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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... they're more into securing physical spaces and crowd control than anything in the tech sphere. But there's some part of the school that handles the misbehaving students, and they're the ones to contact. You've got your $1000 laptop missing, they get to threaten his $30,000-$120,000 investment in education.
This is the threat the RIAA/MPAA loves to use, they don't have the school police raid the computer, they just get the school admins to hammer the kid.
Then maybe somebody here will have something close enough for you to be able to identify the ISP.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
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.
Move on with your life.
That IP could be behind a router at a School or Library with thousands of computers behind it.
There is no way to determine who is leasing that IP without forcing ip block owner to cough up records. That will probably take a court order, and they won't tell you, (fearing you will show up gun in hand).
If you get a court order they will tell the local authorities in the jurisdiction where the IP resides. That could be any one of 20 different police departments if it is in an urban area.
But if you can track it to a specific area, (traceroute is your friend), you might get a cop from an small not too busy department to go out and check the address.
I say MIGHT.
Busy departments will laugh you off and tell you to file an insurance claim.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
See if you can file a civil replevin action against John Doe to recover the laptop. That will give you the ability to issue subpoenas to trace the IP address. Once you have the identity of the thief, report the information to both the campus police (for the theft) and to the local police (for possession of stolen property). Good luck!
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Obviously they've launched Thunderbird, so they are possibly interested in gleaning whatever information they can in that way. You could try sending a trojan to your account in the hopes that they run it, in order to open some remote access to your machine. Perhaps based on their web browsing history, etc, you can determine more specifically who they are.
Also note that the person may have purchased your laptop unaware that it was stolen.
Better known as 318230.
No agency is gonna care your laptop is a statistic now to them that's all. Best thing you can do is post the IP and hope some vigilante pwns the thief.
Post the IP here and the s/n of the laptop. Then sit back and wait. All *you* did was post some info - just cannot be held responsible for the life-altering ass-beating that the person found with the laptop will most certainly receive.
Sometimes you just have to let the system work.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
Are you talking about the police in your municipality, or where your laptop is? I'd contact the latter. They will be the ones who can physically recover your property. Also, many states have their own law enforcement branches. You might contact your neighboring state directly.
If your laptop is expensive enough, or you really don't feel like letting them get away, then hire a lawyer and file a john-joe civil case.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
the school cops may be more willing to help
This site claims to get it down to the ISP or provider:
http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/
SO, then you would have to look up your local laws and what is needed to identify the person or block that the IP is assigned to. Next, you have to start "kicking down doors" (it might take a few) and recover your property in a stunning raid.
Probably not, get an encrypted hard drive on your next laptop so that it just becomes a brick for anybody that takes it
Wherever You Go, There You Are
On X day at X time I was emailed child porn and/or terrorism material from the following IP address AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD
Now that your dell serial is on the national stolen goods database the rest should sort itself out.
Simply create a GUI interface using Visual Basic to track his IP address.
"The knee is the elbow of the leg." -- My wife
If you can connect to remote Registry you might be able to install VNC using the Run regkey and monitor the thief's usage.
Alternately, use the Service Manager to have Remote Desktop running by default.
(1) WTF cops refuse to arrest the thief when you can give them a direct address to him? Sue them for the cost of the laptop. Take it to small claims, dereliction of duty?
(2) Get the IP and reverse DNS to the ISP name. Then just get your lawyer to write a letter to the ISP demanding the identity on grounds that you need to identify the thief to sue him in civil court. (Since police refuse to make it criminal. Remmeber even OJ Simpson was taken for murder to civil court?) Then sue the police also for all your lawyer expenses, expenses you only had cause the cunts refused to do their jobs.
I know it's bad form to read the article, but not reading the SUMMARY? The IP address accessing the account is in another STATE.
My sig can beat up your sig.
Vigilante Justice
Make sure you call Dell and report it and give them the case number, they can flag it in their system as stolen and if anyone calls in on that system's tag...they'll obtain as much info as they can and act like nothings wrong.
Options...
1) Lookup on the IP and call the ISP. If they're a smaller company they may be willing to give an address "to the police". With an address (and potentially even a heads-up as to when the criminal is home) you've done most of the hard work for the local law enforcement.
2) Expand use of the honeypot. Send yourself some nude pics that are apparently from some girl. Then use your imagination to get the guy to meet you somewhere. "Hey stud, I was thinking of you the other day and snapped a couple of pics for ya. I can't wait to see you at the orgy conveniently located in the state to the East of your current location! See you there!!"
I don't know if anyone else has pointed out the person using your laptop probably purchased it at a flea market and isn't the guilty party you're hoping to find. You can't even accuse them of recieving stolen goods.
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.
I'm a cybercrimes detective and computer forensics examiner in a Sheriff's Department and do this all the time. It simply requires a subpoena to the ISP that the IP address returns to. If the campus police and city police won't do it, try your county or state police agencies (both which also have jurisdiction). In my state, all police officers have power anywhere in the state and I could "technically" investigate and/or charge anyone with a crime anywhere in the state. We just don't typically do this because it's stepping on each other's toes. As a county officer though, I frequently investigate crimes involving cases inside city or town limits if that agency doesn't have the capability. If the IP address ends up being from another state, we just contact the local police there to ask for their assistance.
Keep asking and ask to talk to a supervisor if they are not helping as much as you would like. While there is no obligation from a police agency to necessarily do everything they can on a property crime, most department heads will do what they can to keep the public happy.
Like others have said though, you may simply get a return to a campus, business, or open wireless network.
Good luck.
127.0.0.1. That's odd, it seems to be finding... me. Oh man, don't tell the cops.
Not legal advice, but you might consider that there is not only a criminal case against the thief, but also a civil case. If you want it back badly enough, you may be able to get a local lawyer to initiate a civil action against the John Doe and subpoena the university to get the identity of the person in possession of the laptop (you could also do this yourself, but it could be very easy for a non-lawyer to make a fatal mistake when going up against the general counsel of a university to enforce the subpoena, assuming they don't just give in, so I don't really think I'd recommend it). That not only identifies who it is so that you could potentially get it returned through the civil court system, it also may increase the likelihood of the police doing something.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
Take the opportunity to buy a decent laptop.
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.
post the IP. let the internet hate machine do its thing. trust us, it's for the best. you will probably have your laptop back in less than a week, with hilarious results.
You don't care about the laptop, its just Hugh Hefner is going to be pissed if you don't get his pictures back. Won't work, but at least you and the cops will have more fun as they ignore you.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
First, find out if small claims court in your state has subpoena power (it varies from state to state).
If it does, file a "John Doe" case in small claims court. If not, file a "John Doe" case in regular court. You sue the John Doe for "common law conversion" of the laptop.
After the case is filed, then get a subpoena from the clerk of the court, and serve it on the ISP that has the IP address, requiring them to ID the customer who was using that IP at that date/time.
Easy as pie.
Right because I'm sure we all carry large bags with us at all times... If it was parked in a university parking lot think of all of the reasons why you wouldn't want to take it in.
Oddly enough not everyone can really lug a 20 pound bag around with all their possible valuables in it. While its true that a car isn't exactly safe, one would think that people wouldn't break into a car simply to get a $600 piece of technology...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
You have an IP, you have a vague location, and you have an e-mail address that the perp is likely reading. If you can't get law enforcement to do anything about it, and all else fails, they don't have to know that. Send an e-mail telling them that the laptop they are using is stolen property, you have the IP address, which can be used to track their exact location, then give them the location info that you have been able to track. Tell them that you are giving them one chance to respond personally and arrange for return of the stolen property before you contact the authorities to have them arrested. Remind them of the severe criminal penalties for such a theft, and you can even throw in some digital crime mumbo-jumbo (which may or may not actually be prosecutable), to trump up the charges to felony.
The ability to communicate with the possible thief (or eventual owner) is a powerful thing, so if you can't find any other route, don't waste that chance. If it's already been resold, then the new owner may be more than willing to negotiate a return. I had my laptop stolen early last year, and after endlessly calling pawn shops, scouring Craigslist and Ebay for months, we finally gave up. I was perfectly willing to take matters in to my own hands if I saw it turn up on ebay or craigslist, knowing full well that the local Police as much as admitted there was little they could do about it.
There is at least a reasonable chance that the person currently using the laptop bought it from the original thief. Or bought it from a pawn shop where the original thief disposed of it. If such is the case, you may recover your property after a court appearance or two, but would be unlikely to stop the thief, who has pocketed their profit and moved on.
what's the ip address? you could post it here and get some "help" in more ways than one.
Setting that aside for the moment, the first thing you should be doing is tracerouting the ip address and doing a lookup on it also to see who owns it. That should get you a geographic location and a contact. Figure out who the ISP is and contact them directly. They are almost guaranteed to say they won't give you customer information, expect that. BUT, they are almost certainly used to these sorts of things already, and will know the name and number of their local police department or sheriff you need to contact to GET that request. (THEFT if a matter of jurisdiction, but possession of stolen property is a local matter) Sometimes the ISP requires a subpoena, sometimes they're used to it enough that a fax from the local sheriff on their letterhead will do the trick. Usually they won't give YOU the information, but they will give it to the law enforcement agent. Hopefully, if it was the one the isp recommended to you in the first place, that should be a person experienced in handing this sort of issue, knows what an IP address is etc, and can at least somewhat sympathize with your situation.
All that considered, you may still be crap out of luck if it turns out to be the open wifi at Starbucks. But then again it may pull up a specific home address somewhere. (most thieves are less technical than the police you've been dealing with, and don't forget it's entirely possible your computer has already been sold and is in the hands of a soccer mom or a friend of the thief or through a pawn shop already) Be sure you have EXACT DATE AND TIME to go with the IP addresses, since DHCP leases on cable modems expire and change from time to time. The ISP SHOULD have record of who had what IP when, but don't bet the farm on them keeping that information indefinitely, so you need to act fast. It's very challenging, although possible, to track down a wifi user.
Bonus info: nmap has a very nice OS fingerprint feature that can often guess what is at the end of an ip address. It may say something like "busybox linux vers xxx" indicating a router. or it may say "Mac OS X 10.5" or it may say "windows xp sp 1" etc. If it gives a computer and not a router, you can think more positive.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You know they're better than the FBI.
or a similar amount of weed they might find and raid the address. its incredible that, yes, the police are not here to help us, even when it just makes common sense that they should, yet they choose not too. in most countries they exist simply to make money
Even if we assume that the thief knows zilch about IP addresses or even computers (i.e. stole it to make a quick buck, unbeknowest of the value of the item or the information it contains), it's tough to get even a reasonably approximate location from the IP address alone. Geolocation could give you a potential lead, but (a) I have no idea if one can exploit the API to find the location of a device using IP address alone and (b) it utilizes the position of other devices, such as GPS receivers and the wireless AP the computer might be connected to, to triangulate its position.
The best you can hope for is that the IP addresses you collected belong to an ISP pool, since you could theoretically have the police subpoena that ISP for more details (like the vicinity that pool belongs to, or maybe an exact location if it's a static IP). While improbable, a thief that's actually savvy about how this works would probably obfuscate that to close up that hole. Or if the police even care enough to go through all that work; keep in mind that it's highly possible that many, many folks lose valuable items every single day and hope that the police invests time in recovering them.
If it's a college town or somewhere even remotely urban, I would check your local Craiglist or ask your pawn shops to see if your item turns up. In the future, it might be a good idea to place a sticker or some other identifiable, but subtle, marker to remove any doubt that it belongs to you. As another poster suggested, insurance is a worthwhile investment if/when you purchase your next notebook. Unfortunately, hindsight is always 20/20.
On a slightly unrelated note, is it true that Apple can track their laptops by serial number?
Good luck!
Maybe I'm paranoid. Or maybe I just really want to reign hell down on whom ever steals my laptop.
First, most thieves are dumb, they're not going to wipe it. They're going to sell it as fast as possible to get cash.
All of this is free and open source and should work on Mac and Linux, not sure how to create services in Windows.
1) Prey Project. An OSS theft recovery tool. Uses google geo location, web camera if it comes installed.
2) AutoSSH. I have an autossh run as a service that creates a link between my home router and my laptop. ssh -R 2222:127.0.0.1:22 home.example.com. So no matter where I leave my laptop, if it can get out to the internet, I can ssh into it from my home router.
3) OpenVPN. AutoSSH * 10. No matter where my laptop is, it IS no my home network. Leave it at a friend's house.
4) Keylogger. . I have a launchd (cron) set up to sftp me the log every day and then restart the log.
So now I know: 1) Where my laptop is and possibly have a photo of who is using it. 2 & 3) Can access my laptop and play fun tricks 4) Know exactly what said person is up to and when they login to gmail, facebook, etc. I have their passwords.
Sadly my laptop hasn't been stolen yet.
It often seems that crimes involving computers are shuffled to the bottom quickly and quietly -- I suspect it's because the people involved often don't have the know-how to pursue the case. Perhaps if we stopped letting them get away with it, change can come...
From an anonymous computer in the library, e-mail your old e-mail account a picture of yourself playing in the tub at age 3.
Wait for them to access your e-mail account again.
Call the police, and report an incident of downloaded child porn.
They will get your laptop back FOR you.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
My Mac Powerbook takes a picture every time it wakes up or is rebooted, then stores the picture. If there is a network connection, (any stored) pics are emailed to me along with a text containing the IP and timestamp, then the pics are deleted from the Mac. While it's likely that someone may disable this feature, it's unlikely that it will be before it gives me what I need to find them. In other news, anyone want to buy a couple thousand candid pictures of me (and some other people) opening my laptop?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
If the thief is reading your email, you can send an email to that account along the lines of, "Hey [your name here], I got that weed you want, meet me at [a nearby park] and we can do some business." The Thief shows up, and so do you with a baseball bat and a couple of friends. You probably won't get your laptop back, but you can get some ... satisfaction...
First, this is across state lines. Federal. This is also Unauthorized Access/Use of a Computer. Again, I think there's a federal statue against that.
You call the LOCAL (to the IP address) Federal authorities. If they say they won't help you after you've given them all the relevant information, you ask for their name, full. Then you tell them they've become an accomplice in this by refusing to comply with the law, and that you're going to get them arrested for accessory after the fact.
Then you call a lawyer and proceed to file a civil lawsuit against that agent.
You will have your laptop recovered. If you're not ballsy enough to badger the feds, then just give up and buy a new laptop.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Did you have ssh installed? if so, login in in the middle of the night and do something similar to this: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/road_rage.png
Do you have ssh enabled?
Thats right! A new house and a 100000 dollar boat also free beer and hookers for one year.
All you have to do is go to this address with your brand new laptop and the rest will be taken care of.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The good news is sometimes the police, vendors, or crafty network/system admins actually catch thieving scumbags. Tell Dell the system is stolen, and let them flag it as such in their system. Call your anti-virus vendor, and have them flag the system as stolen and they can track when the system checks-in for updates. File a police report in your local municipality and with campus security, document the serial number, MAC address, etc. Call local pawn shops and report the serial number as stolen, which may not help at all without some sort of police report. Google for some advice on recovering stolen property from pawn shops. It is, however, a long shot to actually recover stolen property from a pawn shop. Personally, I would even report the GMail account as compromised to Google, and explain your circumstances to the GMail support team.
The bad news is, after you put all this time and effort into recovering your laptop, you won't just get it back. If recovered by the police, the laptop will spend the rest of its usable life stowed away in an evidence locker. The police won't just hand your laptop back to you. At some point, depending on how much your time is worth, the number of hours spent tracking down your laptop will exceed the actual value of the laptop. Realistically, you still won't have the laptop in hand when it is all said, and done.
Automobile insurance typically only cover personal property, if it is permanently affixed in your car. In other words, you can get a new car stereo, if that happens to be stolen. Your laptop, on the other hand, is usually out of the question for recovery under an automobile insurance policy. If you have decent homeowner's or renter's insurance that would be your best bet in recovering, at least a portion of, your laptop's value.
/^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
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.
I will guarantee option three above will work quickly and effectively if the /. post wasn't enough. There's nothing a university hates more than negative press. I learned years ago, that if a government or private agency is NOT dong their job, make sure everyone knows and things change mighty quick!
File a small claims case. This will give you a cock large enough to send out letters called "subpenis" or something like that. Seriously, research what you can do about evidence discovery regarding your small claims case. You'll find that you can compel the ISP to give you the identity of their customer, which you can fill-in on the court case.
Send the fucker the summons to court. You'll probably find out that he bought a laptop from a buddy of a buddy. Too bad, you can just tell him that you'll take him for the laptop, and for damaging your data on the laptop. Or he can just settle and give you the laptop back.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I think CorporalKlinger needs to learn the first rule of owning tech devices - don't leave them unattended in a car. If you can't observe basic security of your own devices then you kind of deserve to have it stolen.
Never leave anything in the car unattended. Hmmm. So, by that logic you can then never leave the car itself unattended, because you are asking to have it stolen?
You forgot to remind them that they shouldn't dress in any way that another person might find sexy, because then they "kind of deserve to" be raped.
(not sure if CorporalKlinger is female or just wears women's clothes)
Hey bro, where you usually hang out? I wanna come check your car out.
Place an email on the account the laptop is checking:
The RAM/Bike/Boat you sold me is working perfectly, but I have misplaced your address. Please let me know where to send the $300 cash.
Once you have an address, you have something to talk to the police about.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
You can handle this outside of the criminal justice process for a fair amount of the process.
File a civil suit against "Joe Doe and Does 1 to N, etc." (just like the RIAA) for theft of private property and asking for a judgement ordering the return of the property, etc. In tandem with that, file a request for a subpoena with the ISP to whom this IP belongs for the associated address.
Because the filing of the suit, getting the subpoena, etc., is going to take some time, you should send a letter to the ISP informing them that the subpoena will be coming shortly and that you are informing them of their responsibility to preserve evidence in a pending civil suit.
Once you have the name and address of the party in question, you should do two things:
First, file a formal criminal complaint with the local police and DA concerning stolen property which is being used in their jurisdiction. The original theft may not be their concern, but the receipt of stolen property is there concern.
Second, file a request for in civil court for an order requiring the return of stolen property at address X. Once you have this court order, you can go and get a sheriff (usually at a cost to you) to accompany you to this address and force them to open up and show you it isn't there.
Too often people forget their are parallel legal systems - civil and criminal - in this country and fail to realize that they have control. The RIAA does and takes advantage of it. Why shouldn't you?
Email yourself something enticing, like that you won something from the local radio station and let them know they need to come claim it in person at a specific time. Something tempting like an ipod. Then you wait their with your sledgehammer (the law or perhaps a real sledgehammer). It works all the time for the law and really dumb criminals who skipped on their bail.
Personally, I'd bet the current owner bought it off eBay or at the local pawn shop. Have you checked eBay for similar listings? Opening your email 4 times is probably just the person poking around the computer trying to figure out why they can't run internet explorer.
Put a baseball bat in your car. Contact the ISP that owns the IP address to find out where it was broadcasted from. Go to the place, and wait. Then, take out the baseball bat and, well, you get the idea.
Or, remote desktop in and mess with them.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
We're a Dell shop at work and by default, all "road warriors" have Computrace installed on their machines.
While it doesn't happen often, we do suffer a loss due to theft now and then.
My experience has been that the local PD is very helpful and sends a copy of the police report to Computrace, exchanges contact data, and at least professes interest in recovering the laptop.
Worst case; we get a check in 6 months if the unit is not found.
I know this is a little late for you now, but if your insurance replaces the unit, you might want to add the $$ for CT.
I am my own gestalt.
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.
OK, so the laptop was stolen on school grounds. But the problem is now to locate and recover it from another state. The school cops have jurisdiction on school grounds and keep the peace there. So if the laptop turns out to be on another campus you could try the cops in THAT school (though it seems unlikely, since the person holding the laptop is using a service). Don't expect the cops at the school where it was lifted to go out of their way to chase down stolen property in another state, outside their jurisdiction. Once you have a specific thing to ask for (like trying to get the location from the ISP and forward that info to the cops of local jurisdiction there) maybe they'll do it - and maybe not.
Got the report number? You (or a lawyer) might be able to get the ISP to cough up the info with that, or get started on getting a court order if they're reticent.
(You might also try the county sheriff. In some states they have overriding jurisdiction on school grounds. File a crime report with them, too.)
= = = =
The laptop is phoning home from an apparently static IP address - or a long-duration connection. Can you remotely log into it? If so you might be able to do things like turn on the microphone, look at files the new user is taking notes in, or follow his browsing. Does it have a built-in camera? Does it have any remote administration or monitoring software installed - or could you install some remotely?
Does it have built-in WiFi and if so do you have the MAC address of it? (You could probably get it by that hypothetical remote login if you don't have it recorded.) If the WiFi is on or can be turned on and if you can get the neighborhood information you could then sniff the location when nearby. (That would also help the cops with jurisdiction in the area if you go along with them to sniff it when they want to bust it. Gives 'em probable cause.)
Note that IANAL. So I could be talking through my Stetson.
Check with a lawyer if you can find one with the appropriate specialization. If you're a student at that university you might have legal advice resources available through them. Or if they have a law school ask who among the faculty is expert on this and talk to that prof. Academics sometimes like to help, especially where the law is squishy. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I hate to say it, but you're not going to get the police anywhere to take interest in your problem. They have other things they see as more important and you're just some "punk college kid" to them.
Learn your lessons from this. Backup your files regularly. Get good insurance on your car and your laptop. Secure your laptop as well as possible anytime you leave it somewhere out of reach.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
There is nothing the police will do. You can give them the address of the person, and they'll "get around to it." But you can sue them in court. File a small claims case against John Doe if you can. File it for the value of the laptop (slightly depreciated if you have to make sure it's under the small claims limit) then use that court case to issue subpoenas to the registered owner of those IPs. Perhaps hire a IP if that IP is owned by someone that allows multiple access (like a library or whatever), but in most cases, thieves are stupid and he'll be at his house.
That's the only way you'll ever get his real name or your laptop back. As for stopping him, short of killing him, unless it's his 3rd felony in a 3-strikes state, he'll not see the inside of prison for a non-violent offense like that. So an arrest and conviction wouldn't stop him from doing anything.
Sue or move on.
Learn to love Alaska
The poor thief is being slashdotted.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That's why they invented roller bags. When I'm traveling, the laptop goes everywhere with me, or is safely locked away. Leaving your laptop in a car isn't the best idea. It (obviously) looked like a good target, and was therefore stolen.
People will break into cars for almost anything that they consider of value. Someone busted out the window of my car once, to steal about $3 in loose change, and the $75 radio. My auto insurance covered both the window and the radio, but wouldn't pay for the loose change. That taught me to park where lots of people can see my car, versus the nice spot in the shade where my car wouldn't turn into an oven while I was working.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
That was a prototype - this is a $500 -$1000 laptop. Apple probably spend $1M on its product launch - advertisements and all that. And this is a used laptop (though new) worth less that what the buyer paid for it.
How much time do you want the police to spend on a idiot who leaves his laptop in his car ?
@$50K per cop, and them working 20 days a month, the police cost $50,000/20/12 = $208.00.
So lets see, a brand new dell, and a burglary that harmed no one physically or some murder or rape investigation???
..."I'm a marketing student-- My experiment is to post a story about a stolen laptop on a popular geek site, and track the response of hits to the IP posted over the next several days"
ok, I'm basing this off of an anecdote/tech story I've read off slashdot or some text file long ago, but from what I remember ping can be roughly translated to distance by using some formula referencing speed of light. Now expanding on this, get 3+ users in surrounding states to ping this IP and have them give their geolocation. draw circles from these points and see if you can find any intersections, you might get a rough idea where the person is, perhaps what county they're in.
You go to the media and Mr. Thief is going to take his new laptop and dump it in a dumpster next time he catches the news.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
People will break into cars to steal alcohol, cigarettes, cash, sunglasses, cellphones, wallets, whatever they can see.
mediocrity rules, man
ping 208.102.223.137
PING 208.102.223.137 (208.102.223.137): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 208.102.223.137: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=91.270 ms
64 bytes from 208.102.223.137: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=102.547 ms
64 bytes from 208.102.223.137: icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=85.332 ms
64 bytes from 208.102.223.137: icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=91.327 ms
traceroute to 208.102.223.137 (208.102.223.137), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
7 pos-0-10-0-0-cr01.denver.co.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.22) 44.308 ms 36.699 ms 26.050 ms
8 pos-0-7-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.210) 72.804 ms 70.635 ms 86.250 ms
9 pos-0-1-0-0-pe01.1950stemmons.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.94) 85.642 ms 80.102 ms 83.993 ms
10 sl-st31-dal-0-5-2-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.25.33) 75.552 ms 85.975 ms 69.215 ms
11 sl-crs2-fw-0-6-3-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.19.179) 91.875 ms
sl-crs1-fw-0-6-5-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.19.59) 74.784 ms
sl-crs3-fw-0-0-2-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.73) 96.481 ms
12 sl-crs2-atl-0-8-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.148) 166.932 ms
sl-crs1-atl-0-8-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.146) 143.757 ms
sl-crs2-fw-0-7-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.1.46) 72.344 ms
13 sl-crs1-atl-0-6-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.20) 167.941 ms 109.164 ms
sl-crs2-atl-0-8-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.18.148) 116.084 ms
14 sl-crs1-dc-0-4-0-1.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.147) 110.353 ms
sl-st31-ash-0-2-0-0.sprintlink.net (144.232.25.15) 111.318 ms
sl-crs2-dc-0-4-0-1.sprintlink.net (144.232.8.161) 151.998 ms
15 sl-cinci3-362168-0.sprintlink.net (144.228.205.54) 110.992 ms 104.999 ms 111.631 ms
16 10ge0-2-0-0.core2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.199) 133.034 ms
sl-cinci3-362168-0.sprintlink.net (144.228.205.54) 122.794 ms
10ge0-2-0-0.core2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.199) 136.687 ms
17 10ge1-2.sw2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.198) 80.569 ms
10ge0-2-0-0.core2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.199) 136.431 ms 164.560 ms
18 10ge1-2.sw2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.198) 76.720 ms
10ge2-2.ws-osr2.zoomtown.com (216.68.7.205) 101.821 ms
10ge1-2.sw2.core.fuse.net (216.68.7.198) 78.362 ms
19 mw-esr1-72-49-32-1.fuse.net (72.49.32.1) 77.202 ms 95.935 ms 87.240 ms
20 * mw-esr1-72-49-32-1.fuse.net (72.49.32.1) 82.678 ms 80.115 ms
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 21 (ftp).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 23 (telnet).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 25 (smtp).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 80 (http).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 110 (pop3).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 139 (netbios-ssn).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 445 (microsoft-ds).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 1433 (ms-sql-s).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 1521 (ncube-lm).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 1723 (pptp).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 3306 (mysql).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 3389 (ms-wbt-server).
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 5900 ().
208.102.223.137 isn't responding on port 8080 (webcache).
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Frankly, the cops have better things to do.
Buy a new laptop and move on. And don't leave it in your car, which is *unbelievably* stupid. Consider it a lesson.
I run a fairly large internet company (many millions of users), and we get about 1 subpoena every two months, asking for IP logs of a particular user.
Is it always the same guy?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
http://www.infosniper.net/index.php?ip_address=208.102.223.137
hostname: mw-esr1-208-102-223-137.fuse.net
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocation.php?lat=39.0972&lon=-84.1225&setLatLon=Set
there you go, it's on Bauer rd near the intersection with 276 in Batavia Ohio. Assuming the infosniper geolocater is working.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You're not kidding. I know someone whose car was broken into just to get a fucking sweater.
Exploit technical illiteracy, push the "hacking" angle. Technically, the thief is attempting to steal your private data, so bring in computer crime laws. Eventually you can tack on enough that some glory-hungry person in law enforcement will take interest in such low hanging fruit. They get a lot more credit than they would for catching a petty thief, and you get some schadenfreude as the thief gets charged with about half a dozen more crimes than they would have expected.
Actually, a simple "Bob, I have that money that I owe you, just tell me where to send it." might be more likely to get a good result. Even better if you have a friend who has already sent e-mail to the account send the message.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
skateboarding on campus... they sure seem to like trying to bust skaters!
Contact Google's Gmail support (through help) and report a hijacked/ compromised account. They will possibly only be able to tell you that you need to change your password, but explain your situation to them. (You might also be able to "reverse lookup" the IP through a Google search and see what ISP that IP range is registered to.) They might be able to further assist you with information of ISP, in which case, if you contact an attorney who has knowledge of such things, you can file a disclosure warrant to the ISP to release information of which subscriber has been issued that IP address for that time period. It's all (more than likely) going to have to be handled in court, it it could possibly cost you more than you've lost, considering that the person that burglarized you probably doesn't have a dime to their name, but you can at least feel better knowing that you have served justice to someone who has wronged you. Good luck!!
Steal a laptop from your school, install tracking whatnot, webcam, netbus lol. Anyone remember netbus?
Put laptop in the same car, park it in the same spot on the same day of the week, same time. Do that for a month. He might even leave you a commission if you keep stealing laptops from school. Hey don't worry they can't get you because it's across the state line. Seriously, just make it happen again if you can't track the sob the first time. Thieves keep falling for the same bait.
Your first mistake was mentioning that it's a Dell. Now all you're going to get is people reminding you that Dell has a tendency to produce faulty hardware and lie about it. (Never mind that they have made plenty of other good products, and it's irrelevant to your problem.)
> 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?
You need to go to court (in the state where the stolen computer is now located) and get a court order requiring the ISP to reveal the address. This pretty much requires that you hire a lawyer licensed in that state.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Visual traceroute puts it between Batavia and Owensville OH if you put the IP in here: http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/network-location/ Then using the lat/long in google maps with streetview it shows to be around 4640 - 4630 on State Route 276 in Batavia: Bad news is the location we're getting off this could be of the ISP's switch at "the last mile". The good news is it looks to be rural, with only a few houses in the 'hood.
I had a guy who was doing some work for me steal my wife's checkbook and forge several checks some years back. That would seem like pretty major crime to me... the police were entirely disinterested. Pretty much, the police aren't interested unless it involves a weapon or violence, from what I've been able to gather. The problem with this is that ignoring "minor" crimes leads to major crimes. That is... Why do we have major crime? Because we don't prosecute petty crime. It's called the "Broken Window Principle". The idea is that the reason neighborhoods degrade is because minor problems (broken windows) are allowed to go unfixed. Same thing here. If they would draw the line at petty crimes like breaking into someone's car or forging a check and deal with those, maybe the major crimes would never happen.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Why try to run this down yourself when you can hire a Lawyer to work out the jurisdictional stuff. Or maybe get some help from your universities law school students.
The chances of getting a DA to prosecute a case and get the guy jail time might be slim. But you should be able to get your laptop back. Before you go to far with it though, you may want to figure out exactly how much your willing to spend to get some measure of justice out of this.
END COMMUNICATION
This will, unfortunately, cost far more than the laptop is worth. Most attorneys charge in the neighborhood of $400/hr.
Hack the ISP, go to a sporting goods store, get a Mossburg 550 and a box of 2 1/2" 000 buck, go to the address of the account logging on (or traced where ever). Two options here depending on the variables. Recover your property on your own or call the police and tell them you are recovering your property. Before you jump on me suggesting you call the police. I have lived in several places in the US where this is approved by the police even if you employ a weapon to do so.
6.8SPC TR of 550, l xwind at 6, drift rt at 26" drops 77". AT has 503 ft-lbs at 1403 fps. FT 0.86
Assuming he isn't stealing his internet from other some poor schmuck; you could always head round there with a couple of friends, some duct tape, a can of gasoline and some matches. Which you use to scare the shit out of him until he gives you your laptop back (or a better one). Early morning on a weekday he will most likely be alone.. I normally i don’t condone violence but you don’t fuck with a man’s laptop.
Rocket Surgeon.
I'm pretty sure the FBI would have to handle the case. The crime happened in one state, the criminal is in another, and the ISP may be in a third. A judge would have to issue a warrant to get the physical address from the ISP. A judge would than have to issue a search warrant for that address. When you call the FBI again first ask the name, department and so on. Explain the situation and try to nicely convince them that this is an easy case for them to solve makes them look go etc. If they still refuse simply say you have no other alternative than to contact the media with what happened and how the FBI refused to investigate the case. Then make sure you contact as much media as you can. If a few reporters start asking them why they won't investigate a simple case they'll probably apologize and do it.
http://www.absolute.com/en/lojackforlaptops/home.aspx This company (based in Canada as I recall) has software you install on a laptop (could be a desktop) that logs where you log in each time you connect to the Internet. You can log in to their server and see it yourself. If it is stolen, they promise legal assistance to get the computer back. At a seminar years ago, they said that they relied on a network of retired law enforcement people, among others. And they said that usually when someone came to their door and insisted they had a stolen computer in their house, they usually returned it, saying they'd bought it on ebay, rather than face unknown consequences. They also have some relationship with ISPs apparently to get home addresses. Anyway, consider them for your next computer. Maybe give them a call or email with your information and ask if you can pay them to "work their magic". You seem to have the data they need. (and no, they aren't limited to Canada for retrievals, they also do the USA).
If you can someone remote into the laptop, install something like Prey onto it. Enjoy the hunt.
Hopefully this will break you of the habit of leaving valuable electronics in your car. Certainly you have the right to do that and shouldn't have to fear the items being stolen, but aside from that risk, it's just plain not good for the electronics. You're meant to be able to go through a thousand charge cycles on a Lithium Ion battery before you lose ~20% of your battery's overall capacity. Making a habit of leaving them out in a potentially hot car will seriously cut into that life span. It's a particular problem if you're talking about something without a user replaceable battery like an iPhone.
This is for all portable stuff with connectivity getting stolen: Make sure the device serial number/IMEI (cell phones) is recorded somewhere officially.
Those guys who doesn't have a slightest clue about IP address can get really smart if a crime (worse than stealing) takes place with that particular device.
I know some people doesn't take their time reporting and it is like a time bomb waiting to happen. For example, what happens if that unreported cheap cell phone is used by a major drug dealer? It would really take time and money to explain the situation in that case.
They'll send a reporter to the house asking how they feel about taking someone's property without asking.
Except for the 4chan part. The IP they DDoS might not be assigned to the thief when they get it. (also illegal blah blah)
To add to the IP address part:
When you find the ISP, call them. Wait on the phone, get transfered to people. Always be nice and polite and say stuff like "I understand you are really busy.." and "I know this is an unusual request but..." and patiently wait, acknowledging their apologies and asking advice like "what can you do for me?" and "is there anyone else I can talk to?"
Doing this will get you far.
Now, tell the person who you finally get on the phone with the IP address and the TIME it was accessed. If the IPs were of the same ISP then ask if each one used the same MAC address at the time it was accessed. Then ask "Can you give me the information on that account or do I have to do something else?" You might get someone who does, you might get transferred to someone who can give it to you or you might be told that it might have to be done with more formal measures.
Then get the address of where the company receives subpoenas, get the person's name who you talked to. Ask them who to ask for next time if you have any more questions. Thank them for their time and their help and then call the cops with the information you got.
This works. I have done it before (but not with a stolen laptop). Sometimes the information you get is astounding. Sometimes they blow you off (Verizon will do both but they have big call centers so try many times)
Good luck.
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.
The laptop hardware might be worth $1000. But if you start including the cost of the software and documents on it the prices start going up rapidly.
I write software for a living, and if my laptop was stolen there's a good chance for it to contain 1000's of hours of my work on it (so even at a paltry $/hr that adds up quickly). If you start including the value of trade secrets for clients that goes up even more.
Yes, things are encrypted, backed up and a thief may be unlikely to gain access (or even know what to do with it) but that doesn't negate the fact that the docs are still on the laptop and very much worth something.
Heck, even if you only used the laptop to listening to music and watch cat videos on Youtube, you could use RIAA pricing for your mp3s.
The real WTF is why you don't have a password on boot and why you have Thunderbird configured to store your email password unencrypted.
A secondary WTF is why you are leaving valuable, apparently uninsured, items unattended in a car.
Laptops get lost and stolen all the time. My advice is to put some thought and energy into that reality rather than trying to try to catch this guy.
(NB: Thunderbird will store passwords encrypted if you assign a master password, which requires you to enter a password at launch.)
I totally agree with you. I had a similar rant typed in about expensive yachts and skyscrapers, but I've posted such here before and it doesn't generally go anywhere productive.
With regards to the third party insurance issue I thank you for correcting me. I was writing on the assumption of an American audience and it's not too surprising I got it wrong.
In my country of residence we can't be sued into bankruptcy, due to a government department that pays for injuries arising from accidents. We are still liable for actual damages, but million dollar lawsuits for pain and suffering don't happen. As a result my yearly premium on a V6 sedan is 127 dollars.
PS - My father is in fact an actuary. Your expected return on most policies is 50 - 70 cents on the dollar.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
I actually just went through this exact situation a week ago. Here's my story and how I was able to get the computer back with the cops' help. My country (Canada) works very similar to most US states so hopefully this will help you.
Our outfit is into tech in a big way. We are all scientists of some sort and up and up on O/S, security and the latest tech gizmos. When my boss wanted to upgrade his systems to dual Macbook Pros, we immediately setup s mirroring system where he could be perpetually synchronized between his office and home with automated backups to the university servers. We had a script I had written to do much of this along with posting an IP address every hour in 24 blocks. We also were using Log Me In so that he could remote control his systems. The server ran on startup and wasn't viewable in the taskbar as my boss hates clutter.
Anyhow, we had two separate systems that were capable of posting IP addresses when online.
Three days after the theft we started getting IP writes in the logs.
The first and major things we both had to do was 1) restrain ourselves from doing absolutely anything to jeopardize the comp from going offline 2) contact the police immediately with the IP information.
Before we contacted the police again, I had determined where the IP was coming from (a home account from a major ISP). We waited another three days, consistently getting the same IP posting. We then went back to the police. Like the OP, they view a computer theft as insignificant given their work load. They saw a wealthy scientist ($500k/year) who had lost out on a $5000 laptop (Macbook Pro 17" with all the fixins) containing $30k of specialized software (and we had the discs of course to reload) a digital project worth $1.5k and a few other smaller items. Even though this was over $5000 (which is like a felony in Canada), they simply weren't able to provide us with much help. They knew what a computer was and even an IP but after that they were deers in headlights. I requested to speak with someone in their cyber-crimes division and I was told that because of the G8 and G20, I was out of luck there.
Not unlike research institutes and universities world-wide, this police department fought for funds internally and also internally, departments would "pay" other departments for work. In this case, because it would be a "special favour," during an immensely chaotic time for our police forces because of the heads of states well, they simply said no to all those requests.
Here is where things got both fun and tricky but I think could work for the OP.
A consistent IP can easily be traced to the ISP. If the IP is consistent over a select period of time, a motion can be filed before a judge and a warrant issued to get the personal information of the person owning said account. I happen to be a trained lawyer, so the detectives were really open to what I was suggesting, and since I also happen to be a computer scientist who does research into security as well as other things, they viewed me as an expert in the field. The first warrant was sought and granted within two days of us suggesting this avenue. This is your first MAJOR task and one that will be the most fruitful.
Legally, I was able to log into the stolen computer without comprising any investigation because I was about to be "contracted" by the police department to do what their cyber-crime division wouldn't do but could: gain network access and collect as much data as possible.
I did this and eventually worked around the router (a joke given the default settings that existed) and then the grey area began where we required another warrant: checking out the other comps on the network. While the search warrant was being issued for this, a SECOND warrant (and really the only other one we needed) was being issued to search the premises the cops received via the ISP. The IP had been consistently posting with the same address over 10 days and staying online for 6-10 hours at a time. I could hav
And tell me this which is the overwhelming kind of automobile accident? If you suddenly had to pay massive costs to cover the damage that you did to someone else's car in a relatively minor accident, could you afford it? Could the average Joe?
Not to mention the fact that that in a system where by the law requires you to have insurance every one is ensured to have financial costs covered in the event of an accident which isn't their fault.
Now if you have a complaint about how the insurance companies handle themselves in claims or how much they charge, I have no qualms with you, but mandatory insurance is a sensible solution.
There is no -1 disagree
is it just me or is seeing this come through just really downright scary? as much as I'd like to see the laptop back in the right hands, now I want to also know how to gain some privacy on my IP... as ironic as that might be.
..installed on your laptop. Else the thief would have dutifully returned it to you.
I can very well imagine that you may not want to carry a heavy bag everywhere. I also leave my laptop in the car occasionally. But whatever happens, I make sure they'll never get my data by using full disk encryption.
This unfortunately prevents recovery of the unit, as it'll never get online. But the data's security is way more important to me than the hardware.
.sig: No such file or directory
...avoiding arrest.
Make a small site... make it look serious enough for someone to think it's a real commercial website. Then pretend to sell the new iPhone there for... let's say $100 (special offer). Require some more of the person's details... I mean setup a questionnaire, so the person thinks that the cellphone is traded also by giving out his data. Ask questions like: "What is your job?", "Do you live in a house?", "What is your religion?", "How old are you?" etc... then it's easy... try to get the address by requiring it... Hell... you need to send the iPhone somehow! Record every access to your store and don't forget to install robots.txt and to forbid web spiders to fetch the fake web shop site.
Then send an email to your account that he obviously reads. Don't write your name anywhere in the email.
Then wait... anyone who tries to visit your store is connected with the thief somehow. Maybe you don't get the thief directly, but it could be someone who is close enough to find him.
I wonder if the perp reads Slashdot. I can just imagine him (her) reading this and saying, "Oh crap, they're on to me. They'll be at my door any day. I'd better ditch this laptop." On the other hand, If he's reading this, he may be tech savvy enough to go into hiding.
Same thing happened to my daughter almost two months ago; laptop stolen from her college dorm in Memphis. I had LogMeIn set up on it to tinker with her laptop remotely, and the thief was online within hours of stealing it. Told the cops immediately. Traced the IP to Comcast, and Comcast attorney said that all she'd need is a subpoena and they'd gladly turn over the info. Since then, I've told multiple cops, taken screen shots and emailed them to cops, emailed them times and dates of logins, etc. Comcast attorney has sent the officer a brochure on what to do, and STILL nothing has been done. (She warned me against logging in to the laptop.) The two-month anniversary was yesterday, and I still can watch this laptop online every day. It's well beyond frustrating. I've considered opening a chat window and offering the thief $100 to bring the laptop to a neutral location, no questions asked.
In response to that excellent analogy, I have only two words: Mmm... Bacon.
I'm sure the local News Team in teevee box ad market here could use another round of 'computer security reporting' to put a finer point on the "hacked a group calling themselves 4chan" YouTube fiasco.
This poster is naive enough to dream the american dream. Wake up boy/girl! The surveillance tools (both phisical and legal) available today are not meant for the individual.
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I live in another country (Romania), and the total money paid by insurances have about doubled, with a doubling of the insurance rates. I don't think many people would benefit from even the old maximum, not to mention the new much increased one.
I should mention that the insurance was mandatory from a long time ago, at least 7 years (but probably more than 15).
Very nica
Did you have a BIOS and hard disk passwords set on your laptop? I mean those that are requested immediately as the computer switched on?
On some brands, I hear, these passwords are final. No way to bypass them as an OS's password.
I know the US is different, but in the UK your car insurance covers you up to any reasonable amount you are liable for.
The reason is that in the UK you won't get damages of fifty or a hundred million against you for killing someone.
The problem lies with the US courts for awarding ridiculously high damages, not the insurance companies - you can't realistically expect them to insure everyone for virtually unlimited liabilities.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Website for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office:
http://www.hcso.org/
Step 17: Put on sunglasses and scream YYEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH
All you can do technically is relative to their default security. Even if you had remote desktop enabled, it won't work unless they have a router port forwarding to your laptop on the right port, or in a DMZ. You can find the IP address owner, and send an email to abuse@(insert name of ISP) Many ISP's will respond to help you ID the owner of the internet account. There's no easy technical solution beyond this. Good luck. Alternately, just express to the authorities that these criminals are threatening your intellectual property which you fantasize to be worth hundreds of millions of lost profits which you may have otherwise reaped. Tell them you are the new Van Gough. Don't allow them to question it.It is a fact.
Like I said, the industry as a whole is a scam.
Same thing with the surge in DUI arrests in the past decade (or a little more). The insurance companies pressured the police into actually charging people with DUIs instead of making them walk home or dropping them off in the drunk tank because they realized that they can charge otherwise very safe drivers who had a little too much at a cocktail party with insane premiums.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Well, you asked. That should motivate the FBI a little more.
"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........" You contacted the FBI because you were stupid enough to leave a laptop in a car..... be responsible and don't be an ass, oh wait....
I know that this must be the criminal who took my property
Or it could be someone who purchased the laptop from the perpetrator, either innocently or shadily.
On my laptop I've installed DynDNS and VNC and left a user account without a password (so they don't have to format the machine to use it). If it gets nicked I think that gives me the best chance of finding out what happened to it.
Yes, you are chasing your own tail. IPs aren't a solid proof of location. And even if it was, how do you approach an apartment building (for example) and determine which floor, let alone room, has the suspect? :(
You can safely assume that it isn't. Just try entering your own IP address and see what it finds. It's likely to get the state right, but that's about it.
(Or, if you can't be bothered, remember all the targeted ads you've seen online that seem to think you live in Lustville, when in reality you live in Lackawanna).
In my case, it misses by about half the state, and no, it doesn't guess anywhere near where the ISP is either. My guess is that it's the address of the first sucker on the subnet who signed up for a "service" that gave the Geo/Info guys both an IP and physical address and the right to use them.
Historically, insurance companies that run at a loss, close down.
They make money and they undercut each other to obtain business which decreases profit margins but with more policies that won't matter. I don't have problems with that business model.
one would think that people wouldn't break into a car simply to get a $600 piece of technology...
I guess you've never had your car broken into so the thief could swipe your cheap-ass $100 car stereo and a fistful of loose change. One idiot actually stole my prescription sunglasses from my car. He probably didn't know I was nearsighted in one eye and farsighted in the other. I hope the little bastard is stumbling around, unable to see the shit he stumbles into because of his cool new sunglasses.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Im pretty sure you cannot trace an IP to a specific address without talking to the ISP. IPs are dynamically allocated, and are not tied to a specific address, and no network forensics are going to reveal physical router locations unless theyre foolish enough to put the address as the hostname.
This is precisely why the RIAA has to use subpoenas to get that info from ISPs. Infosniper may be giving you the lag/long of the town, but it wont be able to be much more accurate than that.
For the general information : except for being unwise to leave the laptop in a car, none of the rest of the previous comment is true.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Create some realistic looking Russian spy emails and email yourself. Use google translator to put it in russian at the top, and in English at the bottom. Put in some nice russian looking pictures, and make it all about the coming invasion.
Close with, "Reminder, please destroy this message after receiving it."
I promise that the FBI will come and find you, laptop in hand, at which point you calmly withdraw your complaint form from the FBI and the police and say "thank you for finally returning my laptop. I hope that in the future I won't have to resort to trickery in order to get you to do your job."
According to TV, NCIS can hack into your motherboard and reprogram the hard drive to act as a GPS receiver, in under two hours.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
is it just me or is seeing this come through just really downright scary? as much as I'd like to see the laptop back in the right hands, now I want to also know how to gain some privacy on my IP... as ironic as that might be.
You have two options available, a proxy or Tor. Neither is guaranteed to be completely anonymous, particularly if the proxy forwards your IP address, but they offer at least some privacy. As a bonus, you can also use a service like Hotspot Shield to get a US IP address for accessing those sites that aren't available to the rest of us.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Someone in my apartment complex stole mine, because right after it came up missing, it connected to my Access Point. I stepped outside my front door and announced very loudly that I know who had my laptop and that the police were on their way. I walked back inside, waited 10 minutes, and the laptop was back on my doorstep. I never had a piece of computer equipment stolen again.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Don't assume that. I just put in my home IP address and it resolved a couple states away.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
In Ohio, where insurance is mandatory, you don't have to pay a dime to insurance companies. In lieu of standard insurance, you can have:
1. a surety bond of $30,000 issued by an authorized surety company;
2. a BMV bond secured by real estate having equity of at least $60,000;
3. a BMV Certificate for money or government bonds in the amount of $30,000 on deposit with the Ohio Treasurer.
Option #3 actually earns you interest!
If you have $60k of equity in real estate (typically your home), option #2 will cost you the least amount if you gamble on not having an accident where you'd injure someone/damage someone's property.
So, no, you don't have to pay an insurance company. OTOH, maybe you should get insurance from a mutual insurance company where any profit is shared by the policyholders.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
> 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.
Me too!
However, we used to also have more tightly regulated insurance. As such, the minimum insurance package was actually cheaper than the national average, when compared against the same coverage. Then of course, we kept the minimum insurance mandate, and dropped some of the regulations on insurance. That didn't help matters at all.
Frankly, I agree that its a blatant money grab by the insurance industry. On the other hand, having less uninsured drivers on the road is a good thing. So it seems to me that the state should just... provide the insurance. Spin off a non-profit semi-private organization that provides insurance essentially "at-cost" (as much as you can for what is essentially a form of gambling).
That or drop the mandate. One or the other though.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It's a bad thing when you register a .09 when the limit is .08 and then you have a DUI.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Having been rebuffed by the authorities (I use that term loosely), I feel you are now morally permitted to take law enforcement into your own hands. I suggest the following recipe:
1 part reverse-IP lookup
3 parts exercise of the Second Amendment (the "bear" part)
2 parts buddy to come along with you*
2 parts confrontation in front of the person's house while your buddy calls the local police
* some may prefer a whole bunch of buddies
Actually, that's not more important at all. People should be able to put their shit down, or put it in their car, without some asshole stealing it. Fuck this thief, I hope the owner harms him physically. Seriously, I honestly wish him a small to medium amount of physical harm -- maybe a black eye, broken finger, or busted lip. For legal purposes, the criminal would have to provoke the battery.
Just to give a sense of scale to this: my wife was backing out from a covered parking lot. While going backwards at maybe 2 mph and turning, she hit the right front of the car on the steel roof support post (a 4" diameter steel pipe). The pipe didn't even get the paint scratched, but the Volvo S80 suffered $3k worth of damage. Over the 8 years of our car ownerships, we've paid about twice that amount in insurance premiums.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
That's a flamebait. I could type on and on here, but I'll save my time.
I have more coverage than that for about $250 a year. At that price, risking your house seems a little crazy (but maybe not if you have a second home that you rent out or whatever).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
start looking at http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/search/sys?query=dell&srchType=A maybe?
The Dell will suddenly die for no reason. That will teach 'em.
Many years ago I had a mobile phone stolen with two cd wallets (I had loaned them to a friend who had just returned them) that contained over $2500 worth of original cd's. Stupidly the thief used my phone account which I had left active to see if they would use it. The sim pin but not a phone pin guaranteed a limited use of the phone and it was enough to track the thief to their home address where I waited.
Good sense prevailed and I left the scene and reported the information I found to the police who said I should work for them. They did nothing and now I am sorry I didn't kick the door down and collect my property. Sure it's illegal but how the fuck are they going to prove you are stealing what is already yours.
I'd be careful though, I hear that Americans tend to own guns.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I have talked to ISP's before about legal issues (specifically, a hacking incident). I said "hey, there's a hacking incident coming from one of your IP addresses, and I need all the information that you have on the person."
Their questions: "Are the police involved?" and "Are you a network administrator?"
Since I answered the questions right ("No" and "Yes"), they gave me all the information. Had the police been involved, their instructions were to only provide information with a warrant.
The moral of the story is to ask for the information first, prior to getting the police involved. Mod me up, so the guy sees this critical piece of information!
Damn right. Car insurance isn't worth the paper it's printed on, so I pay as little for it as possible. It's a piece of paper that demonstrates to police officers that my car is in good legal standing, nothing more. I've been in two minor fender-benders (one my fault, the other not) and in both cases, both parties agreed that it would be best not to get the insurance companies involved.
I put barebones insurance on both my cars - both my track car and my 4x4 which I do offroad rallies with. The insurance company doesn't have to know this, I just keep my dealings with them to a minimum.
If you own a car that you can't afford to repair or replace without assistance from an insurance company, you are not living within your means, get a cheaper car.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Tell the cops that your Steve Jobs and one of your employees got hammered and left your prototype laptop at a beer garden they will go bust this person's door down with a special task force.
If you have an SSH server on, you can login and find more details. -bigfoot chick
It pretty much would have gone into the toilet over 2008-2009.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
What does a nslookup have to do with anything ? Someone's been watching too many "Hacker" movies.
to find the ISP that the IP address is assigned to, you have to start with ARIN (assuming this guy is in the US). Go to ARIN's WHOIS query page at https://ws.arin.net/whois/ -- that'll get you started.
Then, find out of the IP address has been reassigned via the ISP. if the ISP reassigned them via SWIP, the ARIN WHOIS tool will show you the assignments, in order from top to bottom. If the ISP has reassigned the ip address via RWHOIS, then you need to query the ISP's RWHOIS server. The easiest way to do this is to find the RWHOIS server via ARIN's WHOIS tool, then go to http://projects.arin.net/rwhois/prwhois.html -- that's as close as you're going to get with public information.
Once you have the ISP (or the delegate), you have enough information to go to a prosecutor or a judge to get a warrant. A previous ISP I worked for was more than willing to provide this kind of user data but we required a warrant so that we knew we were doing no harm.
Just remember to keep the IP address logs AND time/date of login, in case he's got a dynamic ip address or hopping from starbucks-to-starbucks.
Jeremy Kister
http://jeremy.kister.net./
You don't accidentally get your blood alcohol level to 0.8. These folk are not otherwise safe drivers, their a liability on wheels traveling at 60mph.
I sure don't want my premiums to be subsidizing their accidents.
And that's "free", right?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
.02 isn't intoxication. Do you work for MADD?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Actually, no. MADD just successfully lobbied for allowing 4 time convicted DUI offenders in florida to be able to get back on the road with a valid license again (HB 971). They are no longer the organization they pretend to be. And do you honestly believe you should be drinking before you drive? Regardless of amount, if you drink, call a cab. That simple. By the way anonymous coward, our penal system is based on PUNISHMENT FOR CRIMES COMMITED. Yes I think if you commit a crime by driving intoxicated you should be punished. And 5 years might be long enough to deter people from doing it again.
Seriously? Don't thieves try to pass the stolen items off for cash FAR MORE than they keep them? Now, it is QUITE possible that the guy with possession of the laptop is complicit in that he knows he has stolen property, but assuming that he's the thief seems WAY overboard.
Spooner always knew what he was trying to say.
You were dumb enough to leave your laptop in the car and now you want to harass the person who took advantage of your stupidity?
I sure hope you're only tracking them down in order to thank them for finally teaching you something you should already know..... or did s/he?
Just ran it on all ports overnight, here ya go. Omitted all but the 3 useful lines,
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
6363/tcp open tcpwrapped
50940/tcp closed unknown
Ahh... so stealing is wrong but violence is ok. Good to know.
wiki: Burglary: Burglary (also called breaking and entering[1] and sometimes housebreaking)[2] is a crime, the essence of which is entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offence. Usually that offence will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary. To commit a burglary is to burgle (in British English) or burglarize (in American English).[3] wordnetweb.princeton.edu (incase you dont trust a wiki) : entering a building unlawfully with intent to commit a felony or to steal valuable property. none of these mention anything "by cover of night" http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=burglarize proof that burglarized is a word (at least according to the university of Princeton) (also wiki lists it as a alternitive to Burglary. and i dont see how posting this ip would help his situation any (most likely it would just make it worse, people contacting the thief, or the thief taking measures to obscure the correct IP), your claim that he is "making shit up" is groundless and without merit. My Point: YOU sir, are a TROLL.
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
Try investigating the cost of a PLUP. For a relatively low dollar amount, you can have in excess of $1M in liability insurance. You are much more likely to be able to settle a major death/injury claim for that and avoid the situation you specify.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
While wrongful death, etc, judgements can be very large, it's not automatic that they will take your house, make you claim bankruptcy, etc. The most they can take is your assets other than your house and some portion of your income. The gubbmint doesn't want you going bankrupt and homeless so they limit the amount that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of that. Your option is buy no insurance, pray that nothing happens and if it does, just give up everything they can take. Another option is to buy more liability insurance. It's not that expensive. Once you get up into the million dollar range, then the insurance company is majorly on the hook and then you have their shark lawyers working partly on your side to prevent the other party from recovering everything you have. Most likely the settlement will be something less than your policy limits. Of course they may try to get out of paying at all, but you can then sick other lawyers on them if need be, and/or apply pressure from the state insurance regulators, press, etc to get them to fall in line. Self insuring and hoping you can build up enough assets in MFs fast enough to cover a settlement is a really bad idea considering liability insurance is actually cheap, most people can't build up assets that fast, and who would want to have to pay out millions just in order to save a couple hundred a year on liability insurance? Not all insurance is that cheap, but liability insurance is a particularly stupid one to skip out on if you have any decent amount of assets or income.
So yeah, insurance is slightly a racket in that it is just as corrupt as most industries and has an added incentive not to pay out, it's nowhere near the racket you claim it to be. That incentive not to pay out is balanced by the desire to keep customers happy which requires paying out legitimate claims. If you buy from more reputable companies and follow the terms of the contract (such as not lying on the application to get cheaper rates), then you are in better shape.
So what is the name of the idiot that left a laptop in a car? hahaha just a week ago a friend of mine left his laptop in a car while I carried mine with me, I was with him, he got a broken window and a stolen laptop, my laptop was safe with me, what to do? DONT LEVAE VALUABLES IN CARS you moron and go back to daddy for some more laptop money
You said that this was a new Dell laptop. Depending on what model you purchased, Dell may have installed a security chip in the laptop, the 'laptop lo-jack'. And unless you've already disabled all of the annoying programs installed by default on all dell laptops that regularly communicate with Dell in the background, they'll be able to provide more information to law enforcement. I imagine that if dell has any sort of protocol for communicating with law enforcement about stolen laptops, they could be helpful. Of course, it's dell. So you may find out that your warranty expired the day before the laptop was stolen and it'll cost you twice the purchase price of a new laptop to get their assistance.
But it might be worth a shot.
Just for the record, I wasn't really ranting at you, I was ranting at the insurance companies. I didn't mean you any ill will, though it looks like that might have been my intention in my post.
Actually as a former Reserve Police Officer I can assure you that in fact cars or as the police refer to them "vehicles" can in fact be burglarized. The official term or statute will read "Burglary of a conveyance". On our reports in fact you had a check box for Burglary and then another for type which included the conveyance option.
There are a lot of differences between insurance and gambling. Yes, in both cases the expected value is less than what you pay. However, in gambling the standard deviation increases... in insurance the standard deviation decreases (a sure loss instead of an unlikely but huge loss). That is to say, insurance makes life predictable. And predictability is worth something.
Of course insurance companies have to make a profit (well, except for the non-profit ones).
But where you really get off the rails is when you think if you add up all the insurance premiums, you'd be able to cover the huge losses. The only reason insurance works is because 100 times the premiums can cover the losses (and expenses and profits), but it only happens one percent of the time.
Similarly, you misunderstand the requirement for automobile insurance. The first, moral, part is that some of your actions with an automobile can produce massive externalities. Insurance is the only way most people can cover those massive externalities in the case of an accident, hence it is required. More than one state has the ability to put up a bond, that is the limit that your insurance would cover, instead of purchasing insurance. However, that's cost prohibitive. But to drive you have to prove you can pay to repair the damage you can do.
Liability insurance wouldn't decrease because the other person had insurance as it only applies if you are at fault. Comprehensive insurance becomes cheaper to provide, however. Whether those savings get passed on to the customer is an interesting question.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Stealing and violence are both usually wrong, and both sometimes okay. I'm sure you already knew that.
Why do you believe this? If someone can afford one expensive car, but cannot afford two expensive cars, they can still be be living within their means when purchasing the first. They just have to be able to afford a more comprehensive vehicle insurance.
Assuming that they can comfortably insure the car, how are they not living within their means?
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You, sir or madam, are thoroughly mistaken. I'll make you a deal: My email address is my UID and is at gmail. Contact me and I'll send you emails from the cops, Comcast and the university. .
That theory has been pretty widely discredited. The wikipedia page provides links to peer reviewed studies that show it really has no effect on the major crime rates.
Wax on, wax off baby!
I suppose you're right, if you know your insurance contract like the back of your hand and can be sure your insurance company can't weasel out of paying for the repairs/replacement, and you're sure you'll still be able to comfortably insure the car after any rate increases. It's too much of a gamble for my taste though.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That person was tracked down to his location - he lives in New Richmond and uses ISP Fuse Internet Access.
Please contact Rick Wagner by email at wagner@fuse.net or hostmaster@fuse.net , or phone at +1-513-397-6598 or +1-800-387-3638.
I talked to Dick and he said he will be happy to assist you.
I don't know... drivers are already pretty bad out here in SoCal... I'm perfectly happy not to have any drunk ones around, too.
Stop! Dremel time!
Not is you handle the filings yourself. You don't need a lawyer. In the words of Nolo Press, "Don't feed the sharks!".
I can prepare - for myself only, since I am not an accredited member of any bar - all of the filings outlined above with reference to a few books which are available in any university library.
Yes, it would take some time and some money - depending on your income you can get filing fees waived - but it can be done for a lot less than $400 an hour.
I most probably could pull it off for $100 in cash and a few hours of my time.
Um, no you don't. It could be the next guy who bought the laptop from the thief.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If your state has replevin laws on the books file for a civil writ of replevin. This writ order the sheriff to seize such property so it can be brought to court to determine the true owner. You have to post a bond for the value of the property but you get that back when it's proven to be yours. This is only legal for items with specific identities like serial numbers. You cant replevin 100 lbs of wheat because there is no way to prove which wheat it is. I never actually did this but considered it when someone stool some of my tools and I knew who it was and had witnesses.
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.
Assuming you can actually afford to pay out of your own pocket. Not everyone can afford to pay ten thousand dollars all at once for damaging someone's fancy car. If you can afford to pay close to your insurer's maximum payout out-of-pocket, then insurance isn't worthwhile, no.
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.
The difference is key. In gambling, you accept a known loss for the chance of a very large gain. In insurance, you accept a known loss to avoid the chance of a very large loss. What's the difference? Money has decreasing marginal utility. Every dollar you earn is worth less than the last. This is especially evident at the high end: ten billion dollars isn't appreciably more useful than a billion dollars, certainly not ten times as useful.
So say you bet one dollar for a one-in-a-million chance to win a million dollars. Your expected monetary gain is zero, but your expected utility gain is negative. A million dollars is less than a million times as useful as one dollar, so you're losing out. The fact that your odds will be less than one-in-a-million just amplifies your loss; even if it were even you'd still be losing.
On the other hand, say you have a one-in-a-million chance of losing a million dollars. If you can pay a dollar to avoid that, it's almost certainly worth it. The utility loss from losing a million dollars is much more than a million times the utility loss of using one dollar. So in this case, it would be a good deal if you were paying exactly on the odds as here. Whether it's a good deal in real life depends on how much extra the insurance company charges: it might or might not be a good deal.
Just like in a casino, in which the house always comes out ahead, the insurance companies will always come out ahead, too.
Yes, they'll always come out ahead, but that doesn't mean you don't also come out ahead. It's perfectly possible for both parties in a transaction to gain utility from it. In the case of a casino, they come out ahead, but more importantly you come out behind. This is not always true for insurance (although it can be, as with any good or service).
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.
If we're talking about you, or a small employer, then sure, all those insurance premiums would be enough to pay for a large liability claim. That does defeat the purpose of insurance – as long as you only got the claim after you had been stockpiling money for long enough. That's the flaw. So how to get around it? Well, you could pool together with a bunch of other people, so the pot is big enough from the start that it's unlikely to be depleted . . . hmm, why didn't anyone ever think of that?
If we're talking about a large employer, then they probably aren't paying for insurance at all. A company that owns 100,000 buildings across the world generally does not pay for fire insurance, for example. Why? Because they can just pay directly and skip the insurers, since the cost is no big dea
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
Forget the high-tech hi-jinks. Obviously the cops aren't going to get your laptop back if you give them directions to the thief's house. The local police and the university police don't want to do their job. That might cut into their part time job running security at the local Walmart. You need to remind them that you, the taxpayer, pay their salary. You do that by going to where you have power, and that's your state legislature. Call your delegate and state senator. Most likely they'll call the local sergeant and ask him to get you off their ass. Suddenly your $1000 laptop is that sergeants first priority. Trust me, I spend a lot of time in my state's capital and I see this all the time. Power belongs to those who speak loudest.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
You wouldn't expect liability insurance to go down, but you would expect comprehensive, since it covers the cost of an uninsured driver colliding with you.
Emergency medical treatment is provided (ambulances sent, ER admissions) absent any method of payment. Therefore the cost for the people who cannot pay their bills gets spread out to those who can. Therefore, some amount of insurance is just as justifiable for healthcare.
Higher levels of insurance required and subsidized are justified by some people who consider it a human right. Or people who feel that it is cheaper (the stitch in time method) that allowing poor people to wait until they need to go to the hospital.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Try your county sheriff. The cops are appointed and their boss is the mayor or in the case of the college the dean. The sheriff is elected and reports to the people. Go there and tell them that you are not getting decent help from the campus cops.
It is also true that you can go to the courts yourself and get the court to subpoena the ISP's records. They will cooperate.
Whathe!No correlationisnotcausation keyword from the masses?
Attention summary poster, current user is not necessarily the thief. How about possibilities?
+ lost again ...
+ sold
+ pawned
+ pawned then sold
+ lost again then pawned then sold
+ gifted
+ lost again then gifted
+ lost again then gifted then sold
See? I can go on on forever but you should be enlightened just about now.
No, jail has not been shown to lower recidivism in DUI offenders. Neither have larger fines or lowering the BAC limit.
At .02, there is no discernible loss of coordination or CNS depression. Your posts seem awefully biased so I won't try to further convince you of the insanity of a hard-line stance. Drinking and driving stems from our countries attitudes towards alcohol. Being forbidden for minors makes it impossible for them to learn to consume alcohol responsibly in the presence of adults. Instead, they learn to drink from other minors and end up in a binge drinking cycle.
The number of binging teens as a percentage of all teens who have had alcohol is very high. We need to change our alcohol culture before we can end drunk driving, and no amount of laws, fines or jail cells will change that.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Yes you do. 0.8% is fatal and honestly, by consuming even everclear, I don't think you could ingest it fast enough to get your BAC to .8% before you die. Only way to hit .8% before you die is to inject it directly into your veins.
I think you meant .08%, which is our legal limit in all 50 states now. That's the per se limit, meaning being at .08% or higher BAC means you are by law impaired, even if you demonstrate in field sobriety testing that you are within your faculties to operate a vehicle.
You can still get a DUI if you blow under .08% but most police won't waste their time with that unless they can demonstrate that you are impaired beyond just your alcohol consumption(pills, sleep deprivation, whatever).
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
what if the real thief didn't bother erasing anything and sold the laptop on craigslist? the new owner may have no idea the laptop is stolen...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
They stole my new laptop three days ago. I changed my password to gmail and will check for unnatural activity on my gmail account any other ideas what I can do I have the serialnumber for my hp protected by a fingerprint and or a 4 position code please
You may have better luck if you could get one of the university techs to help out. Also if you know your mac address you could contact the isp and ask them nicely if they can either give you the ip address location and or the same for the mac. You may be surprised to find this may help a lot. The university techs should be able to give you your mac address also. That is if you didn't use a wireless router between the laptop and the university system. Then you may be able to file a police report with this information. A lot of times if you can't give them the exact location of where it is. Then they won't help.
Ha! Are you really that naive?
No, that is only what they tell you they are doing. In reality, they are taking everyone's money, keeping billions of it for themselves, and hiring people whose sole jobs are to screw you out of receiving anything for legitimate claims.
I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not kidding. It is a dirty and corrupt industry.
Isn't that just the location of the ISP's server farm?
I had something similar happen. The thief (or fence) opened iTunes and it automatically connects to Last.fm. I didn't think the police would be much help in getting an IP address from there, if they had it. (Although Last.fm is based in London). Anyone here work at Last.fm?
"Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." - G.K. Chesterton
Contact the ISP to whom the IP addresses are registered, through a lawyer. Tell them that the laptop is stolen and ask them to confirm in writing that they could produce the name and address of the person using those IP numbers at the given time, if required to by law. They don't need to give you that info, just confirm that they have it. Then you can approach the police showing them that the only thing they need to do is obtain a subpoena for the info from the ISP to resolve the case.
It doesn't matter. The new owner is not the lawful owner and must forfeit the laptop to the person who rightfully owns it. It is then up to them to help you track down the thief.
unless your life / property is in danger the legal system isn't going to react to you unless you have a lawyer. since your laptop has already been stolen, think of it as dead. the police aren't going to rush to the scene.
Okay, I missed a zero.
Frighteningly, wikipedia reckon a few folk have managed to surpass 0.8%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_alcohol_content#Limits_by_country_.28BrAC:_Breath_Alcohol_Content.29
can you get a photo of him?
isp could log his stream
ask isp first, and call police in cincinatti.
don't try to trap him without telling police.
You wouldn't expect liability insurance to go down, but you would expect comprehensive, since it covers the cost of an uninsured driver colliding with you.
All else being equal, yes. It might have been masked by rate increases due to other things like inflation, though. Usually the price of goods and services goes up steadily over time, so a moderate cost saving might be reflected in a longer period until the next price increase, rather than an actual price decrease.
Emergency medical treatment is provided (ambulances sent, ER admissions) absent any method of payment. Therefore the cost for the people who cannot pay their bills gets spread out to those who can. Therefore, some amount of insurance is just as justifiable for healthcare.
Well, it's not quite the same, since conceivably you could also just not require emergency rooms to treat patients without payment. But if you're going to require that they be treated, then yes, the same rationale applies to limited mandatory health insurance as applies to mandatory liability insurance.
Or people who feel that it is cheaper (the stitch in time method) that allowing poor people to wait until they need to go to the hospital.
My understanding is that prevention often costs more than treatment, so I don't think this is obviously correct as a general rule. In some cases, doubtless.
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You're dead on with your response about insurance rates. Most likely however, the competitively determined "fair" profit simply absorbed those cost savings.
I tend to think it would be impossible to force hospitals to assess someone's ability to pay before emergency treatment. After all, do I have insurance? Am I a millionaire? Of course I'll tell you I'll pay if I'm conscious, and of course they can foreclose on my double-wide when I don't afterwards. Sometimes, maybe, they can run a credit check, but see, I forgot my social, and I'm screaming in pain and about to pass out.
Therefore, we make hospitals provide emergency services, then try to get paid.
You may have misunderstood what I meant by "a stitch in time". While I certainly think vaccines should be forced down everyone's throat for free, I was actually talking about the "one stitch" that prevents "nine". That is, not pervasive education, although probably screening. If you have your finger mangled, but have to wait for it to get ganggreen, that doesn't help you and makes it more expensive to fix. If you have pneumonia, and wait for it to do serious damage to your lungs.
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I tend to think it would be impossible to force hospitals to assess someone's ability to pay before emergency treatment. After all, do I have insurance? Am I a millionaire? Of course I'll tell you I'll pay if I'm conscious, and of course they can foreclose on my double-wide when I don't afterwards. Sometimes, maybe, they can run a credit check, but see, I forgot my social, and I'm screaming in pain and about to pass out.
Therefore, we make hospitals provide emergency services, then try to get paid.
This rationale only applies to cases where the patient is unable to communicate about whether they can cover the treatment. My impression (could easily be wrong) is that the law typically requires hospitals to provide emergency treatment even to people who they know can't pay. This is justifiable on humanitarian grounds, if you're not a hardcore economic conservative/libertarian, but it's not at all the same rationale as automobile liability insurance.
You may have misunderstood what I meant by "a stitch in time". While I certainly think vaccines should be forced down everyone's throat for free, I was actually talking about the "one stitch" that prevents "nine". That is, not pervasive education, although probably screening. If you have your finger mangled, but have to wait for it to get ganggreen, that doesn't help you and makes it more expensive to fix. If you have pneumonia, and wait for it to do serious damage to your lungs.
This is only true once you know you have a serious problem, though. Generally people will go for treatment regardless once they hit that point, and don't need to be encouraged. (No?) If they don't, it's probably because they hope it will get better without treatment. In that case, you have to trade off the costs of putting off necessary treatment against the costs of receiving unnecessary treatment (because maybe it really isn't needed).
In medicine as in other things, people are biased to think that caution and long-term planning are always good ideas, and that incaution and short-term planning are only pragmatic compromises. In a lot of cases, though, caution and long-term planning can cause more long-term cost than the opposite, because they result in more wasted resources. If you only go to the doctor when you know you have to, you put yourself at more risk of lasting harm, but less risk of wasting money. (Kind of like opting out of insurance.) Whether this is a good idea depends on the exact level of harm and money we're talking about.
So yeah, sometimes going to the doctor early can save everyone money, but sometimes it can lose money. Sometimes it can save you, but sometimes it can kill you – preventive medical techniques are not without risk, and even entering a hospital puts you at non-negligible risk of routine infection. So it depends.
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Except, all circumstances are cases where the patient is unable to communicate if they can pay. There is a powerful incentive to lie, and the cost (in time) to verify would easily be prohibitive in an emergency. To prevent hospitals from requiring payment-up-front, the government had to step in. What other solution could there be?
And that's just from a "protecting the market from a market failure" conservative argument. I think most people want to live in a society with the humanitarian rational as well.
Except there are people who know they should go to a doctor, but have to wait until it is an emergency. That doesn't help anyone. There's no risk being avoided, just an inability to pay.
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To tell you the truth, if I found a compy in a middle of nowhere, then I would take out the battery, bring it home, take out HD, mount it and try to find an owner by data.
If the compy lacked important / identifying data, I dunno, bring it to lost and found ?
I would NEVER turn it on as it is, intact.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
Except, all circumstances are cases where the patient is unable to communicate if they can pay. There is a powerful incentive to lie, and the cost (in time) to verify would easily be prohibitive in an emergency. To prevent hospitals from requiring payment-up-front, the government had to step in. What other solution could there be?
Hmm. I suppose so. You might be able to prove that you can pay, by presenting your insurance card or such, but you can't prove that you can't pay, because there's no way to demonstrate that you didn't leave your insurance card at home, don't have a rich uncle who will cover it, etc. Good point.
And that's just from a "protecting the market from a market failure" conservative argument. I think most people want to live in a society with the humanitarian rational as well.
Yes, certainly (me included).
Except there are people who know they should go to a doctor, but have to wait until it is an emergency. That doesn't help anyone. There's no risk being avoided, just an inability to pay.
Hmm, I see. So you're saying that once the poor already have emergency medical coverage that's paid for by other people, it makes sense to give them some types of other coverage so they can avoid more expensive emergency treatment. This does make sense in the cases where the prevention is likely to be less expensive than the emergency treatment, so it's a good (non-humanitarian) argument for at least very limited public funding of medicine for the poor. But it still only covers a small subset of medical care, surely not things like routine checkups.
Okay, I think we pretty much agree at this point. I have to commend you for carrying on an intelligent and productive discussion on Slashdot to its conclusion. Too bad it doesn't happen more often (on Slashdot, or in life generally).
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Is get insurance. My laptop was stolen out of my car, filed for insurance claim and got $1200 :)