pls HELP 12 inch PB Stolen from my trunk

[DieselClown]

Is there anything apple can do to recover it? I seriously want to hurl now, I just bought it a month ago and I did the apple loan 3 month same as cash thing and I know it's going to hurt when I start paying it off. What can I do? Please help. :(

Steve

[r6girl]

sorry to hear about the theft! damn thieves! :mad:

i have to say that i don't think apple can do anything about the theft - i know of no retail company that offers any sort of assistance for a theft of their product after purchase. violations of the law are under the purvue of the police, not a retailer. if you registered the powerbook, you could let apple know so that they could watch for any duplicate registration of the serial number of your powerbook, in case the thief is very stupid, or has sold it to someone who does not know it was stolen. but i'm not sure about apple's capabilities to keep an eye out for this sort of thing - you may want to ask customer service.

have you called the police? if not, call immediately and get a police report. assuming you have full car insurance (not just liability coverage), you may be able to make a claim for the value of the stolen property. this should at least cover a portion of paying off the loan and/or purchasing a new one.

i haven't used apple financing, but i think it's a standard term of financing like this that you are required to report that it's been stolen (since you no longer have the "collateral" securing the loan in the first place). don't be surprised if, when you report this to them, they require payment in full on the loan within 30 days or so. but i could be wrong - read the terms of the financing agreement you have...

best of luck on this!

marianne

[Elan0204]

I doubt there is anything Apple can do for you. However, as the above poster suggested, contact the police and your car insurance company. If you pay for more than just the most basic of coverage, your car insurance may cover your PowerBook.

[JLS]

Always buy expensive stuff with a credit card that offers purchase protection against theft.

As for your PB now.. kiss goodbye. Only hope is if you had extended household insurance.

[smharmon]

Apple CAN do something for you. First, you need to find your serial number. Maybe it is on the box, or your invoice from buying it. Call Apple. They will give you the number of Apple Security. Have your police department call them. They can track whenever the guy goes online with it, and through what ISP. Then they contact the ISP for the address, and arrest them! I know because I saw it on paypalsucks.com, and just called Apple yesterday. They gave me the number in about 5 seconds of explanation.

Good Luck

[JLS]

Apple CAN do something for you. First, you need to find your serial number. Maybe it is on the box, or your invoice from buying it. Call Apple. They will give you the number of Apple Security. Have your police department call them. They can track whenever the guy goes online with it, and through what ISP. Then they contact the ISP for the address, and arrest them! I know because I saw it on paypalsucks.com, and just called Apple yesterday. They gave me the number in about 5 seconds of explanation.

Good Luck


That is the biggest load of junk I have ever heard. There is no way you can find the location of a computer this way.. ISPs legally cannot disclose their customers information because of privacy laws. The only way that this would ever be allowd was if the person was a risk to national security.. e.g. a master hacker. So unless your powerbook is used to hack the NSA, this isn't going to help.

[Les Kern]

If the thieves are stupid enough to go to Apple for repair, it's good to have it on file as stolen. Otherwise, sorry. My "full-coverage" auto insurance does indeed cover a stolen laptop. But you pay extra and you have to specify content.

[Mantat]

That is the biggest load of junk I have ever heard. There is no way you can find the location of a computer this way.. ISPs legally cannot disclose their customers information because of privacy laws. The only way that this would ever be allowd was if the person was a risk to national security.. e.g. a master hacker. So unless your powerbook is used to hack the NSA, this isn't going to help.

I dont know how it is in the states but I guess its not better than in Canada, and if so, you are wrong.

ISP have to give the police your personnal information if they ask. Note the word here: ask, they dont need any special autorisation. There is no privacy of information here. I know because I was victim of this. My computer (pc) was used as a proxi to probe a firm and next thing I know the police called me. It wasnt a national threat, just a small business who called the police after seeing some port probing. The police just had to ask the ISP for the logs and they gave it to them. This is not considered private information because it doesnt belong to you, it belong to your ISP. So you just need to fill a complain to the police dept and you are set.

So the first thing you should do it call apple and give them your serial number, then call your insurance company to see if you are covered. Also, repport the robbery to the police.

Btw, do you have any idea how the thief knew you had a PB in there? Sorry to say that but the criminal can be someone you know, so maybe looking at the different pawnshop around your area should give some results.

I wish you much luck to find it back! This sucks...

[ftaok]

You might want to check the details of the Apple Loan. If I'm thinking straight, the Apple Loan is really just a credit card. Many credit cards offer theft protection, so if you check the details of the loan, you may already be covered.

ft

[stevey500]

I hate people that do that!! DAMN YOU !! Human race sucks

[JLS]

I dont know how it is in the states but I guess its not better than in Canada, and if so, you are wrong.

ISP have to give the police your personnal information if they ask. Note the word here: ask, they dont need any special autorisation. There is no privacy of information here. I know because I was victim of this. My computer (pc) was used as a proxi to probe a firm and next thing I know the police called me. It wasnt a national threat, just a small business who called the police after seeing some port probing. The police just had to ask the ISP for the logs and they gave it to them. This is not considered private information because it doesnt belong to you, it belong to your ISP. So you just need to fill a complain to the police dept and you are set.



Probing is not illegal so why was the company even phoning them in the first place. If I phoned my local police and said ive been probed.. about 10,000 times in the last month.. do you think they are actually going to track them all down..lol.. no!


But thats totally irrelevant anyway.. thats tracking a customer not a machine..

Just think about it. If all computers locations could be identified, do you even think there would be computer theft in the first place if there was a concrete way of locating the person using it after it has been stolen? ISPs can locate a customers location, but not the details of the machine they are on. (as in serial codes or whatever) as that would be your property. The ISP has no right to identify your machine, and this is not possible without some form of entry to your system.

My friend has been using a stolen imac for the last 3 years, she knew it was stolen when she bought it. There has never been any contact from the police and she uses the internet every day... what more do I need to say.

[Mr. G4]

This is a link to the story of how Apple track down and recuperate computers stolen at their store.

http://starbulletin.com/2003/06/29/news/story2.html

Is there anything apple can do to recover it? I seriously want to hurl now, I just bought it a month ago and I did the apple loan 3 month same as cash thing and I know it's going to hurt when I start paying it off. What can I do? Please help. :(

Steve

[Abstract]

Call Apple, call the police. That's all you can do. Apple may be able to track it if someone ever phones them and makes an inquiry regarding their laptop with your serial number.

That stuff about tracking via ISP's is b.s. How can an ISP determine which of it's customers are using a stolen laptop? How would you find the ISP of your thief? Maybe I'm missing some point, but I don't think I am.

[smharmon]

That is the biggest load of junk I have ever heard. There is no way you can find the location of a computer this way.. ISPs legally cannot disclose their customers information because of privacy laws. The only way that this would ever be allowd was if the person was a risk to national security.. e.g. a master hacker. So unless your powerbook is used to hack the NSA, this isn't going to help.

Whoa guys, I only related exactly what i was told by an Apple CSR. I didn't make the crap up, and just related EXACTLY what I was told, sorry I made people so upset...

[angelneo]

your powerbook got stolen!!! Oh man, I really feel sorry for you. I really hope that things turn out well for you

[FuzzyBallz]

Call the police, heh. Last time an iBook was stolen from our office in broad day light, filing a police report did crap.

And getting a PB stolen from your trunk? Let me guess, you put the PB in the trunk at your destination, while people were around? Yeah, I'd jack open your trunk w/ a crow bar too if I saw you put something that valueable in the trunk.

[maesy]

found this a while ago, keep in mind for your next iBook/PowerBook....
MacPhoneHome™ is the pre-eminent computer tracking and theft recovery software in the world for Macintosh computers. With MacPhoneHome™ there is no yearly monitoring fees, no additional charges, and no hidden costs! How does MacPhoneHome™ work? Every time you boot your computer and have an Internet connection, MacPhoneHome™ sends a stealth e-mail message containing its exact location to a pre-determined e-mail address set by the user. In the event the computer is stolen, you file a report with the local police and then notify Brigadoon Software’s Command and Tracking Center, which will provide full tracking and recovery support. When the stolen computer goes online it will send a stealth message to the pre-determined e-mail address containing its exact location. Once this information is received, our recovery agents work with you and the investigating law enforcement agency to recover the stolen property. Worldwide tracking and recovery. Highly tamper-proof. We supply both Classic and OS X versions at no additional cost. Price: $29.95 USD

[NusuniAdmin]

just to clear things up it is illegal for an isp to give out information unless they want to or the police or whoever has a court order.


it is also illegal to trace the location of someone via their IP unless you have a court order.

I might add if they are suspected terrorist then they can get all that info without a court order. Thanks to the patriot act.

[dorqiekat]

My PB was stolen from my apartment 2 months ago and Apple along with the police did crap. The most the police did was take finger prints that has yet to be processed. Yup, crap.

[BakedBeans]

iss it insured???


check with house insurance and all that... i hate that... im so so so sorry man...

[MattG]

That sucks...definitely file a police report.

[MrSugar]

That sucks...definitely file a police report.

yeah you should contact the police, and call apple as many others have suggested.

Hopefully somewhere you might be able to have insurance cover it. I hope you can figure something out.

On a side note, I have safeware (www.safeware.com) as insurance for my laptop. Covers drink spills, theft, etc. You might want to look into this in the future.

[balticgreen]

Some people are saying that filing a police report won't do anything. That may be true from the police perspective, but keep in mind that if you are able to file an insurance claim you will probably need a police report. So call the police and report it even though they probably won't be able to do much for you. Also call Apple and have the serial number noted as stolen property.

Check with both your auto and homeowners/renters insurance. If your auto doesn't cover it, ho/renters might. When I was in college, my parents' homeowners covered my laptop even if it was stolen at school or from my trunk or wherever.

[Mantat]

Time for me to clear some points:

just to clear things up it is illegal for an isp to give out information unless they want to or the police or whoever has a court order.


it is also illegal to trace the location of someone via their IP unless you have a court order.

I might add if they are suspected terrorist then they can get all that info without a court order. Thanks to the patriot act.

Unless the laws are different in US than in Canada, you are totaly wrong and only say what SHOULD be done instead of the real thing.

Police dont need court order to have IP logs, they just ask for it to the ISP and get it. Same thing for celulars, without any court order the police may ask the cel phone provider to locate you. This was valid way before the patriot act and is good in Canada/US. They cant listen to what you are saying, because thats privacy, but they can pin point your location. They have to do this, this is part of their licence to use the wireless network. Also, this information is not viewed as private data but as the property of the provider so they can give this information without you knowing it.

And yes, if you are probbed 100.000 times in a month, you can fill a police complain and they will see if this is random probing or if this is done by the same individual. I know because thats how my name poped into their list. Their system was probed over a thousand time in a week and they showed me the IP and user information of EVERY connection attempt.

Now about locating computer. With IP adress you locate people, not computer, again, you are totaly wrong! There are two ways to connect to the internet: network card and modems. Modems have a serial number that they send when they initiate communication to the server/router. This number is logged by the server. There are no 'official' repository of all these number associated with a customer but if for exemple you said that you internet connection was stolen and the robber used it to download child porn for exemple, the police could use this serial number to see if the connection was made from your computer or not.

The same thing is done with network card when you connect to a network. Exemple that since we are using a cable modem for exemple, the MAC adress stop there, the ISP only get the serial number of the modem, if I remember right.

So please in the futur, talk about facts, not about what you think that should be. Surfing the net is not anonymous anymore and never was. Its just that it require some energy to locate the user.

Want other exemple of non-privacy? Every word document you make has a serial number in it that link it to your machine. How do you think the FBI locate idiots who make macro virus? There are also rumors that AOL does something like this too. Also, now every US corporation has to archive all the emails sent/received by its employe. I dont know if it depends of the size of the corp or if it include them all tho. All thanks to the Patriot act...

All this being said. I dont think that Apple actively look for stolen computer. They have a list of serial numbers of stolen computers that they make availlable to any potential used computer buyer and thats about it. I dont even know if they can use it with software update, maybe they should...

[sgarringer]

As for the technical merrits of your arguement, your somewhat lacking. It doesnt matter if you connect through Wireless, Modem, Cable, DSL, whatever. Everything is TCP/IP once it hits the internet. There is no way to trace TCP/IP back to a particular serial number once it leaves your subnet -- routers dont pass MAC or Serial information on. Even more troubling is the fact that if your using a router or some high speed connections -- they can perform NAT proxying which allows multiple devices to share a connection. The ISP has no idea what equipment your running on your side.

As for your other arguement about cellular pinpointing -- the police cannot just ask a cellphone company "Where is XYZ user" because the cellphone compaines dont know and dont track this. Your phone is talking to several towers at any given time, and the only time they know exactly where you are is when your phone sends this information, and thats only when your either a) using an application that is web based and requests this or b) when you make an E911 call. Even then the info is passed straight to the web server or the E911 servers, and isn't stored at the phone company. Do you realize the sheer numbers of people on the cellular network at any given time? And most of them are constantly moving (thats the nature of cellular). Do you have any idea how much data that would be constantly flowing if they could/did monitor where anyone was at in the given cellular network, not to mention the sheer amount of computing power that would need to triangluate that many users? Its astronomical.

Time for me to clear some points:



Unless the laws are different in US than in Canada, you are totaly wrong and only say what SHOULD be done instead of the real thing.

Police dont need court order to have IP logs, they just ask for it to the ISP and get it. Same thing for celulars, without any court order the police may ask the cel phone provider to locate you. This was valid way before the patriot act and is good in Canada/US. They cant listen to what you are saying, because thats privacy, but they can pin point your location. They have to do this, this is part of their licence to use the wireless network. Also, this information is not viewed as private data but as the property of the provider so they can give this information without you knowing it.

And yes, if you are probbed 100.000 times in a month, you can fill a police complain and they will see if this is random probing or if this is done by the same individual. I know because thats how my name poped into their list. Their system was probed over a thousand time in a week and they showed me the IP and user information of EVERY connection attempt.

Now about locating computer. With IP adress you locate people, not computer, again, you are totaly wrong! There are two ways to connect to the internet: network card and modems. Modems have a serial number that they send when they initiate communication to the server/router. This number is logged by the server. There are no 'official' repository of all these number associated with a customer but if for exemple you said that you internet connection was stolen and the robber used it to download child porn for exemple, the police could use this serial number to see if the connection was made from your computer or not.

The same thing is done with network card when you connect to a network. Exemple that since we are using a cable modem for exemple, the MAC adress stop there, the ISP only get the serial number of the modem, if I remember right.

So please in the futur, talk about facts, not about what you think that should be. Surfing the net is not anonymous anymore and never was. Its just that it require some energy to locate the user.

Want other exemple of non-privacy? Every word document you make has a serial number in it that link it to your machine. How do you think the FBI locate idiots who make macro virus? There are also rumors that AOL does something like this too. Also, now every US corporation has to archive all the emails sent/received by its employe. I dont know if it depends of the size of the corp or if it include them all tho. All thanks to the Patriot act...

All this being said. I dont think that Apple actively look for stolen computer. They have a list of serial numbers of stolen computers that they make availlable to any potential used computer buyer and thats about it. I dont even know if they can use it with software update, maybe they should...

[jane doe]

Calling apple won't do anything for you. It will be a waist of time. I would call the police, then take the serial number around to local pawn shops. Unless it was stolen by someone that wanted a powerbook its most likely going to end up being sold. Likely to a pawn shop or something.

[jeremy.king]

How about this?

Post a wanted ad on craigslist and see if anyone near you contacts you with a laptop for sale. Check the serial and if you find its yours, tell him you got to go get the money and return with Mr. 5-0 and arrest his ass!


Just a thought.

[Mantat]

As for the technical merrits of your arguement, your somewhat lacking. It doesnt matter if you connect through Wireless, Modem, Cable, DSL, whatever. Everything is TCP/IP once it hits the internet. There is no way to trace TCP/IP back to a particular serial number once it leaves your subnet -- routers dont pass MAC or Serial information on. Even more troubling is the fact that if your using a router or some high speed connections -- they can perform NAT proxying which allows multiple devices to share a connection. The ISP has no idea what equipment your running on your side.

I think you didnt understand what I said. I talked about using a normal 'old school' modem. For the MAC adress, you confirm my thought that it stops at the router, BUT they have the serial number fo your router so its about the same. For locating people, but not computer.


As for your other arguement about cellular pinpointing -- the police cannot just ask a cellphone company "Where is XYZ user" because the cellphone compaines dont know and dont track this. Your phone is talking to several towers at any given time, and the only time they know exactly where you are is when your phone sends this information, and thats only when your either a) using an application that is web based and requests this or b) when you make an E911 call. Even then the info is passed straight to the web server or the E911 servers, and isn't stored at the phone company. Do you realize the sheer numbers of people on the cellular network at any given time? And most of them are constantly moving (thats the nature of cellular).

They dont follow EVERY person, but if the police ask for one particular individual, they will be able to locate him. Pin point isnt the right term, they can only say in which area he is. But once they know that, the police can use a tracker to find him, it generaly take less than 30mins. Dont beleive me? www.boomerangtracking.com use a similar technology to locate stolen cars. And yes, the celphone company can locate ALL of its customer base each day, they can give your phone a call (which doesnt make it ring) to find it.


Do you have any idea how much data that would be constantly flowing if they could/did monitor where anyone was at in the given cellular network, not to mention the sheer amount of computing power that would need to triangluate that many users? Its astronomical. Ehh.. they dont triangulate to find people, this is a common misconception, they just have to know the area then use a 'tracker', cant talk much about these because I have a non disclosure agrement related to that. But its nothing scifi, and its mostly hardware.

[NusuniAdmin]

lets jsut put it this way, a while bakc my mom (who codes medical records and is allowed to code them at home) had her computer hacked and several copies of innocent people's records were stolen. So she asked me to look around in norton (which is byfar the worse firewall you can use...but its a great tool to log idiot's ips) and such for a possible IP address so I did and got it. Contacted the police and her lawyer as well as her employeers lawyer to find that they would need to go through the hassel of getting a court order in order to do a trace and arrest the person. So thus you are the one misinformed, i really dont think 2 lawyers and a police station would lie about a law.

[Mantat]

[QUOTE=jane doe]Calling apple won't do anything for you. It will be a waist of time. [QUOTE]

You must be kiding! Calling Apple prevent the robber to sell the computer to any honest buyer. Anyone who wants to buy a computer check first if its stolen and the best way to do so is to call the manufacturer (Apple here). The service is free and take 5mins. Its also prove that your computer was stolen and I know at least 2 people who got their computer back thanks to this.

But I agree that pawnshops are the first place to look.

[sgarringer]

I think you didnt understand what I said. I talked about using a normal 'old school' modem. For the MAC adress, you confirm my thought that it stops at the router, BUT they have the serial number fo your router so its about the same. For locating people, but not computer.


PPP doesnt send any information regarding the serial number of the computer connecting. I recommend you read up on the documentation of the PPP protocol, this provision is definatly not part of it. The series of events that happen when you dial your isp are as follows:

1] ISP prompts for username
1a] your PC sends username
2] ISP prompts for password
2a] Your PC sends password (often in plaintext)
3] ISP sends PPP request, which contains their default IP header options, compression settings, and the IP address of their server and the IP address they are offering to you
3a] Your PC accepts and responds to this request, at which point your computer is connected to the internet.

They dont follow EVERY person, but if the police ask for one particular individual, they will be able to locate him. Pin point isnt the right term, they can only say in which area he is. But once they know that, the police can use a tracker to find him, it generaly take less than 30mins. Dont beleive me? www.boomerangtracking.com use a similar technology to locate stolen cars. And yes, the celphone company can locate ALL of its customer base each day, they can give your phone a call (which doesnt make it ring) to find it.


When your car is stolen, the Network Operations Center calls a phone number for a cellular phone which is installed in the car, which answers and responds with the GPS location. Its an analog cellphone which works in 99% of the country, and the phone number is only known by the network. This is how OnStar and other similar systems work, and I assume thats how this boomerangtracking thingworks.

Ehh.. they dont triangulate to find people, this is a common misconception, they just have to know the area then use a 'tracker', cant talk much about these because I have a non disclosure agrement related to that. But its nothing scifi, and its mostly hardware.

Yeah, its called GPS. Cellphone headsets have GPS recievers built in which send your location to E911 services. If it doesnt have a GPS lock it sends the coordinates of the nearest tower you are to. That is all.

[Mantat]

So thus you are the one misinformed, i really dont think 2 lawyers and a police station would lie about a law.

Here in Canada the RCMP has a special IS fraud task force that will do all of this for you. Maybe they have more authority than your simple police station to do this kind of work.

[NusuniAdmin]

[QUOTE=jane doe]Calling apple won't do anything for you. It will be a waist of time. [QUOTE]

You must be kiding! Calling Apple prevent the robber to sell the computer to any honest buyer. Anyone who wants to buy a computer check first if its stolen and the best way to do so is to call the manufacturer (Apple here). The service is free and take 5mins. Its also prove that your computer was stolen and I know at least 2 people who got their computer back thanks to this.

But I agree that pawnshops are the first place to look.

Or in the case of the overly computer controlling windows a comptuer company would contact microsoft and have the blow up your computer remotely :p

[NusuniAdmin]

Here in Canada the RCMP has a special IS fraud task force that will do all of this for you. Maybe they have more authority than your simple police station to do this kind of work.

canada laws != us laws

[jeremy.king]

PPP doesnt send any information regarding the serial number of the computer connecting.

The information that would help track isn't going to located in PPP exchange, it will be in certain HTTP requests the machine is issuing. For example, if Diesel had authorized his computer and bought a song using iTunes, certain credentials are going to be stored on his machine for the next time he hits the store. Now, if the thief hits iTunes Music Store and tries to buy something or yet tries to play a DRM protected song, Apple would be able to identify the machine using those credentials as part of the HTTP exchange. How else would apple know if you have authorized a machine in iTunes, if you don't send some information (beyond an IP address) to them? Continuing, if Apple has the machine on file as stolen (yes most definitely call them) and they say hey Diesel Geek is trying to buy something or is browsing the music store, they could record the IP address, determine if its Diesel or the bad guy, then pursue that person as needed.

I still like my craigslist idea! sneaky vigilante redemption.

[Mantat]

When your car is stolen, the Network Operations Center calls a phone number for a cellular phone which is installed in the car, which answers and responds with the GPS location. Its an analog cellphone which works in 99% of the country, and the phone number is only known by the network. This is how OnStar and other similar systems work, and I assume thats how this boomerangtracking thingworks.

Yeah, cellphones have a GPS reciever built in which sends your location to E911 services. If it doesnt have a GPS lock it sends the coordinates of the nearest tower you are to. That is all.


I hope that you know that OnStar doesnt protect you againts car theft. All OnStar system are located at the same spot on a car and it take less than 5 second to remove and it doesnt work if you dont have a straight line to a satelite which happen most of the time in big cities. This is why GPS protection system sucks.

And no, Boomerang doesnt use GPS, they use the cel signal but on a low frequency if I remember right which allow it to be heard underground and in train containers. The tracker can locate the car with a 1-2m accuracy when he is close to it, else it give him a general indication of the direction.

Trust me, I know more about car theft than you do, Montreal is the world capital of car theft in absolute and % numbers. This is ridiculous how serious the problem was a few years ago, hence the reason of our expertise in the field of vehicule recovery. You wouldnt believe all the tricks robber can do to steal a car. A good thef can take your car in less than 15 sec and 30mins later it will be cut in part and quickly sold.


As for the modem serial number. I can insure you that somehow the serial number is stored on the server because thats how a guy who was accused of child pornography was let free recently. He managed to prove that his internet account had been stolen and the ISP proved him right but showing that the serial number didnt correspond with the one on his modem.

[SiliconAddict]

That is the biggest load of junk I have ever heard. There is no way you can find the location of a computer this way.. ISPs legally cannot disclose their customers information because of privacy laws. The only way that this would ever be allowd was if the person was a risk to national security.. e.g. a master hacker. So unless your powerbook is used to hack the NSA, this isn't going to help.

Umm no. How do you think those laptop recovery services work? ISP's sure as hell can hand out your personal information. There is no law keeping them from doing so. The question is would they? When the RIAA when after the names associated with the IP addresses of people who are P2Ping songs and such Verizon (I think) threw up a stink. But on a stolen laptop basis if the local police asks for the info I'm betting they would turn it over. The only thing keeping them from doing so is the possibility of getting a bad rep for revealing their clients identity.

[NusuniAdmin]

I hope that you know that OnStar doesnt protect you againts car theft. All OnStar system are located at the same spot on a car and it take less than 5 second to remove and it doesnt work if you dont have a straight line to a satelite which happen most of the time in big cities. This is why GPS protection system sucks.



so very true, my dads work is getting in more and more onstar crap that have been ripped off of the cars. You can definitly tell how the theif removed the things too.

[dotnina]

How about this?

Post a wanted ad on craigslist and see if anyone near you contacts you with a laptop for sale. Check the serial and if you find its yours, tell him you got to go get the money and return with Mr. 5-0 and arrest his ass!


Just a thought.

I think this is great advice.

Hell, I'd do it.

Just make sure you meet in a public area, of course!

[SiliconAddict]

Ehh.. they dont triangulate to find people, this is a common misconception, they just have to know the area then use a 'tracker', cant talk much about these because I have a non disclosure agrement related to that. But its nothing scifi, and its mostly hardware.

Yes they can. Its a serious PITA to do it though. It's a matter of tracking which towers the user in question uses. The carrier can get a rough ballpark figure as to where the phone is. They have used such techniques in a couple missing person's cases over the years. I know they used it for one up here in MN a year or so ago. The thing is its not like the movies. They aren't going to know exactly where you are. Its more of a general locator then anything else.

The new E911 service that encompasses the use of GPS is relatively new and most phones don't have the capability built in yet.

[sgarringer]

The ignorance in this forum is amaizing.

The only way this would work is if every police car had a reciever that could determine the strength of a signal so they could tell how close to a transmitter they were. And this wouldnt use the cell network at all, it would be like the recovery beacon on military aircraft. Its a one-way transmission. So get your facts straight, either its on the cell network and tracked by the cell (which uses GPS), or its not on the cell network, and its tracked by the police via a seperate frequency. If its the latter, how could this be used to track regular cellphone calls (our original arguement) as if its the latter you admit that its a sepcialized transmitter, which is simply activated by a call to a cellphone.

That guy got off by showing logs from his telephone company proving he wasnt online when they said the porn was downloaded. Some ISPs also save CallerID data, and I'm sure this went into play. Point is, he had to prove it, if the ISP had the data (as you claim they would) then he wouldnt have had to prove ANYTHING.

I hope that you know that OnStar doesnt protect you againts car theft. All OnStar system are located at the same spot on a car and it take less than 5 second to remove and it doesnt work if you dont have a straight line to a satelite which happen most of the time in big cities. This is why GPS protection system sucks.

And no, Boomerang doesnt use GPS, they use the cel signal but on a low frequency if I remember right which allow it to be heard underground and in train containers. The tracker can locate the car with a 1-2m accuracy when he is close to it, else it give him a general indication of the direction.

Trust me, I know more about car theft than you do, Montreal is the world capital of car theft in absolute and % numbers. This is ridiculous how serious the problem was a few years ago, hence the reason of our expertise in the field of vehicule recovery. You wouldnt believe all the tricks robber can do to steal a car. A good thef can take your car in less than 15 sec and 30mins later it will be cut in part and quickly sold.


As for the modem serial number. I can insure you that somehow the serial number is stored on the server because thats how a guy who was accused of child pornography was let free recently. He managed to prove that his internet account had been stolen and the ISP proved him right but showing that the serial number didnt correspond with the one on his modem.

[SiliconAddict]

I think this is great advice.

Hell, I'd do it.

Just make sure you meet in a public area, of course!

And see if you have an Apple user group in your area. I can't imagine what would happen to that poor SOB after a bunch of Mac user got done with him. :eek:

[sgarringer]

this is completely beyond the scope of what were talking about -- snagging a stolen laptop simply when someone connects to the internet.

yeah, if they're stupid enough to use a stolen machine (without wiping it) to buy an ITMS then the IP address wont matter, Apple will have their Credit Card info to use against them.

If **I** stole a Powerbook first thing I'd do is wipe it and reload OS X, which would generate a new Machine ID, and then Apples ITMS wouldnt have any way of knowing what machine it was. So, back to the original arguement.

(If they logged it when I doubt they really do).

The information that would help track isn't going to located in PPP exchange, it will be in certain HTTP requests the machine is issuing. For example, if Diesel had authorized his computer and bought a song using iTunes, certain credentials are going to be stored on his machine for the next time he hits the store. Now, if the thief hits iTunes Music Store and tries to buy something or yet tries to play a DRM protected song, Apple would be able to identify the machine using those credentials as part of the HTTP exchange. How else would apple know if you have authorized a machine in iTunes, if you don't send some information (beyond an IP address) to them? Continuing, if Apple has the machine on file as stolen (yes most definitely call them) and they say hey Diesel Geek is trying to buy something or is browsing the music store, they could record the IP address, determine if its Diesel or the bad guy, then pursue that person as needed.

I still like my craigslist idea! sneaky vigilante redemption.

[NusuniAdmin]

this is completely beyond the scope of what were talking about -- snagging a stolen laptop simply when someone connects to the internet.

yeah, if they're stupid enough to use a stolen machine (without wiping it) to buy an ITMS then the IP address wont matter, Apple will have their Credit Card info to use against them.

If **I** stole a Powerbook first thing I'd do is wipe it and reload OS X, which would generate a new Machine ID, and then Apples ITMS wouldnt have any way of knowing what machine it was. So, back to the original arguement.

(If they logged it when I doubt they really do).


actually the MAC addresses are hard coded onto the machine chips, reinstalling os x would not generate a new one.

[sgarringer]

actually the MAC addresses are hard coded onto the machine chips, reinstalling os x would not generate a new one.

the MachineID sent to Apple when you buy ITMS music is based on many things, the MAC address being one, but not the exclusive thing. It has a random element, so if you reinstall OS X it does generate a new MachineID, which is why you need to deauthorize a PC or Mac before reformatting and reinstalling.

the only thing sent to ITMS is the MachineID (and username/password if the machine isnt authorized) not the MAC address of the computer.

[Mantat]

The ignorance in this forum is amaizing.

The only way this would work is if every police car had a reciever that could determine the strength of a signal so they could tell how close to a transmitter they were. And this wouldnt use the cell network at all, it would be like the recovery beacon on military aircraft. Its a one-way transmission. So get your facts straight, either its on the cell network and tracked by the cell (which uses GPS), or its not on the cell network, and its tracked by the police via a seperate frequency. If its the latter, how could this be used to track regular cellphone calls (our original arguement) as if its the latter you admit that its a sepcialized transmitter, which is simply activated by a call to a cellphone.


The stolen cars arent located by the police. Boomerang has its own recovery agents. Once they are near the car, they call the police.

Now I will clarify my point: when the police ask for the location of a suspect, the celphone company can tell them the area where he is. They do so by asking the cel which cel tower is the nearest. These area can be quite big once you are out of a city.

To pin point a car, they use a special portable tracker. The target cel in the car has been modified to work with special frequencies that are less susceptible to be stoped by wall/concrete.

As for pin pointing a cel phone on a person, I guess they can locate it, but I dont know how. Probably with something similar to the tracker used for the cars.

[sgarringer]

The stolen cars arent located by the police. Boomerang has its own recovery agents. Once they are near the car, they call the police.

Now I will clarify my point: when the police ask for the location of a suspect, the celphone company can tell them the area where he is. They do so by asking the cel which cel tower is the nearest. These area can be quite big once you are out of a city.

To pin point a car, they use a special portable tracker. The target cel in the car has been modified to work with special frequencies that are less susceptible to be stoped by wall/concrete.

As for pin pointing a cel phone on a person, I guess they can locate it, but I dont know how. Probably with something similar to the tracker used for the cars.

so like i orginally said. its not the cellphone they're pinpointing but a seperate transmitter. so, how does this help your arguement that they can pinpoint cellphones, when they're not installed in a car with a specialized tracking transmitter.

[NusuniAdmin]

the MachineID sent to Apple when you buy ITMS music is based on many things, the MAC address being one, but not the exclusive thing. It has a random element, so if you reinstall OS X it does generate a new MachineID, which is why you need to deauthorize a PC or Mac before reformatting and reinstalling.

the only thing sent to ITMS is the MachineID (and username/password if the machine isnt authorized) not the MAC address of the computer.

ah I thought you were talking about the computers MAC address, my bad (macrumors needs an animated smiley doing the thing johnny depp (spelling?) did on pirate of the carribean, with the palms together and slight bow thing)

[SiliconAddict]

the MachineID sent to Apple when you buy ITMS music is based on many things, the MAC address being one

Another question. What about Apple's update software? I know at least for Windows it sends a crap load of specs back to MS when you run Windows Update. Also as someone stated if someone ever calls Apple for repair work they are prob going to ask for the S/N on the laptop. And to be frank comparing the reliability of a couple friend's iBooks lately its a good possibility that at some point in this laptop's life that may very well happen.

[JLS]

Time for me to clear some points:

And yes, if you are probbed 100.000 times in a month, you can fill a police complain and they will see if this is random probing or if this is done by the same individual. I know because thats how my name poped into their list. Their system was probed over a thousand time in a week and they showed me the IP and user information of EVERY connection attempt.


You find that out by looking at your firewalls logs, not by calling the cops, and again this has nothing to do with identifying which hardware they are using.


Umm no. How do you think those laptop recovery services work? ISP's sure as hell can hand out your personal information. There is no law keeping them from doing so. The question is would they? When the RIAA when after the names associated with the IP addresses of people who are P2Ping songs and such Verizon (I think) threw up a stink. But on a stolen laptop basis if the local police asks for the info I'm betting they would turn it over. The only thing keeping them from doing so is the possibility of getting a bad rep for revealing their clients identity.


Laptop recovery works be pre-installing broadcasting software on the machine.


I still can't believe that anyone here actually thinks they would get a stolen computer back from it being tracked down over the internet.. its insane to think that they would spend such huge amounts of time even trying to locate the computer.. its not cost effective for them. If it costs $5000 (just a guess.. its certainly not free) to apply for court orders and ISP contact, and various other expenses, for a $1000 computer - its not going to happen unless its involved in a more serious damaging crime.