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How To Catch a Laptop Thief?
First time accepted submitter otaku244 writes "I spent a day in Vancouver this week while working in Seattle. While I enjoyed the area, some Vancouver citizen decided to enjoy my Macbook Pro. Unfortunately, I didn't discover this until I was already back at my Seattle hotel. Needless to say, I am quite miffed at the whole experience. Fortunately, I have LogMeIn installed on that machine. I provided the IP address to the VPD, but they say that laws don't allow warrants solely on the physical address tied to an IP. It sounds like the silver bullet is to take a picture of the person using the laptop. The question becomes, how do I convince the guy to run a script that will take a picture of him and smtp it to me? I promise to post pics of the guy if this gets pulled off successfully!"
But the best moment for you to take action is long gone - when you had your laptop in your possession.
Let this be a lesson readers, do something to secure your possessions now, install something to allow for ease of tracking and identification now, not as an afterthought when it gets nicked.
To the op, can't you just log in with LogMeIn and set a script running which takes a photo every minute or so?
i bet you wear a fanny pack, huh? i'm quite sick of this metrosexuality fad.
Huh?
The majority of fanny packs I've seen (including mine) are holsters. I wasn't aware that carrying a Glock around was the new trendy fad.
Have gnu, will travel.
It sounds like the police just don't want to bother. If it was the MPAA, RIAA, or Apple asking, they would have a SWAT team there in under 5 minutes.
The IP address with location may not be sufficient for a conviction, but it does support probably cause. Why not see if you can go to the location, and then h
Don't you have sshd enabled on your mac with an appropriate 50 character password? Just use ssh to remotely do it.
Doesn't LogMeIn allow you to remotely control the machine? Use (ssh is preferred) that to set up a script that takes the picture, make several copies in several locations, copies the file via scp, and ftp to a couple of different locations. Then wait for him to log into different web sites so you can have his user ids, then have the computer take pictures.
Fight Spammers!
... I know it's too late for you now. But, you should consider prey project. It does now what you are asking.
"I provided the IP address to the VPD, but they say that laws don't allow warrants solely on the physical address tied to an IP."
Translation: You're a nobody, and we're not going to spend our precious resources tracking down and prosecuting a small-time thief. Come back when you've got a friend in politics or the media.
If an IP address alone is enough evidence to file civil suit against someone for copyright infringement, and under the new proposals enough to have them disconnected without so much as a trial, I find it hard to believe that it can't be enough to be at least reasonable suspicion and thus grounds for a warrant.
Upstate New York: last weekend two Sheriff's investigators showed up at my house. They were looking for a stolen laptop and the "GPS on the laptop" had phoned home and told them the laptop was at my house. They just asked if we had recently bought a laptop blah blah blah. They left when it became obvious we knew nothing about it. Two days later 4 rednecks showed up at the house, my wife was home alone. They were looking for their "grandma's laptop that had family pictures on it and the GPS said it was at this house". They went away unsatisfied of course. I called the Sheriff back and told him what happened, and that MacBooks don't have GPS, that the GeoLocation was probably done off my WiFi Mac Address. Needless to say, I run DD-WRT on my multiple, Bridge Repeater routers and I changed the wireless MAC address immediately to break the link between my routers and my location in whatever database this link was stored.
Tell the police that you connected to the machine to try to track him down and found that he had downloaded child porn with it. Then, when they bust him and take the computer, you can file a claim with them. Kind of the nuclear option, but I bet it would work.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
When did Vancouver become part of the US? Did I miss some recent war between the US and Canada?
There is also Vancouver Washington. The article summary doesn't specify which Vancouver this person was visiting; both are reasonably close to Seattle Washington.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Incidents like these are one good reason I use a cheap netbook when on travel. Not only are they light and get substantial battery life, but if it breaks or gets stolen, I'm only out $300.
I also find that I rarely get much actual work done when on travel, so I don't have the need for a more substantial laptop. I guess if you've really got the need to travel with a full sized laptop, you could mod the case to make it look scuffed and dated and hence not worth stealing. Either that, or get a ThinkPad -- even the latest versions look 10 years old.
Just had a cop come by the university to discuss this. In California at least, photos like that are not admissible as evidence. They may allow the police to get your laptop back, but if you press charges those photos, keystrokes, etc are going to be thrown out before they ever see the judge.
Don't you have Find My Mac or something like that on MacBooks? I thought logmein was more of a VPN thing.
From experience with friends who've tracked down their laptops and mobile phones, throughout the US the police won't do anything in any circumstance. Even if you track down the identity of the person with your phone/laptop and get pictures of the thief using it, the police will tell you they won't do anything about it. Recovery comes from taking those pictures and then filing a civil suit, and that's not easy.
However, if you have any influence with the police or know someone who does, the picture changes dramatically. With a policeman friend you can probably get it back in a few minutes by driving over to the thief's house with the policeman in uniform to make you more persuasive. Also, it's not that the police aren't allowed to help you once you've got strong evidence, it's that they choose not to do so.
In summary, in my experience photos and IP logs and such will actually let you win in court (the thief won't even have a lawyer, so you don't need to worry about evidence being challenged as long as the judge is sympathetic) but won't get the police to do anything for you.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
To cite a specific example: an Alberta farmer who shot at thieves on his property was given 90 days for assault with a deadly weapon, while the thieves got 30 days for stealing.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
Contrary to popular belief, violence is the solution, If you are sure you know who it is, go to town on them. Give me a baseball bat and 5 minutes with any cocksucker that steals my shit, and he'll wish he didn't. Sure you might have my laptop, but I just knocked out all of your teeth and broke your legs. Fair trade.
I promise to post pics of the guy if this get's[sic] pulled off successfully!"
Be VERY careful posting pics... If the pics you post aren't those of the thief, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a very nasty lawsuit.
Alternatively tell him you are a reputable african prince and you have a business proposal :)
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that