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Canadian Police Identify Suspect From Remotely-Accessed Stolen Laptop (cochraneeagle.com) 74

Posted by EditorDavid from the found-you-on-Facebook dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Last week a security consultant remotely logged into his stolen laptop, and gathered clues from a Facebook profile. Though it didn't provide the suspect's real name, the consultant shared the profile online, and says he's now receiving tips from other crime victims who are scouring through the profile's friends list. And according to a local newspaper, the Canadian police say they've now identified a suspect, although "there is a lot of work that needs to be done before we can lay charges."

But despite this apparent victory, one officer is also warning the public against sharing a suspect's identity on social media, according to the paper, "after the social media post may have wrongly identified a suspect."
"When you get to public shaming, I urge caution..." the police officer tells the newspaper. "As a person that gets stuff stolen, I understand the want to publicly shame someone... Give us all the info, and we will follow up once we have the evidence."
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Canadian Police Identify Suspect From Remotely-Accessed Stolen Laptop More

Canadian Police Identify Suspect From Remotely-Accessed Stolen Laptop

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  • Better idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:52AM (#53754473)
    If you have access to it and can know who has it and where it is you can probably get an officer to come with you and knock on a door. If the person denies having it just have it starting making noise or play a loud audio clip about it being stolen. At that point the police officer has probable cause and could enter the dwelling.

    No need to post stuff to social media or anything like that. Hell once a cop is at the door it's pretty easy to talk the person into admitting that they must have "found" it and that you're so greatful that they've kept it safe until you could pick it up. Give people an easy out and they'll usually take it.
    • You've obviously never heard of the SUV covered in parking tickets with a dead man in the driver's seat [fox8.com] (Nov 2016). Or the cops continuing to issue tickets after you've reported the vehicle stolen and cancelled the plates [globalnews.ca]. Or ticketing and towing a car with a murder victim's body in it [jalopnik.com].

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Scutter ( 18425 )

      If you have access to it and can know who has it and where it is you can probably get an officer to come with you and knock on a door.

      I think you would be astonished at how difficult it is to get the police to react or respond to petty theft calls. Even if you hand them everything they need to make an arrest.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This. In my experience, unless you are rich and/or important, the police will do exactly nothing if you report a theft.

      • It very much depends on the department, apparently. Some kid lost control of his vehicle and drove into my lawn, damaging some of my landscaping. He then foolishly fled the scene, and my local police (my neighbors called them after hearing the crash and seeing what happened) did due diligence and tracked him down a day or two later, even though it was such a trivial case. I guess not all police departments are incompetent or corrupt, as I've been rather impressed with the few times I've interacted with t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Falos ( 2905315 )
      >Give people an easy out and they'll usually take it.
      This. It's good advice. People stuck defending the losing team, opinion, situation, etc. usually won't react well if you/everyone is cornering and needling them. They might not have the options (or cleverness) to find an out, but with a few careful lines you can give validity to one that saves face if chosen.

      Examples fitting the vague description: Arguments with the spouse. Correcting personnel of higher rank.

      Social conduct is a messy game but

    • Am I missing something, if I was to ever steal a laptop, first thing would be to re-image...

      Unless there is something in the boot/bios that lets you track your laptop even after a re-image, furthermore, let you login, this strategy won't really work. Cellphones have IMEI but as far as I know, laptops, at least the ones without a cellular chips do not have any such unique identifiers. Well may be a mac-address, but there is no way to track down based on the mac-address!

  • May not even be the theif. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blunttrauma ( 601130 ) on Saturday January 28, 2017 @10:52AM (#53754475)

    Person who has the laptop now may not be the person who stole it, and may have no idea that is was. Lots of used laptops on craigslist,

    • Possession of stolen property, no matter how obtained, is usually a crime. That's why pawn shop owners need to be especially careful else they can both lose stolen stuff that's in their shop and go to jail. Sometimes managing stolen property is called fencing and for stolen money, money laundering, all against the law.

      • Generally, receiving stolen property is a crime only if you know it's stolen (or work hard to avoid knowing). Here's the actual text of the statute in Texas, for example:

        Sec. 31.03. THEFT. (a) A person commits an offense if he unlawfully appropriates property with intent to deprive the owner of property.
        (b) Appropriation of property is unlawful if:
        (1) it is without the owner's effective consent;
        (2) the property is stolen and the actor appropriates the property knowing it was stolen by another;

        Later i

    • In this case it was obvious who the previous owner was, because it had never been wiped down. The "current owner" was the thief. And if she tries to allege that she bought it from someone else, she'd better be ready to (1) cough up the name, and (2) answer as to why the seller obviously didn't own the laptop because they couldn't log into the owner's account, just the guest account.

  • Police aren't interested in small-time theft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Saturday January 28, 2017 @11:17AM (#53754539)

    You could have incontrovertible evidence of the identity of the thief or the current possessor of the laptop, but it's extremely unlikely that you'll be able to find a police department that's sufficiently interested to bother helping unless it's part of a larger crime. I'm not saying the police are bad people, but I am saying that most departments appear to be under-resourced to follow-up on petty crime.

    • The police in the article are from Canada. Police in the U.S. really just don't care, or even if they *DO* care, they just don't do anything.

    • In what retarded country do you live that *theft* is not an action the police is reacting to immediately???

      • Re:Police aren't interested in small-time theft (Score:5, Interesting)

        by smillie ( 30605 ) on Saturday January 28, 2017 @12:39PM (#53754819) Journal
        In Detroit my new business was burgled and vandilized. When I called the Detroit police they said they don't send their people out for those type of crimes. If I wanted, I could go into the station and fill out a report for insurance claims.

        Another time I called about a man who colapsed in the street. When I checked he wasn't breathing and had no heart beat. I called 911 and told them there was a dead man laying in the middle of the street. She asked what I wanted them to do. I was thinking: you're the professionals and you don't know what to do about a dead body.

        No one showed up. No police, no ambulance, no EMS, no one at all. His friends loaded the body in a car an left. No one ever came by for any kind of statement or investigation.

        So what "retarded country" do I live in where the police don't respond to theft? That would be Detroit, USA.

        • Detroit is one of the most dangerous / violent city in the US. It's not all that surprising that your police department reflects its environment. If you live in an area with a more serious crime problem, I'd expect the police will focus their limited resources on solving things like murders, assaults, rapes, etc. Or maybe they just suck - I can't really judge from the outside.

          In my neck of the woods, the police show up, investigate, and even solve relatively trivial property crimes, like when someone per

        • I live in Ottawa Canada. I had my GPS stolen from my car and the police drove to my house to return it. I live in a neighbourhood where people never lock their doors. This was a low end $80 GPS. I think most of our officers try and be helpful here. I would definitely think that a $1000 laptop would warrant police help.

        • Surprised about the body, not so much about the theft. I've had my house broken into twice. I've had the police show up both times and basically take notes, but it does seem more of a routine for insurance than any real hope catching anyone. Heck TV shows have been making fun of that fact for decades (Friends, Seinfeld, etc...). The second time they made a show of doing CSI stuff like finger printing... but I doubt 95% of the time it is ever used for anything except to put it on file. BTW that finger printi

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kjella ( 173770 )

        In what retarded country do you live that *theft* is not an action the police is reacting to immediately???

        "Stop, thief!" maybe. An IP address the might indicate where some stolen property is? Around here they'd first have to subpoena the ISP for the subscriber's address. Then they'd have to go before a court and say we have probable cause and need a warrant. Then they have to show up at the suspect's house, where there might not be anybody home. Which might mean they need to force entry. If they come with no warrant or they leave again all they probably do is alert the suspect. After all that maybe they recover

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DeVilla ( 4563 )
        In Columbus Ohio someone went down the alley breaking into dozens of cars (100 wouldn't surprise me) busting windows, stealing radios, speakers, CDs, etc. The police couldn't be bothered to come out. If we'd have told them there was a loud party at a near by apartment complex we'd have had a swat team and helicopters there in a half hour.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      But tell them that someone stole your $500 shitbox Honda and they will kill bystanders chasing him down.

  • If you're poor, you can go to BestBuy and buy a clean, never used PC laptop for $200. You can get a Chrome Book for even cheaper than that. There is simply no reason to buy a used computer except from someone you know and trust because you can find literally almost anything, brand new, at a good price point.

    But but old hardware? How about you just recycle it?The alternative is that you give it to someone, it breaks not much later and ends up in a landfill instead of at least probably getting shredded and it

    • Why NOT buy older refurbished hardware if it's one of the non-crappy models with still perfectly adequate performance?

  • I guess all those people who voted for vigilante justice because the police *never* do anything can eat some humble pie.

  • What if someone bought a laptop used? Someone offered a laptop on EBay, someone else bought it and suddenly you have a probably quite honest person who just bought a used laptop that you start to mess with, ruin his credit rating and possibly his life.

    Be careful with vigilante action. I have zero problem if you hit the right person, but ... well, hitting the right person isn't that easy.

    But the lesson to learn here is that you ALWAYS wipe a laptop you buy used. ALWAYS. Even if it looks wiped, wipe it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Be careful with vigilante action. I have zero problem if you hit the right person, but ... well, hitting the right person isn't that easy.

      Even worse, the person may go after YOU, the owner for harassment and damages and the police may have to arrest you for criminal behavior.

      In Canadian law especially, the response has to be in proportion - if you shoot a guy in the back as he's running away, you can be charged with manslaughter, even if the guy pointed a gun in your face a few minutes prior. (He's deemed n

  • I admire the extra miles that the CRP go to help theft victims... Unlike the irresponsible cops that we got in the US...

    Recently my car was broken into, an iPhone stolen. I tracked it to tthe very location it was held and I called police but they took hours to call back only to tell me that I have to be at the iPhone location or they won't help. Well guess what? It took me 90 minutes to get through the first phone call to begin with.

    Through another attempt, I got the police to meet me outside the hou

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