Canadian Police Identify Suspect From Remotely-Accessed Stolen Laptop (cochraneeagle.com) 74
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."
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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Better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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I mean what is their incentive to help.
For example:
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2505972/government-it/how-police-tracked-down-steve-jobs--stolen-ipads.html
How many iPads are stolen daily and I can assure you apple doesn't give two shits if you get it back they won't look over their internal GPS logs that you know they have to get yours back but when it's Job's well you can see the difference.
I think the previous poster was right on the money, I think you're the one missing the point.
From the linked article:
"he stole two iMacs, three iPads, three iPods, one Apple TV, a diamond necklace and earrings, and several other items."
I'm not surprised that a theft of that magnitude gets more attention than the loss of a single device. Regardless of who the victim was.
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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.
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This. In my experience, unless you are rich and/or important, the police will do exactly nothing if you report a theft.
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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
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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
So the laptop wasn't re-imaged? (Score:2)
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)
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,
Re: May not even be the theif. (Score:2, Informative)
But there is a problem here. The cops are out right lying. Yes report the crime. Yes give them evidence. No they will not investigate any laptop theft or any other petty crime. Ever. They will sit on that evidence and wait for that criminal to maybe one day get caught. Then if things line up and they realize they have other evidence they can tie to the criminal will they proceed with the original investigation and tack on additional charges.
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Oh you sweet naive fool, it's so much worse than that. If you get arrested and you own more than one laptop, you're suspicious and your laptops now belong to the police. You will not get them back unless you bid for them at auction, because police are in the profitable business of laptop theft.
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You can't even trust that your tinfoil hat has not been compromised to read your thoughts. BEWARE!
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0 !< 0
Re: May not even be the theif. (Score:1)
I like your factorial interpretation, making it incorrect, though :)
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only if you know it's stolen. Pawn requires paperw (Score:3)
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
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Police aren't interested in small-time theft (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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)
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.
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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
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The motions (Score:2)
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
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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
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This comes from an unwillingness to fund police through taxes.
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That's because it's not profitable for them. Compared to traffic tickets, this one's a loser. Policing has turned into a profit center.
And it is especially not profitable compared to civil assets forfeiture. Plus there is the added risk of confronting a true criminal to may use lethal force.
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But tell them that someone stole your $500 shitbox Honda and they will kill bystanders chasing him down.
A good reason to not buy used hardware (Score:2)
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
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Well... (Score:2)
I guess all those people who voted for vigilante justice because the police *never* do anything can eat some humble pie.
That may not even be the thief (Score:2)
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.
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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
Canadian Police is doing a much better job than US (Score:2)
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