you can get a home address. Are you in the states? If you get their name, try their voter database. If they're registered, there will be an address. In a lot of cases, all you'll need to get that info is a birthdate or something similar that you could glean from their myspace page or their emails. If they're stealing laptops, the ner-do-wells may be in the criminal database already, so search there while you're at it. Of course, you could always try phishing as a low grade approach. Pop up a window while they are browsing and tell them they've won a prize and need to enter their mailing address to have it mailed to them. Something believable like a gift card to a local restaurant chain. If they don't buy the scam, you've lost nothing. Either way, there's so many phishers out there online these days they'll never suspect anything... You have their email. Impersonate them. Send out an email to their friend asking for a mailing address so you can send that friend a neat gift. When you get it, send the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition... And if they aren't available, send the local law enforcement to ask the questions.
I don't even know that it is an issue of technology. Cops don't seem interested in investigating theft of any sort. They certainly don't try to track down thieves. They are used to filling out theft reports in situations where they know an insurance company want to see it, but otherwise they don't even bother with that.
I'd be more willing to say that the cost/benefit ratio of investigating that sort of crime was too low, if they didn't waste so much time and money on even smaller crimes.
If the stole the laptop, they are likely to be using a stolen credit card too. It would be a better idea to have a sheriff follow the UPS guy to the door; most officers would love to bust someone for an online purchase (especially crossing state lines) with stolen credit card.
IMHO (and this is very cynical) the cops don't seem to figure its their job to retrieve "your" stolen property. We supplied equipment to a public company and it was worth 10's of thousands. We are not talking small potatoes here. The equipment was not paid for. The company claimed it didn't exist and we hadn't delivered it (of course we had signed courier receipts). The cops claimed "where's the fraud"?
Well its called fraudulent concealment. This is where they claim something they have doesn't exist (ie they conceal it).
We could not convince the cops to do their jobs.
I am left with the impression they are only useful for collecting traffic tickets and eating doughnuts.
Needless to say, now when they call up asking for donations to their policemen's fund they are told to please don't call back.
Isn't giving mod points to AC a bit like clapping for someone you're watching on TV?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Another true story: I had a neighbor of my sister that was getting beaten pretty bad,she had a restraining order,but when she would call the cops they would take an average of FOUR HOURS to get there. So I told her to tell the cops when she dialed 911 that she believed he had drugs on him. The cops were there in under THREE MINUTES and then proceeded to get VERY nasty with the guy when they tore his truck apart and didn't find any dope. So I guess the moral of the story is unless it is a crime they want to deal with,you can pretty much forget it. Hey,that might work for you! Tell the cops you have remote access to the box and the suspect was talking about drugs! I bet they go out of their way to get him for you! Have fun! And as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Watch the laptops until they reveal enough information about themselves to drop them a friendly call (make sure to state their name and address) to inform them that they have stolen property, and that if they'd like to avoid being arrested they should perform a blind drop of all the stolen equipment at a location you're familiar with. Maybe just have them come in to your business (if it's large enough and public) and drop them in an empty conference room or turn it in to lost and found, saving you a lot of trouble. If they never reveal their phone number, an email would probably suffice as well.
Why don't cops report stolen computers' MAC to local ISPs?
While I agree with your stance on drug prohibition, the article you linked to about the man with the seven grams of cocaine got the book thrown at him for skipping bail. The article says he choked his girlfriend until she blacked out instead of being in court. So, I think twenty years isn't *that* much of an overreach.
Learn something new.