Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Found a Macbook Pro...how to find owner?

iphone1105

iphone1105

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 8, 2009
2,106
317
Hey all...so here's the deal. 6:30 AM here in Los Angeles this morning, I found someones Macbook Pro they left sitting on a bench near Fryman Canyon's park entrance. It's a pretty popular spot, but no idea why anyone would have a laptop where people go to run and workout. Needless to say I picked it up, brought it to work, turned it on, but the girl has a password on it, and just her Name Alicia, no last name, appears on the login. I can see her face, in the log in screen. I asked the IT guys at work, but they can't help unless they can get past her password, so we're stuck....since I see her face and name, I was thinking of doing a random facebook search in my area for a look a like with her name, I also plan on posting signs at the park saying I have a lost macbook pro and providng my email for contact....

Anything else I can do? I'd hate it if I lost my Macbook, and really would like to give this back to this Alicia girl....

Any suggestions are welcome
 
Man that sucks... glad you are trying to find the owner! I would say post some signs in the park!
 
1) Call the park authorities, maybe the girl has already called them.
2) Call the police, turn it in and let them handle it.

Those would be the most 'proper' ways to go about it, I think.

Alternatively, you could try craigslist...

Last thing I would do in this situation would be to try to hack into her computer... that would open a whole can of legal, ethical and economic worms.
 
stonyc said:
1) Call the park authorities, maybe the girl has already called them.
2) Call the police, turn it in and let them handle it.

Those would be the most 'proper' ways to go about it, I think.

Alternatively, you could try craigslist...

Last thing I would do in this situation would be to try to hack into her computer... that would open a whole can of legal, ethical and economic worms.
Click to expand...

We most definitely are not trying to hack into anything, we dont want to do anything other then give this back to the owner....

I will follow through w/ the police, can't believe that didnt crosss anyone's mind around me. The signs I am putting up during lunch break, I figure put them in the crowded areas of the park/trail.
 
Going off of the Facebook idea, you could always code a Facebook face recognition app and try to find her that way. :)
 
iphone1105 said:
We most definitely are not trying to hack into anything, we dont want to do anything other then give this back to the owner....

I will follow through w/ the police, can't believe that didnt crosss anyone's mind around me. The signs I am putting up during lunch break, I figure put them in the crowded areas of the park/trail.
Click to expand...

Isnt it posible to boot from a mac os x dvd, and browse the files to see if there are any personal information?

I would rather do that, than hand it over to the police. They wont do anything about it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: simonmet
Police notification would be your best bet. A sign in the park would be pretty dangerous as anyone could call it in.

Another option, you could pop the OSX disk in, and enable the admin account to find out a phone number, etc...(maybe)???

You could also call AppleCare, and give them the serial number. You could explain to them as well the situation, or they may even give you "her" number.

I'm glad your trying to do the right thing, above all~!
 
iphone1105 said:
Any suggestions are welcome
Click to expand...

Well what I wouldn't do is contact Gizmodo and get a $5000 payment and let them take it apart and post pictures. Probably not a good idea. The police or Park authority is probably the best idea, just make sure you get a receipt when you turn it in.
 
Maybe contact Apple and see if they can identify the Macbook Pro. If that doesn't work go to the police.

Did you also leave a note where you found it, because I"m sure she's coming back to look for it.

( I'd seriously try giving the Macbook Pro back, else you can get into serious problems with the law. This is no joke. )
 
iphone1105 said:
Hey all...so here's the deal. 6:30 AM here in Los Angeles this morning, I found someones Macbook Pro they left sitting on a bench near Fryman Canyon's park entrance. It's a pretty popular spot, but no idea why anyone would have a laptop where people go to run and workout. Needless to say I picked it up, brought it to work, turned it on, but the girl has a password on it, and just her Name Alicia, no last name, appears on the login. I can see her face, in the log in screen. I asked the IT guys at work, but they can't help unless they can get past her password, so we're stuck....since I see her face and name, I was thinking of doing a random facebook search in my area for a look a like with her name, I also plan on posting signs at the park saying I have a lost macbook pro and providng my email for contact....

Anything else I can do? I'd hate it if I lost my Macbook, and really would like to give this back to this Alicia girl....

Any suggestions are welcome
Click to expand...

There are a couple ways you can recover the password and login. After you login, it should not be too hard to get the email or phone number (check the address book) of a friend to contact them.

Also a way to get her email: the odds are pretty good that she has a facebook, go to facebook.com and see if you can get her email to autocomplete in the login form. So type in "a", "b", "c" etc etc to get it to autocomplete her email.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20001217230925152

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1274
"Resetting the original administrator account password"

This isnt really "hacking" (i hate that word) into her computer. And i'm sure she would not care if you did this as long as she got her comp back

Contacting the police might not get anything done. This requires that she contacts the police, i believe that might be an unlikely event.

Let us know how it goes..
 
  • Love
Reactions: simonmet
Start looking over your shoulder.... It's probably a local news station testing citizen honesty in the wake of the prototype iPhone situation. :)

Don't be a Hogan!

Mark
 
harodude said:
Police notification would be your best bet. A sign in the park would be pretty dangerous as anyone could call it in.
Click to expand...
Anyone can call it in, but her login shows her picture, so I can match the face to the rightful owner on the Mac

zapp said:
Well what I wouldn't do is contact Gizmodo and get a $5000 payment and let them take it apart and post pictures. Probably not a good idea. The police or Park authority is probably the best idea, just make sure you get a receipt when you turn it in.
Click to expand...
LOL, no doubt, I honeslty just want to give it back to who ever she is

mark28 said:
Maybe contact Apple and see if they can identify the Macbook Pro. If that doesn't work go to the police.

Did you also leave a note where you found it, because I"m sure she's coming back to look for it.

( I'd seriously try giving the Macbook Pro back, else you can get into serious problems with the law. This is no joke. )
Click to expand...
I am seriously trying to find the owner, if I put up signs though, and make it none I'm looking for the owner, I'm not worried much about cops getting me in trouble. :)

Mark Booth said:
Start looking over your shoulder.... It's probably a local news station testing citizen honesty in the wake of the prototype iPhone situation. :)

Don't be a Hogan!

Mark
Click to expand...

LOL, I wish this was a prank, I wouldn't feel so bad someone doesn't have their $1,500 laptop. I'd be crushed, I wish I could find her.

Side note, going to lunch break now. Me and my girlfriend are going to post signs at the trail and park area. Hopefully maybe they'll be back looking for it, or at least go there daily and see the signs...
 
I would start it up and look at the emails. You will find their name, email address and probably an address on their signature.
 
Good for you! I would be very grateful to anyone that would try to reunite me with my prized MBP. :)



Again Kudos for being an honest person and putting so much work into this!
:)


I wish more people were like this....and also were in Congress.
 
  • Like
Reactions: simonmet
mark28 said:
( I'd seriously try giving the Macbook Pro back, else you can get into serious problems with the law. This is no joke. )
Click to expand...

Dude it sounds like the guy is trying everything he can to return this to the owner :confused:
 
I'm not sure why there is a question of what to do. You find something valuable, you turn it into the police. If the owner doesn't show up to claim it in x number of months (it varies), it is yours.
 
zapp said:
Well what I wouldn't do is contact Gizmodo and get a $5000 payment and let them take it apart and post pictures. Probably not a good idea. The police or Park authority is probably the best idea, just make sure you get a receipt when you turn it in.
Click to expand...

Anyone find these jokes getting extremely not funny and old? Maybe it's just me!

@OP - I suggest you call the park management, more than likely the girl called up and gave them the number.
 
Boot it up with Target Disk Mode; go into her account on via your computer and change the read permissions; then open up the address the book and see if you can find any contact information.
 
I wouldn't leave it with the pigs.. You'd be better off leaving it back at the park bench than with them..

I'd just reset the password using an OSX Disk, and launch Mail or check the browser history for a hotmail or gmail account. Shoot an email over to that account and say "hey, i got your macbook, call me"
 
InfoSecmgr said:
I'm not sure why there is a question of what to do. You find something valuable, you turn it into the police. If the owner doesn't show up to claim it in x number of months (it varies), it is yours.
Click to expand...

Because you can involve the police and they'll get to it eventually

-or-

you can do minimal efforts to find the owner yourself prior to handing it in to the police.

When I find cell phones (i've found 3 in the past year) I always hold onto it for a day to see if anyone will call and if not, return it at an official retailer for whichever carrier.
Unless it's an iPhone 4G. Then I put on some gloves, put it in a trash bag, toss it into the river and start working with my overseas contacts to make sure my alibi is good to go :cool:
 
Great to see you putting in the effort to return it. I always love the challenge of finding the rightful owners of stuff I find =)

Once found a cell phone, rang the owners boyfriend on recent dial list to get address so i could post it back, they didnt really believe I'd do it and asked what I wanted in return. Lucky for me, I had access to free postage via work, but yeah they were pretty grateful :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back