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?"

Comments

This is what pisses me off about police

[teshuvah]

We saw that the police bent over backwards and ransacked a man's home when he possessed a missing iPhone of Apple's. But when a normal person loses an item and has a lead for the police to go on, they aren't interested. Just further proof that the justice system is bought and paid for by corporations, and they exist only to ensure that corporations make money. Sickening.

Re:This is what pisses me off about police

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know the half of it.

A couple years back, I worked at a place once that dealt in video games and consoles and an older customer came in and stole an X-Box. This guy was about 6ft 8 inches and pretty big. We let him get away cause hell, we had his name, we had his phone number, we had witnesses, and we even had him on camera. You can't get more open and shut than that.

Well, I was calling the cops once every couple of days after I reported him to see if they had got started on it. After about 2 weeks, they told me that they weren't going to do anything about it. They said that unless he stole over a thousand dollars worth of stuff it wasn't even worth it to assign it to an officer regardless of how much information we had. I actually did a reverse phone number search of his cell phone number and told them the provider so they could use it for his address if the fact we had his name, description and photo wasn't enough.

After that, from that point on, the cops became the last people I call unless I can get the media involved. I call friends and family first now otherwise, street justice is about the only justice you can get without having cash or influence.

Re:Report it to the Univeristy's judicial board...

[icebike]

As I read it, it was stolen FROM a university, and is now located one state away.

So neither the local Muni's or the local Uni's are the right jurisdiction.

Where the machine is NOW is what matters. Those are the only cops who can go knocking on doors in that jurisdiction.

Change the nature of the action

[mysidia]

It's not just theft of the laptop,

They have illegally used Thunderbird to gain access to your e-mail account.

That means they have gained access to both the laptop and your e-mail account without authorization.

Maybe you don't need to stop with the police. File a suitable civil action, and get a court order to compel the ISP to reveal the information.

Not just theft of property, but gaining access to 2 computer systems without authorization, aka 2 accounts of computer fraud and abuse, AND 1 count of theft/conversion.

Re:Report it to the Univeristy's judicial board...

[Anonymous Coward]

Talk to the dean of your college. Call up and setup a meeting. Remember HIS time is important. So make it quick.

"I recently had my laptop stolen. The police say it is the campus police jurisdiction. They refuse to help. I have an IP which uniquely identifies who it is. However I need their help getting the proper warrants to find my laptop. Please help me I need my laptop to continue my education here.'

You would be amazed the reaction you get. The campus police have people *THEY* answer to. The dean will pick up a phone and make it happen.

If the dean refuses to help. Your next stop should be your local college newspaper and the local city newspaper laying out the story. Embarrass them into helping you. However, remember you are now flaming out a bridge over a 1k laptop. Be prepared for that.

Now another response is to go back to the local campus police and lay it out for them. What is an IP? How to get an search warrant for an address. Make it STUPID easy for them, (in many cases you are dealing with ex jocks/military grunts who really couldnt cut it at any other job). I used this approach a few times with other stolen items over the years. Cops can be lazy. Remember you are dealing with basically babysitters here. They are not exactly having rocking cases and have been relegated to babysitting the 'rich brats'. A hard night for them is when there is a major game on. So lay the whole case out for them. Show them how for a few hours of work they can do the good thing. Be personable. 'hey hows it goin' 'looks like you had a rough night last night...' etc... Its cheesy but it works. It shows you are not looking for them to run forms for you but want help and hey they can help right? If you go in with phone numbers and address instead of an IP that could help too. It shows you are interested in getting your property back and have run into legal black holes that only they can help with. Show them you are willing to help them out. Cops are notoriously 'you scratch my back I scratch yours'.

Another place you could go is the mayor of the city you live in. "The police are giving me the run around in recovering my property even though we have enough information to find the criminal". The MAYOR runs the police... You can also get a civil judgment to compel them to help you. This could make your life really uncomfortable in the future MAKE SURE YOU ARE WILLING to do it. You need to ask yourself what are you willing to do to recover your property?

Re:Post the IP address

[Anonymous Coward]

And then, have you considered that the person in possession of the laptop may not be the one who stole it? It could be he bought off eBay and for whatever reason, is examing what's on the hard drive.

So? It's still the poster's laptop, and he has a right to try to get it back. The person who bought it, if that's what they did, bought stolen property, and will have to take that issue up with the seller. Of course, the seller will be busy dealing with the police.

Just because another innocent person may have gotten involved, doesn't mean the poster shouldn't attempt to regain his rightful property and bring the criminal to justice.

Actually, that's NOT what insurance is good for.

[KingSkippus]

Insurance is a really fucking good idea if you drive and could face effectively unlimited liability if you kill or, worse, injure someone.

Actually, if you do something to be liable for killing or seriously injuring someone, it's pretty damn likely that insurance won't help you.

Get out your policy. Go ahead, I'll wait. Now read it carefully. Somewhere buried in there is the maximum amount of money the insurance company will pay for such a claim. Now go look up how much plaintiffs win when you're held liable for someone dying or getting maimed, and compare it to the first number. If you kill or main someone, you're pretty much going to declare bankruptcy unless you're Bill Gates, pure and simple, and there's not a damn thing having insurance will do for you.

What insurance is good for is one thing and one thing only: To handle things between minor fender benders up to totaling a car and/or covering relatively minor injuries to others or major ones to yourself. Anything past that and you're screwed. Anything less than that, and you're better off simply paying out of your own pocket because of how much higher your premiums will be.

In case you don't know this yet, insurance is a scam. It sounds nice in theory, but it's legalized gambling with a twist--you're betting money on something bad happening instead of something good. Just like in a casino, in which the house always comes out ahead, the insurance companies will always come out ahead, too. There's actually a special word for people who make sure this stays true, they're called actuaries. Add up all of the money you--and your employer, on your behalf--have paid over the years for insurance, and imagine how far that money would have gone had you paid it into, I dunno, a mutual fund or something instead of paying for actuaries and marble-halled buildings. You might actually be able to pay off a large liability claim if you had.

And now, a lot of states have mandatory automobile insurance laws on the books. Do you live in one? I do, and I remember when it went into effect. If you do, have your premiums gone down because so many more people are now paying into the system and because there are so fewer uninsured motorists on the roads now? Yeah, mine haven't either. Funny how that works, isn't it? Again, it sounds nice in theory, but in reality, these laws are just a blatant money grab by insurance companies to use police power to force you to pay them money. Like I said, the industry as a whole is a scam.