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Retrieving a Stolen Laptop By IP Address Alone?
CorporalKlinger writes "My vehicle was recently burglarized while parked in a university parking lot in a midwestern state. My new Dell laptop was stolen from the car, along with several other items. I have no idea who might have done this, and the police say that without any idea of a suspect, the best they can do is enter the serial number from my laptop in a national stolen goods database in case it is ever pawned or recovered in another investigation. I had Thunderbird set up on the laptop, configured to check my Gmail through IMAP. Luckily, Gmail logs and displays the last 6 or 7 IP addresses that have logged into your account. I immediately stopped using that email account, cleared it out, and left the password unchanged — creating my own honeypot in case the criminal loaded Thunderbird on my laptop. Sure enough, last week Gmail reported 4 accesses via IMAP from the same IP address in a state just to the east of mine. I know that this must be the criminal who took my property, since I've disabled IMAP access to the account on all of my own computers. The municipal police say they can't intervene in the case since university police have jurisdiction over crimes that take place on their land. The university police department — about 10 officers and 2 detectives — don't even know what an IP address is. I even contacted the local FBI office and they said they're 'not interested' in the case despite it now crossing state lines. Am I chasing my own tail here? How can I get someone to pay attention to the fact that all the police need to do is file some RIAA-style paperwork to find the name associated with this IP address and knock on the right door to nab a criminal and recover my property? How can I get my laptop back — and more importantly — stop this criminal in his tracks?"
University cops do the bidding of the school...
Just call the RIAA and tell them that IP downloaded a song. They seem to be able to do all the John Doe stuff through the courts to find out who it was...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Simply create a GUI interface using Visual Basic to track his IP address.
"The knee is the elbow of the leg." -- My wife
Find a rootkit and hack your own laptop. From browsing history alone, you should be able to identify the perp. From there, you could file a civil suit against the ass. A civil suit won't put him in jail, but will get you your property back, will bury him/her in legal paperwork, and will certainly get the attention of the judicial system for criminal charges. If all else fails, turn the fucker's tail pipe into a potato gun.
127.0.0.1. That's odd, it seems to be finding... me. Oh man, don't tell the cops.
OMG, we tracerouted the IP address and it's coming from upstairs!
I suggest using whois to find out who "owns" that IP address- then write a convincing sounding letter to the ISP and pray that it works.
No no no, you're going about it all wrong.
Step 1. You use the whois data to write a letter (not an e-mail) to that County Sherrif's Office:
Dear Sherrif,
Some idiot stole my laptop in [my State] and is now in your jurisdiction.
No law enforcement agency has been interested in helping me to recover my stolen property.
Here's [all the information] you need to subpoena the thief's location from their ISP.
As I cannot legally access that information, I've hired a PI to find it for me.
This is just a heads up that I'll soon be visiting your fine County with an address and a gun.
Yours Truly,
CorporalKlinger
Step 2. Ditch your cellphone and go on vacation for a week.
Step 3. Come home to discover the police have recovered your laptop and arrested the thief
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Because you should trust a story written on the Internet enough to assault a stranger.
I don't think you can do much, and the sooner you put this sorry episode behind you the better.
Agreed. On an entirely unrelated note: I just got this new Dell laptop and it seems to be going to off to an e-mail server somewhere. Anybody have any idea how to make it stop doing that?
Just find a bunch of nude pics of a girl, and start sending them with some story about how it was so great to meet you at the bar and the night in the hotel was great and all that... ....that's how I got caught.
Make it a slow build up, then ask for the address so you can send him a special video......
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
Come on CorporalKlinger - you know they're reading your mail - work with it. Do I have to get Radar to bail you out?
Bonus points if you pull a real Corporal Klinger and go in a dress. Either way, bring a camera. And a few friends. Make him wish he was in Toledo.
Post his IP address on 4chan, not here. Within minutes, they'll have his name, address, mother's maiden name, his high school yearbook picture photoshopped onto longcat, 50 pizza delivery guys on the way to his place, and the FBI at this guy's door to search his (your) laptop for child animal porn. ...or maybe that's not such a good idea.
Yes... I'm sure 4CHAN will be so *very* helpful....
Quote "ure a dumbass next time buy a real laptop and not some cheap HairyPenis"
You're not kidding. I know someone whose car was broken into just to get a fucking sweater.
So you trespass 40 hours a week? What job do you do?
No one deserves to be posted on 4chan!
Not even if Hitler stole your computer and drove off in a car powered by dead babies would I say post them on 4chan!
No one!
I have Viking relatives in Batavia, but I don't know any of their names. Dammit!
I have my computer where I can remote into it. If some fool dares steal my laptop. I'll remote in and send a email bomb threat to the person's local municipalities from the persons laptop. Wait 2 days then watch CNN to find out which dumb ass stole my laptop.
Close.
Step 1: Use whois to find out the owning ISP.
Step 2: Use social engineering techniques as needed to obtain the direct telephone number for the wire center for the city in question.
Step 3: Call the wire center using a telephone from work (where caller ID is blocked) and use social engineering techniques, pretending to be from another part of the company (claim to be calling from the NOC in another state trying to track down rogue BGP packets from the specified IP number) and request that they disable the circuit. At some point, casually ask what circuit ID they disabled so that you can properly fill out the work order after the fact.
Step 4: Have another person call at the same time (preferably female) and ask them if [your fake name] had reached them about the aforementioned problem while you are still on the phone. This instills a sense of urgency.
Step 5: Upon obtaining the circuit ID, wait a day. Then use a similar social engineering technique (call until you get a different person) and tell them you're a line worker out in the field and you're trying to trace down a problem with incoming calls on circuit [insert circuit ID here]. Tell them that it's an E911 call center and you really need things fixed urgently, but you don't have the direct dial phone number associated with that circuit ID. Obtain the phone number for the circuit.
Step 6: Using a reverse number lookup, determine the street address of the person in question.
Step 7: Drive to the address in question.
Step 8: Lift the prints from the person's doorknob.
Step 9: Construct a negative impression using photoresist on copper.
Step 10: Construct a positive using gelatin or silicone.
Step 11: Wait for a murder to occur. Use social engineering techniques to find out the model of handgun used.
Step 12: Purchase a similar model of handgun and file off the serial numbers.
Step 13: Use the gelatin fingertips to leave conspicuous fingerprints on the weapon, fire it several times, then leave it in the thief's car.
Step 14: Place an anonymous tip call from a pay phone near the house (use gloves), then leave the city for a few days.
Step 15: Wait for the police to arrest the thief.
Step 16: Break into the person's house that night and take your stolen laptop back.
Now that is how it's done.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
And that's different from how they'll act if you don't report it exactly how?
It might even be worth the $200 to go buy a netbook, load it with all this keylogger/ssh/monitor stuff and leave it somewhere to see what happens to it.
Now that guy got *puts on sunglasses* framed.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I'm not going to post the IP address here since that probably violates the TOS of Slashdot or something...
Uhhh... wut? You have a real short memory, bud.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Step 17: Put on sunglasses and scream YYEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH
Actually, you can do that stuff yourself. File a claim with the courts for recovery of your possession, send a subpoena to the ISP, get the address, then either serve papers to continue the possession claim or hand the address to the state police.
Another option is to visit your local congresscritter's office. If you can get a staffer to send a "yo, what's the holdup here?" letter on behalf of your representative, that usually greases the wheels just enough to get them moving again. This is also a good way to restock on pens, buttons, and bumper stickers if you happen to be running low.