Stolen Laptop Calls In! - Will Police Act? 303
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
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
Media (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Media (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
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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
Re:laughable hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
This case aside, jurisdiction is tough to set in computer related crimes because of locations involved. Usually it is the FBI who handles them because they have jurisdiction across state lines.
B.
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I get the feeling that you think "being the good guy" equates to giving out their customers' private data without a court order? It really isn't their job to substantiate the cover story or judge their customers. We have courts for that.
Going through the police is the right way. If they're not doing their job, then publicise that fact. If the shop wants an alternative then they should talk to a lawyer about the possibility of suing the John Doe for something (trespass to property?) and getting a court to order Verizon to provide details that way.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The police aren't the right approach at all. Call your district attorney. He/she is much more likely to have a clue.
Got supoena? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hi. I'm not sure which country you hail from, but here in the United States we have something called "due process". Verizon has to receive a supoena before disclosing that type of information. Does not matter how much a company wants to be the "good guy".
If they don't, they end up on the front page of the NY Times....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Then file a writ of replevin (Score:5, Informative)
See:
http://www.courts.state.md.us/district/forms/civi
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).
John Doe Lawsuit can get you subpoena (Score:5, Interesting)
Do move fast - if the thief sold it to somebody, it might stay there a while, but if they're just checking whether it works or seeing what they can find, they may fence it or pawn it.
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
But: there's little to stop you from getting one yourself. File a claim for recovery of property against an unknown party. Put a motion before the judge asking for an order that verizon disclose any and all information they have about that IP address, including an explanation of how you know that the IP address is involved. This is as much information as the RIAA have when they make their claims -- you should be able to do exactly the same thing as they're doing.
Then, once the party is identified, they'll be served with all the relevant documentation. You go to court, claim they have property that belongs to you, and request an order that it is returned, along with compensation for your loss of use of it in the interrim.
If you do your homework, you shouldn't even need a lawyer for a case this simple.
Disclaimer: I know little about US civil procedure. What I describe would be possible in the UK, and I understand based on a little reading that procedure is roughly similar in US courts.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
B.
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Oh, no, the phone companies would never disclose anything to anyone without a warrant! [google.com] Haven't kept up on the news much lately, have you?
I'd say if the guy called 'em up and told 'em he was NSA, he'd have a 50-50 shot at getting the info.
~Philly
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Police aren't very receptive to ordinary citizens solving crimes and then asking the cops to finish the job. I had a friend who had a check stolen from a USPS blue mailbox. The thieves 'washed' the check and rewrote it for enough to cover a bunch of Gateway computers. Gateway had some problem (that I don't recall) with something that was on back order and called the phone number on the order, which (dumb criminals) was the same as on the check. My friend already had found out a check had been hijacked when other stuff started bouncing. So she got the shipping info - address, tracking # and date - and then took it to the cops. All they had to do was go to the address and arrest whoever accepted the package. Guess if they did. NOT. All they did was 'take a crime report'.
Cops are probably offended when citizens bring them solved crimes. They're a strange bunch. Anyone who knows one will confirm that. Unless that someone is dating or married to one, in which case that someone is also a strange one. :)
So I agree. Go the police first, and when they won't 'solve' the crime, tell the media. A local news channel's 'Consumer Watchdog' or whatever they're called in your town is the best bet. It's not really news for the normal broadcast, but it's juicy stuff for those 'we help our viewers' segments.
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
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At the same time, most podunk town police would be interested in "solving" the crime (or at least closing the file).
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe Baltimore police don't have balls?
In all seriousness, file a "John Doe" civil suit in the ISPs district. As part of the action, ask for discovery on a specific IP address. Since you are filing against John Doe, Verizon will most likely consent. Once you have the name and address of the theif, drop the John Doe case and go back to the police with the guy's name, address, phone number, photos of his house and dog. At this point, either the police press charges, or you lodge an official complaint against the cops.
Look at the following article about how the RIAA uses IP addresses to find people [weblogsinc.com]. You should be using similar tactics. Do some sleuthing once you have the address. Make sure you aren't going after some poor bastard with an open WAP while the real theif lives right next door.
Going to the press is a bad idea. The theif is very likely to see the story and will move to dispose of the property.
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
(tired - can't spell)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Media (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole situation is pretty silly though. You're basically handing the police a solution on a plate. They won't have to do too much detective work to get a result, and even if it doesn't end in a conviction, at least they's be showing you that 'the system works', and on a slow news day they might even get a _positive_ write up in the local media.
Re:Media (Score:5, Interesting)
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Good gracious man, be polite, turn on your dome light, and don't make any threatening moves. (this is good advice for anyone who is being approached by someone who carries a gun and faces violent offenders regularly)
It's been my experience that they don't really want to give you the ticket, at least not until they meet you. Most of them just want you to
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The program is called HEAT -- Highway Enforcement of Aggressive Traffic.
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/hottopics/speedlimits/i ndex.html [state.mn.us]
Yup, call the local paper or news channel (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a guy break into my house after a) threatening to break into my house and b) stealing what he threatened to steal from my house (along with a ton of valuable electronics).
Did the police even knock on his door? Nope.
Sure makes you feel safe
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If the DA's office doesn't do anything about it, by all means call the media. Call every media
RIAA (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
If I tell you I can get you a laptop for $100, are you at all suspicious? Anyone with some common sense will suss out that my source might be slightly less-than-reputable. The problem, of course, is very very few people in these cases are "truly" ignorant.
Re:RIAA (Score:4, Funny)
Re:RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
Receiving stolen property, they are guilty. If they bought a nice laptop for $200 then they had to know it was stolen (especially since it probably had tons of business documents on it, if it's phoning home it hasn't been wiped). I doubt they bought it in good faith. If they DID (say they paid a decent amount that would buy them such a laptop) then they could get out of the charges by pointing out where they got it. I doubt the DA would press charges on them if they pointed out where they got it from and would testify to that fact.
If they bought it from a pawn shop or used computer shop or something, that shop is liable (I think) and they may still not have claim to the laptop. Both should have questioned the sale of this laptop with all the business stuff still on it (and even more.. selling it like that).
Still, crooks are, by and large, idiots. I would bet the original thief (or a direct relative/girlfriend/boyfriend) has the thing.
Either way, you would think the cops would be all over this one. Grand theft (the laptop cost over $1000 new, right?), known location (more or less, but it keeps phoning home), easy catch, and 100:1 odds that this is NOT the first/only crime the guy has committed (probably has a few other hot items near him).
I agree with one of the other comments. Go to the media. "His laptop was stolen, and he knew where it was... but the police wouldn't do a thing. Why your stuff isn't safe... tonight at 10." Or sue the department (that always gets things moving, just the threat with a nasty-gram should do). Or go talk to the DA. A case like this (likely a slam dunk) you would think they would want to take. They probably don't know about it and could get the police to go do something.
FYI (Score:4, Insightful)
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?o2=&o0=1&
Cheap != stolen (Score:4, Interesting)
Disgruntled soon-to-be-ex-wife sells husband's car or other stuff for pennies on the dollar.
Unless you are a pawn shop owner or otherwise "knowledgable," the fact you bought it cheap is not evidence you "knowingly" received stolen goods. However, you are still in possession of them and that's usually a misdemeanor. At best, you will be out whatever you paid the real crooks.
BTW, I've received working electronic goods for a very small fraction of their street value, usually because the owner wanted to do me a favor or he just wanted to get rid of the stuff. Now only if I could get a $1,000 laptop for 80% off
Re: Stolen Goods (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't take shelter in the title to stolen goods, even if you bought the goods in good faith. (The title is void.) The real owner can come and take it back and leave you with nothing. Your course of action is then to sue the thief (if you can still find them) for the money you paid (if they are still solvent).
The law favors the real (true) owner in such cases.
(And before anyone says anything, yes, this is true only in cases of theft. Fraud is an entirely different crime; you g
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Depends on the Police Department (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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More likely, they have at least one person on staff who knows how to "speak cop," and thus knows how to get on their side of the thin blue line. So instead of seeing Absolute as a threat to their control, they are perceived as an ally whom the cops may call upon for a favor in the future.
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good luck with that (Score:5, Interesting)
Explained it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Explain that your computers connect to the work network and log in, and you noticed that there was a computer trying to "hack in" from another town. Your security people found that the computer was your own computer, one that had been reported stolen.
Spin it in a way they'll understand.
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Re:Explained it wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest reason is that even if they did pull good fingerprints from your window, tracked them to a known criminal, got a warrant, entered his place, and found him along with your stereo in his bedroom, the criminal would get an average sentence of a few days to a few weeks, (most likely suspended,) plus probation and possibly reparations.
But that entire scenario is highly unlikely, from the first assumption to the last. Too many people see smeary fingerprints taken on CSI and assume that every precint has a "Bat Computer" sitting in the back where they can just upload a print and out pops a name and an arrest warrant. And every one of those people expects the same care devoted to catching a car-stereo thief.
There's just nothing in it for the lesser crimes. No real punishments, just a lot of work for absolutely nothing resembling justice. Someone might take pity on you if you didn't have insurance, but even that's highly unlikely unless the value of the stolen merchandise was high.
The cops will definitely take it seriously if there's been a violent crime (again, keep in mind the difference between what you'd consider a serious assault and what they'd consider serious.) And even then, the backlog clogging the BCA labs usually runs over a year before forensic evidence is processed! There are simply too many criminals and too many crimes at this point in history.
Re:Explained it wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
Hate to disappoint you, but no cop will bother with fingerprints for a simple auto burglary.
ME:
Untrue. Careful with broad all-encompassing statements.
YOU:
It's a simple matter of priorities. There are way too many things for the police to do than track down petty criminals.
ME:
Correct.
If officers are sitting on alot of crap calls (no crime commited, just bitchy neighbor complaints about barking dogs or music in the daytime hours, etc.) they will often take the five minutes to print a car about the top of the "doorjamb," around the doorhandle, and in locations likely to be touched in the comission of a crime (say a dashboard if a piece of installed equiptment is stolen, think radio, dvd, sat-nav.) If any prints look very good they will take a lift and file them along with their report of stolen property.
Sure, your stolen ipod won't get shoved to the front of the live-scan line, it will be bumped to the end of the que by just about any other crime with fingerprint evidence.
Crimes like theft are often commited by repeat offenders, and thus these criminals will have prints on file. A print left in a "low profile" crime can lead to a routine request for an arrest warrant. Of course this won't lead to a SWAT raid on the perps residence, but next time he/she cheks in with their PO, gets a traffic violation, or somehow draws the attention of the law enforcement community, the cuffs will go on and they'll be jailed right away for violating their terms of release and may see additional time from the new crime.
This process requires very little effort (no major investment of time or money... lifting a print is dirt cheap next to sequencing DNA for example) and makes for an easy bust down the road.
Now, when you call in your car that's been broken into you might wait [quite] a few hours to get an officer out to take a report because it is indeed a low priority call [no life in danger, not in progress, and not likely to lead to a quick apprehension even when a quick response is made.]
If a department has, or at some point in the past had, the funding to train the average patrol officer to lift prints then you may receive this kind of service (smaller towns like El Monte CA [higher crime rate] and Fullerton CA [lower crime rate] both do this, neither being particulary large in population [relative to their neighboring cities in the LA Metro area.])
It's cheaper to have officers collect "basic evidence" than to have an officer wait on scene for a specalist in evidence collection to clear their currrently pending calls and respond to a crime that's quite low priority. When a city dosen't have, or never has had, the funding to do this then you end up with simple theft being a purely paper crime (where the only response to the crime is a piece of paper[a report] and no other action is taken regarding the crime.)
I dunno, they do here (Tucson) (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds crazy and 1984, but it makes sense to my tired mind...
Stolen Sidekick Part 2: The Missing Laptop (Score:5, Insightful)
Start a blog. Link to it from /. (just post a comment). Get worldwide exposure. Post the IP address and whatever information you can find on the user (without resorting to illegal means). Get people interested in your cause, and get your local paper to publish something. It may piss the police off, but they'll actually do something by then, hopefully.
Police not doing their job? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Police seem to be somewhat arbitrary on what they will and won't investigate. A recent anecdote from my part of the world (took place in Kelowna BC, Canada) is interesting: A guy goes to a filling station, pumps $100 in gas, and drives away. The gas station has the guy's face, and his license plates clear as day on security video. They phone the police and get told by the RCMP that they will not follow up this seemingly open and shut case, the reason? The RCMP says it is "too much work" to investigate e
Re:Police not doing their job? (Score:4, Interesting)
Makes you sometimes wish you were in a corruptable regime, there you could have Police officers at least help you if you gave them money. You'd have to give more money than the crooks of course, but anyway there you know then why they won't help you (if you offer too little), and that is better then not being able to get anything done with the police due to random reasons.
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This is why rape is not common in our society (at least not as common as it used to be, by far): we have DNA evidence, modern forensics, and (usually) very agressive investigative agents who nip
Call the FBI (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The laptop
2. The server
if only that were a macbook (Score:3, Interesting)
Now when will they put a GPS in these things?
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Make Some Noise. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Good luck (Score:2, Interesting)
Police departments these days are mainly interested in are catching speeders to meet 'quotas'.
Sadly, most cops today are assigned the role of 'stealth tax collectors' that generate additional revenue streams for local and city governments.
Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Oh man (Score:2)
Sounds like a body with size 9 feet was disposed of to me.
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One day in the building cafeteria, I saw her sitting by herself eating lunch. I asked if she minded if I joined her. She didn't mind at all. In the conversation s
This could be fun (Score:5, Interesting)
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I can just imagine a countersuit against you for something (wiretapping, unauthorized use of his services, ??) for doing that. Sort of along the lines of the thief who injures himself while breaking in to a home suing the homeowner for negligence. Monitoring what he does on your machine is probably (?) fine, but I imagine you open yourself up for a whole lot of headaches as soon as you do anything with a sniffed password.
If you're doing this for a company, run it by legal first
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For the monitoring part, it's essentially the same as monitoring employee internet access while they're using company provided equipment. As soon as you use his login to
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Even if you don't track the guy down, it'd be fun just to monitor the slimeball's activities. And if you get lucky, maybe he'll download some child pr0n. That'd get the authorities involved, I bet. Of course, then you'll never see your laptops again because they'll be "tainted" and subject to civil forfeiture. Aaiyee...
That was a Sad day for me. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Foolish crooks (Score:2)
Maybe the mayor can help ? (Score:2)
He's running for Governor after all... might be good press to see this resolved !
http://www.martinomalley.com/content/26/contact-u
More proof (Score:2)
Or, tell them you have a new PCMCIA plugin card in it and it is supposed to report nitrogen levels in the atmosphere back to a server as hobby. Only now it's picking up lots of nitrates like the thief is handling lots and lots of bags of the stuff.
You might get your laptop back full of submachine gun holes, but at least the perp will get what he's due.
Gotta love those double standards. (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's another double standard for you. The cops won't help you get your laptop back, but if you managed to track it down yourself, went to the guy's house, took it back and laid a beating on him, they couldn't arrest you fast enough for that.
I say get a lawyer and file a c
Tort: Conversion (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Tort: Conversion (Score:5, Insightful)
Act; 18 U.S.C. 1030 et seq., the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as amended
by the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984,
specifically including 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5)(B) would be a far better choice for a causes of action.
You get attorney's fees, compensatory damages and, there is a collateral criminal charge available. Once your attorney has nailed the defendant the U.S Attorney's office will have some oung turk who will come in and pick up a slam dunk for a notch in his/her belt.
Conversion is a common law action and it is a reasonable cause - but Trover would be a better action as it reaches the cognizable personal property (data) as well as the machine.
This is not a difficult cause to pursue. I've done it several times myself. My first was in 1993 and last was 2002. This is neither rocket science nor high-dollar litigation.
Act fast before the thief kills the script.
OH, don't forget to ask for injunctive relief - like a LIFETIME BAN ON INTERNET ACCESS.
It won't take very many lifetime bans before the cost of a stolen laptop gets around....
"neighboring town" (Score:3, Insightful)
The neighboring town, meanwhile, doesn't have jurisdiction over the theft.
Aren't organizational boundaries fun?
You could try reporting a posession-of-stolen-property case at the neighboring town. If you have a lawyer on salary (don't try this by the hour) you could ask about filing a "John Doe" lawsuit for "conversion" and issuing the subpoena yourself. (That's not advice, I'm not a lawyer, all I said was to ask a real attorney).
you're in maryland, what'd you expect? (Score:2)
No, it's not right. But it's the way it is. You should fight it, though - but you won't likely get results. Still, trying to get a response is akin to help
Baltimore police: laptop theft... try kiddnapping (Score:5, Interesting)
My friend's 3 kids was "kidnapped" yesterday by their father here in Baltimore, their location is unknown.
After a 4 day custody trial, which ended Friday, he was orded to turn them over at a Police station at 8pm on 8/18/06. He neve showed.
I've spent the day riding with her to and from multiple Police stations as well as the Towson commissioner's office. Everywhere we go we hear the same thing, "Without a bench warrant our hands are tied."
Today I learned 2 things:
1. It's nearly impossible to get a hold of a judge on a Saturday
2. Commissioner's can be downright cruel and unhelpful
While working with the Baltimore police, most all have been very friendly (many have agreed with us about Commissioner's!) but none of them are able to do more than write down what we say. We're quickly losing hope; and even if an amber alert goes out... it may be too late if he has left the country. I have almost no faith in the Baltimore legal system and how it interacts with the police is non-existant. (Note: I blame this interaction between the two, not the Police themselves.)
Regardless, I wanted to tred on the border of being on topic as the Baltimore police and their inability to act on this may cause us to lose 3 children to an unstable man. If any Slashdoter's have 5 seconds, please click on the web-page below I made, and let me know if you see him or the kids.
With luck and more leg work, we'll get the amber alert up ASAP.
http://www.tronster.com/missing/ [tronster.com]
ThatScript v2.0 (Score:5, Interesting)
- Upload any non-trivial IP from the laptop to the server, since that's probably the last chance you have to keep it.
- Taunt your local police. ("Hi, I'm sending this email from a stolen computer and i just wanted you to know that you're never going to catch me because you're all a bunch of fat lazy slobs. Crime does pay, bitches!")
- Taunt the theives' local police. ("Wanna buy a laptop? I got three more just like this one, ready to go, super cheap.")
- Install a key logger, get his credentials. Post things all over the internet with the theif's ID (e.g. his next MySpace diary entry will be "so my friends and I stole some computer gear last week...")
- Append random obscenities into every email that exits the computer ("P.S. I fucked your mom too.")
- Random pseudo-malware "attacks" on police station web servers - nothing that would bring the server down, but enough to take the IT department's attention. It is possible that their heads are so far up there asses that nothing can reach their brains, but I think there's a fair chance that their IT depeartment can still get through to them.
- To be continued...
Surely there is more to add to that list. Remember - you have plausible deniability. Your computer was stolen by an egomaniac hacker who loves to taunt police and do unspeakable things to sheep.However I do recommend against the P2P thing suggested earlier. That might just move your computer from the theif to an evidence locker while the RIAA does their paperwork. That sounds counterproductive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, takin
CrimeStoppers (Score:4, Funny)
This (sorta) happened to me (Score:3, Interesting)
About a week after it was stolen, I came home from University to find that my desktop computer had been signed out of MSN cause someone else had signed in. Turns out someone with my laptop was coming on as me and being annoying to some of my friends. Got a webserver set up that I had access to the logs from, and put on a certain page that no-one else knew about. One of my friends dropped it into the conversation, and bam, laptop user clicks on it.
I made a couple of sworn statements to the police and took a long time convincing them that I had something useful. Took about 10 weeks for them to act on the information, and unfortunately I was away from home when they did. They traced the IP back to an account registered to some bloke a couple of hours away, and they had him under some suspicion of receiving stolen goods but never caught him with any. So, the police raided and got my laptop (and others) back. They also found a considerable qauntity of drugs, which I guess helps seal a conviction for something.
The person was aout the 4th or 5th person to handle my laptop within the week, and I believe the police have never nailed the people who originally stole it (over 2 years ago).
The person actually on MSN that we used to take the bait was this guy's 13 year old nephew. When I got the laptop back it still had all my files on it (although the used a black marker to try to fill in some engraving I had under the battery with my details) and they'd also set up their own user account. This kid had his MSN signin info, all his emails, yada yada yada. Never signed into MSN as him or looked at his stuff, I shoulda. Just reformatted it and started again - never know what shit they had on there.
So, yes, it can be done. But it takes A LOT of work to convince some low-level police grunt that an eye-pea address has some credibility (I was helped cause I had set my browser to return a really random useragent string, so we pretty much knew it was my laptop).
insurance company should instigate investigation (Score:3, Interesting)
Some cops couldn't give a shit less (Score:3, Interesting)
Bluff (Score:4, Interesting)
My home was broken into three times, three days in a row. It was neighborhood kids.
I wasn't getting anywhere with the police. First the cop would take a report then a detective would come out and look around. I could tell by their tone that they weren't going to do anything about it. Not, that is, until the third time. Do you know what changed their mind?
While the detectives were there trying to make it look like they were doing something I faked a call to work and pretended to leave a message that I wasn't coming in the next day. Then I faked a call to a friend asking if I could borrow his "weapon" and that I needed it that night. I turned to the cops and said, they've come in three times, three days in a row, and they're coming back. It's my right and I'm going to protect my property.
On their way out they were visibly upset. They were convinced there was going to be a blood bath the next day. I got a call 4 hours later that they caught and arrested the boys responsible. 4 hours. And that was after they were already booked and in custody. The arrests had to have been at least and hour or two earlier.
The detective kept telling me I could go to work after all, blah, blah. It really was the thought of me hiding in ambush that got these police to do their job. It took all but 2-3 hours for them to find and arrest these boys. It took me lying and convincing them I was going to shoot the next person who walked through my door to get them to do it.
This is one of those bluffs that probably only works once in a lifetime but it worked.
Re:Legal sys cost money ... but we already paid! (Score:2)
But, here's the kicker, we already paid for such things.
So, what this amounts to is some police officer saying
Of course the problem is probably one of short-termism in that tax-payers won't (or aren't perceived to) value more money spent on law enforcement now and so long term even more needs to be spent as cro
Re:Legal sys cost money ... but we already paid! (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the first things I learned in primary school was that most people in places of authority don't care about dispensing justice unless the incident directly affects them. They'll always rationalize their way out of having to do anything. If you want anything done, you have to call them out in front of a crowd so it makes them look like an asshole if they try to ignore you.
OK..let's look! (Score:2, Interesting)
Yep, I know some cops, that's how they think and act. They *don't care* for the most part, especially on small amounts of stolen items. No promotion potential, no newspaper "tough on terrorism/narcotics" coverage, etc. There's little pro
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no, I don't do drugs. I'm just saying it's mighty convenient.
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Sigs cause cancer
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No. It's a separate country... separate government... separate law enforcement.
Bringing the perps to justice would require extradition and lots of red tape.
Re:Good luck (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but only in the same sense that Cuba and Panama are technically part of the US. Something about being independant nations makes them pissy about our law enforcement mucking around inside their borders for some reason.
Hell, Cuba and Panama have been know to shoot at mainland cops. What's with that?
KFG
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The script is simple. It doesn't contain errors, which is easy to verify in fifteen lines. It isn't providing any user-accessible services, and it depends on an external service (an internet connection) over which it has no control.
All in all, it seems like a logical way to handle things.
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