Stolen Laptop Calls In! - Will Police Act?

broswell asks: "We rent computer equipment and occasionally our equipment gets stolen. I wrote a little VBS script that calls our webserver every hour (script below) and installed it on our laptops. Sure enough, some laptops went missing. One of the stolen laptops is now calling in from a Verizon Internet account which appears to be in a neighboring town. The Baltimore City Police grudgingly filled out a police report 'so we could collect insurance' but don't seem willing to subpoena Verizon, find the address of the end user, recover tha laptop and prosecute the thief. They seem clueless. The Maryland State police has a computer crimes unit. The have a clue, but they claim they don't have jurisdiction. It is not about the money (our customer signed for the computers and will pay for the stolen items), we just want justice." With all of the necessary information in hand of the proper authorities, how likely is it that the stolen laptop will be recovered?

For those interested, here is the script the laptop used to report itself back to its owners:

Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
Set objScriptExec = objShell.Exec("ipconfig /all")
strIpConfig = objScriptExec.StdOut.ReadAll
myvar = "send=" + strIpConfig

do until 0=1
on error resume next
a=HTTPPost("http://www.yourtrackinghost.com/cgi-bin/locator.pl",myvar)
WScript.Sleep 3600000

LOOP

Function HTTPPost(sUrl, sRequest)
set oHTTP = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
oHTTP.open "POST", sUrl,false
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
oHTTP.setRequestHeader "Content-Length", Len(sRequest)
oHTTP.send sRequest

HTTPPost = oHTTP.responseText
End Function

Depends on the Police Department

[rolfwind]

For instance, in this case:
http://www.laptopical.com/lojack-for-laptop.html [laptopical.com]

"Proof-positive of LoJack's power comes from such stories as the one out of William Penn University in Iowa. A student there had a college laptop stolen. Absolute Software was promptly notified. And their recovery experts there soon tracked the laptop down to the phone line that the notebook was hooked into the Internet on. The Des Moines Police Department was notified, and officers promptly put down their donuts and coffee and swooped in on the missing PC."

The lojack program seems to do the exact thing yours does, but then again, perhaps because it is "official", the police may take the information more seriously.

Re:RIAA

[wizbit]

It's still a felony in most states. It's called "receiving stolen property", and ignorance is not an excuse.

Re:Media

[Harmonious Botch]

Good idea, but wrong order. Give Verizon a chance to be the good guy. Call their publicity department first. If they make excuses, then call local media.

Make Some Noise.

[themassiah]

First, try and verify that the police department isn't doing anything about it. Talk to a supervisor in a day or two and see where this case is going. Then, if nothing is being done, consult an attorney and ask what your options are. I know that most police forms have complain forms to fill out if you want to start making a stink. Work your way up the ladder, their IS a chain of accountability and if you're persistant and cause enough pain, someone will make the phone call to Verizon or whomever and get the name and address on the account.

If that fails to produce justice, follow up with the attorney and file civil suit against the police agency. You handed them about 3/4 of the case when you produced an IP address, they should have been willing and capable of filling in the missing paperwork and whatnot.

Nothing new

[dusanv]

I had my car stolen when I was in school. 12 year old Honda Accord. Didn't think anyone would bother to steal the POS so I didn't insure against theft (money saving student). After it got stolen I called the cops and the first thing they asked me was whether the car was insured against theft. Since it wasn't, they wouldn't even take a report! Can you believe that? Anyway, I found the car a couple of days later 5 parking spots away from where I left it. The steering column was busted. There was a pair of size 9 rollerblades in the trunk (thief with size 9 feet?) and six jugs of bleach (???).

This was in local papers: a woman here in town (Ottawa, ON) had her house repeatedly broken into. After reporting to the cops and complaining that she has to buy a new lock each time they told her to leave the door unlocked!

mnb Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

In Ohio currently, below five hundred dollars is petty theft...
1-499 = petty theft = misdemeanor
500-4,999 = theft = fifth degree felony
5,000-99,999 = grand theft = fourth degree felony
100,000-499,999 = aggravated theft of the third degree = (you guessed it) third degree felony
500,000-999,999 = aggravated theft of the second degree = second degree felony
999,999 and up = aggravated theft of the first degess = first degree felony

That was a Sad day for me.

[WarlockD]

Someone broke in my home, stole my laptop, TV and an 80 pound safe. It was painful to see my AIM messagener come up saying someone just logged on under my account. All I could do is just change the passwords.

Few days latter, it looked like they got my checking account out of my safe and used it to pay the electric bill. Close to 800 bucks. I got the money back from the bank, but the cops did nothing with it.

People wonder why apathy and cynicism is chronic in our society.

Tort: Conversion

[anagama]

If the cops won't help, see the tort of conversion [wikipedia.org]. File a "john doe" civil suit. Once filed, your attorney would have subpoena power -- use it with Verizon to get the name, address, and phone number of the user associated with the IP. Verizon will have an entire department devoted to processing these types of requests -- you'll have no problem except figuring out what their number is. If you represent yourself, you may have to ask the court to issue the subpoena on your behalf. Once you have the identifier, amend your suit to name that party (probably keep the "john does" at least till you're certain you have all the people involved). Also check your states statutes, there may be something specifically related to your situation. The statutes are certainly available online free -- start at your state's homepage (somewhere burried of course).

Re:Media

[penix1]

You got it right with the exception that it is highly advisable to get a lawyer to handle this stuff. Doing it yourself can save money but can also cost you more in the long run when you screw it up.

B.

Re:Media

[dgatwood]

The police aren't the right approach at all. Call your district attorney. He/she is much more likely to have a clue.

Re:Media

[dieman]

Ticketing for just over 5mph is becoming SOP in some cities. Some Minneapolis area freeways recently went from 55->60 speed limits, but troopers and police are pulling people over for far less than they used to. Lots more people are going close to 60 rather than going 65-68ish.

The program is called HEAT -- Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic.

http://www.dot.state.mn.us/hottopics/speedlimits/i ndex.html [state.mn.us]

It is not theft, actually

[tsstahl]

Poster said the laptop in question is a rental. All the 'thief' did is fail to return it on time. Technically, he only owes money for the rent to cover the time it is in his possession.

I would ask if the company has an AUP that says something like "All equipment kept 30 days past the agreed end rental date shall be considered stolen and reported to proper authorities". Even with some half-arsed statement like that, MOST PDs will see the issue as a civil matter.

You might try the county sheriff if the local PD won't help. I once saw on the news (Chicago area) where a video store owner was trying to get some tapes back. The local PD blew him off, so he went to the sheriff who turned him on to some little used tactic where a citizen can approach a grand jury to get an arrest warrant. Well, the grand jury issued the warrant, and a beat faced man returned those tapes PDQ. IANAL, YMMV, YADDA, YADDA, YADDA.

Then file a writ of replevin

[Savantissimo]

Your linked-to post is quite right, and worth a repost. IANAL but used to just about everything but appear in court working in a small law office in Maryland about 15 years ago. I believe specifically what this guy needs after getting a subpoena for the John Doe's ID is a "writ of replevin" in which the court may order the Sheriff to seize the property after an ex-parte pre-trial show-cause hearing.
See:
http://www.courts.state.md.us/district/forms/civil /dccv04br.html [state.md.us] - for specific MD instructions and http://www.courts.state.md.us/district/forms/civil /dccv04.pdf [state.md.us] - the form.

If you are not in MD you may make a federal case out of it; the U.S. Marshals serve these writs, too. You might find that has drawbacks - you really need a lawyer's advice, not Slashdot's.

>>anagama (611277) Sunday August 20, @01:07AM (#15943034) wrote:
If the cops won't help, see the tort of conversion [wikipedia.org]. File a "john doe" civil suit. Once filed, your attorney would have subpoena power -- use it with Verizon to get the name, address, and phone number of the user associated with the IP. Verizon will have an entire department devoted to processing these types of requests -- you'll have no problem except figuring out what their number is. If you represent yourself, you may have to ask the court to issue the subpoena on your behalf. Once you have the identifier, amend your suit to name that party (probably keep the "john does" at least till you're certain you have all the people involved). Also check your states statutes, there may be something specifically related to your situation. The statutes are certainly available online free -- start at your state's homepage (somewhere burried of course).

Re:Media

[darkonc]

Someone from Verizon could call the police and let them know that they have reason to believe that stolen hardware is operating from such and such a place.

Just because some guy phoned them up and said so? The correct course here is for either the police or the shop to get a subpoena for the information. Otherwise Verizon should protect their customers' confidentiality.

Well, the proper thing to do would be for Verison to call the Police and say that you contacted them about the missing computer in stolen computer -- Police report #WXYZ, and that the physical address associated with the IP address that You say the laptop is calling home from is 123 Main st.

In conjunction with your theft report, that should be enough for the police to get a search warrent and go knocking on the door of whomever is at the address.

Alternatively, I guess that you could start a civil lawsuit (or a private criminal prosecution), and swear out the Subpoenas and possibly even the civil equivalent to a search warrent yourself. Once you've proven that you've recovered the laptop at that address, it should be reasonably easy for the police to take on the criminal case.
IANAL so the details are left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Media

[PiratePTG]

The best idea is to call the DA's office, explain to them that the police department has all of the necessary information, and that they are doing nothing about it. Ask the DA's office to please look into the matter so that "you don't have to take the problem to the media". The DA's office will probably look into the matter, since the DA is an elected position, and probably doesn't want the negative publicity.

If the DA's office doesn't do anything about it, by all means call the media. Call every media outlet in the city and state. Call MSNBC and CNN, too... Give them the names, times, and dates of who you talked to. Someone will pick up the story and then start asking embarrassing questions to the people blowing you off.

I know this works from experience, both from being a TV Broadcast Engineer for the past 23 years, and from being a party in a civil case where we decided to "play fair" and not involve the media. The ALJ hearing our case blew us off, even when we had the other party admit wrongdoing on the stand. He just didn't want the case in the first place and took the first opportunity to drop it.

Call the media... Get them to scorch the earth for you...