
Ask HN: He stole my laptop, and sent me this, what would you do? - kabuks
My laptop was stolen from the trunk of my car yesterday.<p>Today, I received this email:<p>---
So as much as i want to rationalize my actions, I understand buying stolen property is still stealing. I am the one who unfortunately bought your laptop from someone who likely stole it. I will eventually pay for my bad karma.<p>Berating me for my actions is useless.<p>I am deleting everything off of the laptop.<p>Is there anything that you want.<p>I am offering to back up to 160 gigs to another hard drive. There is only about 240 gigs worth of information.<p>I see that you have backed up most everything using time machine. If there is anything smaller like 4, 8, or 10 gigs worth I can do that faster to DVDs or flash drives.<p>I would have to buy another hard drive to get you the 160 gigs. Which i would if you need the info.<p>Again apologies for not having the integrity to turn down the offer to buy your laptop
----<p>how did he get my email?
how does he know i backed up to time machine?
what would you do?
======
gkoberger
When I was younger, my mother had her wallet stolen. The person who stole it
sent it back to her (including her ID, credit cards, etc), minus the hundred
or so dollars in cash.

While I would have been furious, she was completely okay with it. She calmly
told me, "The person who stole it clearly needed it more than me."

Now, this isn't to say that stealing is okay. It's certainly not, and I'd be
pissed. However, this person knows what he did was wrong. He really seems to
hate what he had to do to get the computer. But he clearly needs it. Maybe he
wants it so he can get a job, or wants it so his kid can succeed.

Try appealing to this side of him. Find out why he needs it. I doubt it's so
he can watch YouTube videos, based on his email. You can buy a cheap desktop
(or even laptop) for a few hundred dollars. Offer to trade a crappy computer
for yours. (I doubt he wants you to buy it back; he seems to care more about
the computer than money.)

The person almost definitely doesn't need a computer as good as what you had
stolen from you, and he's already feeling really guilty about it. And, if he
agrees, you can try to find out who actually stole it and tell the police.

Sure, it's unfair you'd have to drop a few hundred dollars- but consider it a
donation. (Depending on the circumstances, you might even be able to figure
out a way to legally donate it to him through some sort of organization- which
would be tax deductible.)

After all, giving him a computer could change his life. Think about how much
your life has improved by merely owning a computer; something most people on
HN take for granted. You could turn a bad situation into one you're really
proud of.

~~~
lionhearted
> "The person who stole it clearly needed it more than me."

Counterpoints that will be unpopular, but need to be said anyways:

1\. "Needing" is no excuse for stealing, and that demeans all the people who
BUST THEIR ASS to get out of poverty. If the thief is not working 12 hours per
day and living on bare necessities, they have no excuse, and being even mildly
sympathetic to their plight is bad for everyone, most especially poor people.
NEVER pardon stealing, ESPECIALLY from another individual. Condoning ANY
stealing is terrible - thieves are far more likely to steal near them, which
will be from other needy people, thus making their poverty worse. Never
condone a criminal's behavior, especially and above all street crime.

> Find out why he needs it. I doubt it's so he can watch YouTube videos, based
> on his email. You can buy a cheap desktop (or even laptop) for a few hundred
> dollars. Offer to trade a crappy computer for yours.

2\. This could very well be another scam or attempt to rob MORE (the person
has already demonstrated that they have no integrity and will steal from
people), and you're encouraging the original poster to walk into the lion's
den and potentially risk getting robbed or ripped off even more. This is
crazy, reckless, and dangerous for the OP.

> After all, giving him a computer could change his life.

It's a THIEF, dude. You can get a used computer for a few hundred dollars,
that's like a week worth of saving at the most low quality minimum wage job.
Work 80 hours for a couple weeks and use the money to buy a computer. Some of
us do stuff like that to get out of povery. God, this smug "crime is okay
because they need it" crap among upper middle class people is awful, it makes
me sick to my stomach. NO, committing street crime is NOT okay, EVER. There's
ALWAYS another way.

~~~
tomjen3
I am not sure why you think your points would be unpopular - you are exactly
right.

~~~
CamperBob
They would be unpopular on Reddit, certainly. I know this from experience...

~~~
points
HN isn't Reddit..... yet.

When the front page is full of pro-drugs/pro-gay marriage/liberal
propaganda/etc then we'll be there.

~~~
jacquesm
I think you can check the 'pro drugs' item off that list.

------
kabuks
Here's what I ended up sending him:

\---- Wow.

I really appreciate the offer for the backup. Good to know it was stolen as
opposed to carelessly left somewhere.

You're actually pretty unlucky. I have this software installed for this
occasion:

lojackforlaptops.com

please call me at 510.213.2990 in the next hour

if you don't I will immediately activate the lojack theft alert which means
law enforcement is showing up at your door promptly.

I don't actually know your location, but they reveal it to the cops, who show
up at your door with a lot of questions.

thank you in advance for doing the right thing

cheers, shereef \----

and what I got in return:

\----

I use the laptop in public places. And have no internet at home. Sorry but
your info is now deleted. Torrenting copyrighted files is illegal also just to
let you know.

\-----

~~~
jacquesm
This is why you _never_ bluff but just take action.

What a silly move.

~~~
dwwoelfel
"What a silly move."

More like, what an infuriating move. Why didn't he take the well-considered
advice of the people in the comments? Or post a comment with his intentions so
that someone could talk him out of it?

~~~
jacquesm
I don't think that's limited to this particular Ask HN.

It's a pretty good object lesson in what happens when you ask for advice and
then proceed to completely ignore it. Kudos for posting the results though.

------
aniket_ray
Report to police.

Do not let him create a secondary market for stolen laptops. It would become
an economic incentive for the stealers to steal more laptops.

Research has shown that tolerance of public crime gradually leads to an
increase in major crime. (Read about this in one of the pop economic books,
not sure which). Do you want to keep your city a safer place to live?

~~~
mthoms
Not sure if this is what you're referring to but it's interesting and
relevant: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory>

~~~
aniket_ray
Yes, that's the one. Thanks a lot.

I figured from that page that I read about it in either the Tipping Point or
in the Freakonomics. I hadn't read about its criticisms before, interesting
read.

------
auston
I can't help but wonder:

Can you look at the original email message & get the IP - then run some GeoIP?
If he was irresponsible enough to do it from some public place like a
University Library then you could probably look the exact address up & have a
lead to give the police.

Secondly, depending on if you have chrome & a "trusted" website that you
provide your location to, then you can run that bit on this fool in a reply
email with a link that says something like "Do me a favor & just upload my
pictures folder to <http://mysite.com/storage/index.html> \- the user is:
johndoe & the pass is: FML123" then wait & obviously log the lat/long & go to
the police.

Third, if you happen to know the serial number, report it to Apple, then to
the police. I say this because he is considering buying a 160gig drive &
backing your data up to it - there is a small chance he would go to the Apple
store to do this.

Next time, consider using <http://preyproject.com/>

Other than that I guess try to get what you can from this guy without paying.

------
runjake
I regularly track down thieves, theft rings, and other criminals on the
Internet, so I can probably give good real-world advice here.

Do all of these steps today. Do not contact the sender until you have filed a
police report, if possible.

Step 1.) Collect all of the evidence you have. Intact email messages are
important.

Step 2.) Grab a pencil and piece of paper and title it "For the overworked
detective".

Step 3.) Gather any unique identifiers in the email message headers. Get the
originating IP address, geolocate it, find out which ISP owns the IP block
(via arin.net) and write all of this down on your piece of paper.

If you have a mountain of evidence, print it out and number it page by page,
so you (and the detective) can cross reference your notes with the evidence
easily.

4.) Google the sender's email address, write down any decent info and rate it
(solid/likely/unlikely). Do the same with just the username portion of the
email address.

5.) Bring your notes, and your evidence, and file a police report, preferably
in person. The CSO will either pencil whip the report into the system or add
some of your evidence to the report. No worries, if you have your notes cross-
referenced, the detective will be very interested in it.

Many police departments are overworked (or claim to be), so if you do the
initial legwork and it can be reliably cross-referenced to evidence you'll
have more chance of getting your stuff back.

Oh and the guy who emailed you has knowingly purchased stolen equipment, which
is a crime. My hunch is that he isn't the thief, but personally knows the
thief. So, you grab him and you get the other. These guys have probably
victimized a whole lot of other people, so good luck.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions or need assistance (my email
is in my HN profile)

------
laurasbadideas
This really seems like a scam to me. It's possible that the amount of guilt
that this person feels is sufficient to motivate them to buy the a 160 gig
disk (and spend time selectively copying the most important data) but not to
motivate them to buy a 250 gig disk and copy everything. It's also possible,
though, that this person is trying to draw you into a conversation focusing on
how important the data is to you, in order to convince you to send money to
buy a disk or buy the laptop back.

Actually, how sure are you that they even have your laptop? Did you mention
the theft someplace public, like on a blog or twitter? The only information
they've demonstrated that they have is your email address, the fact that
you've used Time Machine at least once (probably a pretty safe bet if they
know your laptop was a Mac), and the approximate amount of data that you had
stored (assuming you know that's correct and aren't just taking their word for
it).

------
CaptainMorgan
He got your email because he has your laptop - same for the backup software.
Depending on how valuable your information is consider a sizable monetary
amount to get the name of the person he bought it from or just offer more than
the laptop's value to get it back and end it. Consider reporting to the police
what you're doing... if a physical/in-person exchange of the information
occurs and he didn't take you up on your offer, the police might be able to
legally influence the buyer into giving up the details of the seller/thief
since the buyer committed a crime too.

Good luck.

~~~
cubicle67
To expand; System Preferences > Time Machine will tell you time of last
backup, date of oldest backup, etc. You email address will be in the Account
settings of Mail (Preferences > Accounts)

Also available are - your home address and phone number (in Address Book,
he'll already know your name from Mail), saved passwords in FireFox (stored as
plain text), iTunes account if you've set it to save your password, and
websites where you've set 'Remember Me' (GMail and the like) etc

Luckily for you this person seems to have some degree of respect for your
data, and hopefully your privacy. If you're not happy with their access to
this, it seems they have more leverage over you than you do over them.

Protip: In OSX you can set it to require login password after a certain
timeout, eg 1 hour. It's under System Preferences > Security > General

~~~
kabuks
That's what's puzzling to me. I have it set require login everytime it sleeps.
Somehow this guy got passed this

------
lionhearted
Note: I am not in law enforcement, just going by my instinct here. Observe:

> I am offering to back up to 160 gigs to another hard drive. There is only
> about 240 gigs worth of information. I see that you have backed up most
> everything using time machine. If there is anything smaller like 4, 8, or 10
> gigs worth I can do that faster to DVDs or flash drives. I would have to buy
> another hard drive to get you the 160 gigs. Which i would if you need the
> info.

This combined with the supposed very quick rapid sale of the laptop has me
suspicious - I would bet it's the original thief emailing you. Since he
mentions time machine right away and found your email quickly - this is a
computer sophisticated person, who possibly has done this before. "Berating me
for my actions is useless" is also well written English. This is not a run of
the mill stupid person. You're likely dealing with someone intelligent with
very bad intentions.

I'd be scared now if running into another scam - I'm guessing, again I'm not
in LE, but I'm guessing that the offer to buy a hard drive and back up for you
will ask of you cash to be sent to a Paypal or Western Union or something,
that you'll never see again, nor your data.

> what would you do?

First, pause and reflect. You don't need to hurry, it's more important you
don't do anything stupid.

Second, get law enforcement involved. Now, I had my car window smashed once
and had a bunch of stuff grabbed when I lived in a bad neighborhood, they took
my stereo and cigarettes. Police are good people, but they tend to realize
there's not much they can do about something like this, and they have limited
resources. So, think about how to approach the police to get them interested -
maybe talk to a computer crimes person online who would be interested in
helping out, and get all the information you can. If this is a scam or a
common thing (again, my intuition says so), then the police will be a lot more
interested. Maybe you can put a sting together and get your computer back
and/or put this bastard in jail.

I think your next two steps should be contacting people online who deal with
this sort of thing, and contacting local law enforcement. Maybe the FBI would
be interested actually, if you find the right agent and ask if this looks like
a pattern/regular thing. Police love to catch and lock up repeat offenders,
especially sophisticated ones.

Contact a lot of people - people tend to be sympathetic to when crime happens,
and hate criminals. Whatever you do, don't contact this person on your own
before consulting experts on the matter and law enforcement. It puts you in
harm's way. Whatever you do, don't meet them or send any money or resources
before contacting experts and law enforcement. Good luck and sorry this
happened to you.

~~~
d2viant
The FBI will not be any help at all. Their backlog of cases is completely
unworkable. Based on interactions with them from previous work I've done,
there has to be monetary loss. The (unofficial) threshold to get them to
investigate a crime involving monetary loss is at least $100,000 I believe.
These guys are chasing criminals stealing millions, they won't be bothered
with somebody who's laptop got stolen from his car.

His best bet is local law enforcement, but even this is likely a waste of
time. What can they possibly do? They have a better chance of solving the
crime from physical evidence than they do from electronic evidence.

He should file a police report for insurance purposes. Then just learn his
lesson and move on.

Some thoughts for next time:

\- Encrypt your hard-drive, especially on laptops or other portable devices.
Check out <http://www.truecrypt.org/>

\- Install a program to monitor/track your machine. Check out
<http://preyproject.com/>

~~~
bootload
_"... His best bet is local law enforcement, but even this is likely a waste
of time. What can they possibly do? ..."_

Disagree.

The law has a long memory and criminals are stupid. Better to get a record of
the events logged. Some time in the future this person/persons will try it
again and a pattern emerge. In some ways, stealing laptops is like stealing
cars in the past. Instead of a get-away car, the criminal now has a get-away
computer with someone else's fingerprints on it.

~~~
electromagnetic
If the email was sent from a Yahoo/Google/Microsoft email account, it's IP was
logged, meaning if the person was using their home internet, you can get a
trace to their house with a warrant.

If the email was sent from a private domain, they're traceable in many more
ways.

It might be a wasted effort, but you should still try. If the police don't
want to give you the time, bring your lawyer in with you... they'll have the
time then.

------
mike-cardwell
You should be able to look at the email headers and either track back to the
IP of his home connection, or the IP of the email service provider he uses.
From there you give the info to the police and get them to issue a warrant or
two to get the physical address of where it was sent.

If you're lucky they wont have used a proxy to hide their real IP, and wont
have used a public access point.

Think about any apps you might have running which connect to services online
automatically. I have an app which synchronizes my bookmarks with an online
service (xmarks.com). I'd be tempted to contact them and ask for an IP address
history of my own account to see if I could collect any other IPs that they
might have used.

------
angrycoder
I would offer him a hundred bucks for the name and location of the person he
bought the laptop from.

~~~
greenlblue
Plus take his offer on backing up the data. I'm assuming it's valuable if you
backed it up.

~~~
ars
Seconded. With your data, and the name of the real thief, you have a chance at
both getting your data back, and getting a judgment against the thief for the
value of the laptop.

It's not a guaranteed chance of course, but I would go for it.

------
wizard_2
I feel your pain, I was robbed earlier this week and they took my laptop
(among other things). There are two things you can do.

1) Report the serial number and your police case number to the genius bar. If
this guy ever goes for service they'll call the cops. This isn't apple's
policy but it seems to be an apple store thing. 2) Renters insurance.

------
johnnyg
What you lost when your laptop was stolen:

1\. Privacy

2\. Data

3\. Hardware

I'd say those are in ranked order.

1\. Your privacy in relation to the data on that laptop is gone.

2\. He's offering to return the core data back to you. If your laptop is
anything like mine, the value is in the data. You have a means to get it back,
so get it back!

3\. The hardware is fairly unimportant comparatively.

With that out of the way, the returning of your data to you will create an
interesting dance between you and the purchaser of stolen goods.

If you just want the data clean and then to move on with your life, just do as
the thief says, get your data and go buy another laptop.

If you want to turn up the volume on this, start thinking up methods of doing
the data exchange that'll expose the thief's location. Here are my ideas, none
the less:

1\. The thief knows what time machine is and got your email out of your data.
Based on this it seems a self installing lowjack.dmg on a keychain drive is
unlikely to work. If discovered, you just lost all that data. You lose the
moral high ground just by trying it.

2\. Were you pulling any kind of network/voip log files into time machine
regularly? Perhaps on start up your time machine would have pulled identifying
information from the laptops new location.

3\. Reddit style email header trace. That's really taking the gloves off.

If/when you are able to get the data, I have a suggestion and a story...

In college my girlfriend (now my wife) was a DC intern and had her cell phone
stolen. Its been a while since it happened and some of this is likely
embellished from re-telling. Back to the story...her reaction to this was to
wait a day, call the cell phone and ask the person who answered if she could
speak to the lady of the house. She got handed over to the thief's mother, who
agreed to meet her in the park to return the cell phone. Telling no one about
this, the next day she solo's into the park, gets her cell phone, has a heart
to heart with the thief about stealing and returns to work.

This path of actions is, of course, insane (and awesome). The moral of the
story though is IF you get the contact information, don't both with the thief
because they've already said strait up that "Berating me for my actions is
useless." Instead, give that thief something to answer for next Thanksgiving.
Shame is often felt by proximity, so call in the mommy air strike.

Good luck. Be safe.

------
johnglasgow
I'd offer to buy the computer back for a little more than he paid. Sounds like
he got a really good deal, so it couldn't cost you too much.

~~~
basicxman
Yes, but then the resellee is down a laptop, and wouldn't get another good
deal like that. Unlikely that he would accept said offer.

------
JJMalina
In addition to what others have mentioned I have one piece of advice:

Perhaps this person is a visitor of HN and may now be aware of your future
course of action. Even if they are completely unfamiliar with HN you have to
consider that they have had access to whatever was left of your internet
browsing history. Just because they claim to be deleting everything does not
mean that they have done it yet. They were able to find your email address,
which is easy, but you need to consider the possible extent of their snooping.
You need to think about how much of your personal information could be
compromised. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

------
hardy263
If something like this happened to me, I'd take it as an opportunity to
upgrade my laptop to something better. If you consider it from his point of
view, he just dropped a couple hundred for hardware that was stolen. If he
just gave it back, then he'd have lost all his money for nothing. So he's
willing to pay a bit extra to get a 160GB hard drive to duplicate the
important data and give it back, because hardware is replaceable, but data
isn't. It'll make him sleep easier at night, knowing he didn't completely do
the wrong thing.

------
jrockway
Incidentally, this is why I encrypt my disks. I really wouldn't want someone
who traffics in stolen property to have access to all my personal information.

------
lsc
I have a somewhat related question.

You see, I buy used hardware. Mostly from ebay, sometimes from craigslist. I
always walk if it smells funny. (if it seems fishy, I often offer to exchange
ID, and if the other guy refuses, I walk. Once someone offered me a good deal
on a laptop but wanted to meet me on a freeway offramp. )

Really, even just exchanging ID every time wouldn't solve the problem... you
see, many people buy things used, use them for a while (or not) then turn
around and sell them, either in hope of turning a profit, or simply because
they got bored with the item; I can imagine many ways a stolen item could come
to be owned by someone who had no idea that it might be stolen.

My question is this: Is there some sort of publicly accessible stolen goods
serial number registry or the like that I can check my goods against? I mean,
even after I got the thing, if it turned out to be stolen, I'd be cool with
returning it and eating the loss. I buy enough stuff to amortize any losses...
but both from an ethical and a liability perspective, I'd really like greater
assurance that I don't have stolen goods laying about.

------
kabuks
The final correspondence between us:

From me:

Hey,

I hope you're still checking this email. I owe you an apology.

You reached out to me in kindness, and with a good nature. And I responded
with a threat.

Please accept my sincerest apology. Thank you for your generosity in offering
to send me my data. Like you said, I didn't need it b/c I had it all backed
up.

That was truly considerate of you. I hope that my knee jerk reaction doesn't
keep you from continuing to be upright and in integrity.

Enjoy the machine, I hope it treats you well.

All my best, Shereef

\--------

I will likely keep it. I am an entrepreneur myself and will actually be
putting the computer to use. First by buying a new power adapter. Can't
believe you were using a 60 watt adapter. It requires an 85 watt.

And i do know you didn't have lojack. I checked the processes and used little
snitch to check out going signals.

I am sorry that i don't have better integrity but I know that i can put the
computer to use and I will continue to do my part in the world and not be a
drain on it.

\------

Yeah. The lo jack thing was a poor bluff.

Good luck man. Seriously. I only wish you the best.

May your business be super successful.

And listen. Don't be too hard on yourself. In the end we are all going back
empty handed. :)

It was good to meet you. Write back if you need any help with your biz.

Peace Shereef

~~~
deadmansshoes
Sorry but that whole exchange seems like this (skip to 8 mins in)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTBE_ykam4>

He sounds like an arrogant toerag. I'd pass on all details to the police.

------
protomyth
If it is an Apple laptop (time machine) then report the stolen serial number
to the police and Apple. If he brings it in to be serviced then there is a
chance of recovery.

Nothing good comes from the act of stealing. I could get see with food and
basic survival items (much less so in the US where organizations will give
people these things), but not with a luxury good like a laptop.

------
d2viant
Consider this for next time: <http://preyproject.com/>

~~~
kabuks
Looks great. I know have it installed on my new laptop, and my wife's

------
panic
If you embed an image in an HTML email, you can find the IP of the machine in
your server logs (when the email client requests the image from your server).

~~~
there
most email clients don't automatically show remote images/resources exactly
for this reason.

------
thought_alarm
This is a good reminder for people to set an Open Firmware/EFI Password on
their hardware.

If someone has physical access to your hardware then they can get access to
all of your unencrypted data if they really want it. However, a firmware
password would probably prevent someone from emailing you from your own
account a couple of hours after they've stolen your laptop.

When the firmware password is set, your laptop will prompt for the password
before booting from DVD, USB, or Firewire drive. It will also prevent booting
into Single-User mode. You can set up a firmware password by using the Open
Firmware Password.app in your Utilities folder.

~~~
kijinbear
Does the firmware password also cause the hard drive contents to be encrypted?
I don't think so. Anybody with a screwdriver can take the hard drive out, pop
it into another box, and bypass whatever password you've set up. After all,
why would a thief care about voiding the warranty?

~~~
thought_alarm
As much as I hate to quote my own comment:

"If someone has physical access to your hardware then they can get access to
all of your unencrypted data if they really want it. However, a firmware
password would probably prevent someone from emailing you from your own
account a couple of hours after they've stolen your laptop."

~~~
borism
as much as I hate to quote previous comment:

"Anybody with a screwdriver can take the hard drive out, pop it into another
box, and bypass whatever (BIOS/EFI) password you've set up."

if you really don't wan't somebody to have access to your system you need full
disk encryption.

------
patrickgzill
You may well be able to trace it at least part of the way (or all if he was
dumb enough to use the laptop at his work or home Internet) by looking at the
full email headers, which usually retain the hostnames and/or IP addresses of
each system it went through along the way. Including the origin IP of the
laptop, indicating where it was at the time the email was sent.

Who runs your email services? If it is your local ISP, they may be able to get
the IP address from the logfiles, though larger companies will probably brush
you off.

------
brentmc79
File a police report, then file a claim with your insurance company. Pony up
the deductible, and buy yourself a new laptop and restore it from your time
machine backup. Its likely not worth the trouble to pursue getting the stolen
property back.

This of course assumes that you have decent home owner's or renter's
insurance, which should cover theft ever from your car. If you don't, then you
should...

If someone's already mentioned this, I apologize. I didn't read through _all_
of the comments.

------
danilocampos
Somewhat off-topic, but... This is a good time to point out the value of
insurance.

For a few bucks a month, I pay my insurance company to cover my computers. For
anything – theft, me being an idiot, accidental damage, whatever, they'll pay
to replace it.

Whoever writes your homeowner's/renter's policy (you have a renter's policy,
don't you?) can set you up with coverage for your laptop. A few bucks a month
to replace what may be the most important, valuable tool you own is a no
brainer.

~~~
webwright
This is a good time to point out the non-value of insurance. Insurance
companies make money on selling you insurance most of the time. That means,
statistically speaking, you will give them more money than they give you. Take
the few bucks per month and put it in a savings account.

~~~
danilocampos
I wish I could agree with you. I love to avoid bullshit money traps
perpetrated by large companies preying on the fears of consumers, but this is
legitimately a good deal.

To insure both my own and my girlfriend's laptops (both mid-range MacBook
Pros), it costs me about $9 a month.

We're talking about $3,200 (USD) in coverage. It would take about 29 years to
save up that much (at $9 a month). In the event that my laptop is
destroyed/stolen/dropped in a bathtub _tomorrow_ , that savings of $160 since
last year isn't going to do me much good.

Speaking from experience, the ability to walk into my agent's office, report
the loss, and have a check in my mailbox before the end of the week is a truly
powerful thing.

edit: And, it's worth pointing out, I'm pretty sure that in the space of 29
years, something terrible is going to happen to my laptop. In which case, I've
come out ahead.

~~~
nostrademons
I figured the same thing when I got the extended warranty on my first laptop.
Laptops are fragile, they die often, it was only like $100 (that's your
$9/month for a year...), and if the laptop was broken before the extended
warranty ran out (5 years, I think), I'd get a new one, based on _current
laptop price/performance_. I thought this was a great deal, since I thought it
quite likely that my first one would die before 5 years and then I could get a
much better one at no additional cost.

Problem was, when the laptop finally died about 3.5 years later, they made up
some bullshit excuse about there being a "liquid spill" on it and refused to
honor the extended warranty. (Yeah, Circuit City, no wonder they're out of
business...)

Anyway, I found the whole experience of trying to convince the service company
that yes, my laptop needed servicing so distasteful that I didn't bother with
any sort of insurance or extended warranty for my second. And wouldn't you
know, it lasted for 5 years, never needed servicing, and can still boot up and
run today, though the network's a bit flaky and the battery is basically dead.

My point (and presumably webwright's, though I disagree with him in another
thread) is that the insurance company has to be making money off this policy
somehow - they've got lots of actuaries calculating odds to make sure they
come out ahead at the rates they charge. If you think "of course my laptop is
going to die within 29 years - I'm bound to come out ahead", I'd suggest
reading over your policy very carefully. My guess is that they have some very
strict conditions on _how_ it dies, and there's a good chance they won't cover
it for many mundane run-of-the-mill failures.

Buy insurance because you can't afford to cover the loss otherwise, not
because you expect to make a profit on it.

~~~
danilocampos
I 100% share your cynicism with regard to this world.

 _Yet I am speaking from experience._

Here's how it went down last time:

"Yeah, so, I dropped it in the sink. I have this paperwork from the Apple
store."

"Wow, okay. I'll start the claim for you. Someone will give you a call in a
few days."

A few days pass. I get the call.

"You dropped it in the sink?"

"Yeah, right into the one bowl in there full of water."

"Okay. What did you pay for the replacement? Oh, I see it on the paperwork
here. Okay, thanks."

A few more days passed. Then I had a check in my mailbox.

It helps, I think, that I'm going through a real, consumer-facing insurance
company instead of an outfit that sells coverage through a retail middleman.
Retail extended warranties are, indeed, bullshit, but the distinction here is
that I'm buying real insurance, which covers accidents and liquid damage.

They also cover my car, my apartment, and a life policy I have to pay off my
student loans in case I should meet an untimely end.

But they're the real deal and they haven't screwed me yet. I suspect if I made
a regular habit of making claims on my policies, it'd be a different story. So
far, though, it's all good.

------
leif
Assuming you know something about digital snooping, and he doesn't know
anything about privacy, you can figure out a lot about him, possibly even
remotely access your computer and (if it has a webcam) take a picture and
report everything to the police. You should talk to the police first (in fact,
you should've the moment it was stolen), but explain that you know a lot about
computers (most police don't have much in the way of computer security experts
on staff, and they wouldn't waste their time on petty theft) and will be
trying to find out more about this guy. They'll probably be glad for anything
you might find, so long as it's well-documented and provable, and this kind of
investigation should be admissible in court. There are reported cases of theft
victims snapping pictures of thieves with their webcams and actually getting
results.

If you feel bad for the guy, and assuming you find him, you can ask the cops
to cut him a break if he gives evidence about the thief he bought it from.
They will probably offer him this deal too, but since he already reached out
to you, he will trust you more when it comes from you.

------
anonuhhyeahmm
he's a criminal. he bought a stolen laptop (who buys a used computer without
turning it on and exploring it a little to make sure things work? remember,
he's smart enough to get your email, etc. he knows about computers and buying
used computers).

contact your local police and explain the situation to them. ask if an officer
can accompany you when you meet this person to receive your data (or whatever
they think you should do...). you could then set up to meet in a public space
and just have the police officer sitting somewhere nearby and then he'll walk
over as your exchange takes place. i'm sure they can help with planning it all
out and according to their policies...

if they turn you down for some bizarre reason (grumpy/lazy officer or
receptionist maybe?) make sure to press the issue. make sure to walk in rather
than just call. bring a copy of the email with you.

have a good one

~~~
keefe
if he's a competent criminal he'd offer to mail the hard drive not
meet..........

------
stevederico
I saw you are in the bay area. You should contact the REACT taskforce they
specialize in online and technology based crime. <http://www.reacttf.org/>

This is a great team, I have dealt with them before and they won't give you
the run around like other places.

------
CallMeV
Cops.

Cops, then the bank, then the insurance firm (you did take out contents
insurance on the laptop, didn't you?), and then anybody else you have data on
stored in your computer.

Ignore anybody telling you that they're going to tell the authorities because
you have porn on your drive. It's pretty much a given that every laptop and
computer in existence now has some porn on it.

If he knows what services you use, for goodness' sakes change every password
you can remember. If your passwords are created by a master algorithm that you
happen to have stowed on your hard drive, change that algorithm.

But first and foremost, cops. Give them all of the index and key numbers which
identify it. Make sure to let them see that email. It has an IP address, and
they can begin investigating from there.

------
gojomo
If they're willing to buy a 160GB HD for you, appeal to them to just send you
the original 240GB HD instead. For them to have their own 240GB+ HD installed
may not be much more time/expense.

------
danbmil99
act all nice about it, and figure out some way to find out who he is, then
fuck up his life.

------
LogicX
Prevention is the best medicine... Checkout my recent blog post on portable
security: <http://fpux.com/2010/03/23/portable-security/>

As previously mentioned, prey project is great. If you combine it with
encryption, guest account, and firmware password -- you've created a helpful
environment to get your machine back.

------
csomar
Continuing with the investigation of Lionhearted, this person might want to
know the exact place of your "sensitive data", instead of searching your
hundred gigs. I would suggest that you offer him that you'll return back to
him the price that he paid and you won't inform the police. See how it goes
with him.

------
MikeVallotton
I read this same post on reddit a few weeks (maybe months?) ago. I'm looking
for the post, but it's difficult to find old posts on reddit.

From what I recall, that person didn't get their data back, and given the
nearly word-for-word similarities between that post and yours, I would guess
that this is an ongoing scam.

------
anigbrowl
_how did he get my email? how does he know i backed up to time machine? what
would you do?_

Your browser probably has a cookie that goes to the login page of your email
service, which probably defaults to your name even if you type your password
in manually every time. That page is likely near the top of your browser
history. I do malware removal for friends from time to time and even after
years of that I am still surprised by how much information is stored by
browsers, and in how many places.

Same with time machine, the lists of what were backed up are probably stored
on your HD in case you ask it to do a differential backup next time. All those
little conveniences and preferences get squirreled away on your hard drive.

Your profile says you're in Oakland; with an underfunded police dept and one
of the highest murder rates in California, you'll have to do your own
detective work and give them an easy collar.

If you have the serial number, Apple can assist directly. If not, then there's
still hope - the MAC address of your network card is often stored in firmware
and may well survive a wipe of the hard disk and reinstall (even assuming the
buyer is thorough enough to truly wipe the system). Do you use Wifi in your
office? Routers often keep a log of MAC addresses and names of the computers
that connect to them. Hardware routers can too, but they're more plug-n-play,
whereas usually people configure the wifi to put a password on it and may have
enabled the logging if it wasn't on by default. Failing that, since you have
this person unwisely offering to help, at the very least you want them to copy
your \system and \user folders in their entireties, preferably using some kind
of automatic utility instead of by hand so that hidden files and stuff get
included. So I say take them up on the offer, be pathetically grateful 'as
long as you can get your settings and preferences back'. Having the MAC
address won't help you find the computer, but it will help you verify that
it's the one which was stolen if the thief hasn't been thorough.

Assuming the person actually comes through, there's a reasonable chance that
you'll be able to find a log of the last IP address that was used, because
they probably contacted you using your own computer. Could be in a coffee shop
but if so they probably go there regularly. If it's associated with a
residential address you're really in business. The cable or DSL company will
probably be willing to tell you if that is the case as long as you don't ask
for the street address or subscriber name, because then you can give that
information to the police and the cable company won't mind giving it to them
the way they would to you - getting a warrant for that ought to be very easy
since a theft has occurred. You should report the theft straight away if you
haven't already, you can fill them in on the technical details later after you
have a case #.

If it is a residence, the police will take care of it. Having them turn up
with a warrant is intimidating enough for most people, if they have printouts
of system logs or something to wave around the thief/roommate/friend will
probably spill everything they know, and try to give them enough information
to track down whoever broke into your car. It's quite possible that the police
already know this person but don't have an open and shut case to make a
prosecution easy. Computer data can make for an impressive looking evidence
trail, which can lead to a nice story in the local newspaper - 'cops and DA
nab thief using computers tracking data'. Good publicity, pleases the
taxpayers, deters a few wannabes.

If the offer to send back your data is just a cruel bluff, don't give up. You
run a website, presumably you log in there all the time. If it's your start
page or a favorite, there's a chance that the person opened it in the browser
by accident or out of mild curiosity - people are nosy that way. Look at your
visitor logs and see if there were any failed connection attempts to your
admin account or whatever you have, and what IP addresses they came from. Of
course you'll probably have a stack of new connections starting right after
your HN posts from people like me. Look at the email timestamp and start
tracing logged IP addresses about 90 minutes on either side of it - anything
within say 20 miles is a possible.

That's enough to be going on with. Take the person up on the offer, maybe with
some mealy mouthed words about how you don't have much alternative, suggesting
(not explicitly!) that you tried the cops and they were indifferent. Say
something pissy as well for credibility. Beg a little for your system and root
directories - look at someone else's Mac, I don't know offhand how big those
folders get. I would ask for the stuff on DVDs if that does not seem
unreasonable: those can be got at Walgreens and the person is much less likely
to blow off a trip to walgreens than a trip to store to buy a hard drive; they
take fingerprints better than a hard drive will; and the lead-in data may
contain forensically useful information.

~~~
patrickgzill
Just a note: MAC addresses are usually stored right on the device itself.
There is a function in the driver code or deep in the networking stack that
allows you to change the hardcoded MAC to another MAC of your choice.

~~~
anigbrowl
Quite - I'm guessing the laptop thief won't be so thorough, though. Anyone
that security-minded would hardly compromise themselves so blatantly as to
email their victim.

------
zokier
If that was my laptop (and it wasn't encrypted), I'd take his offer and then
report it to the police. I don't see what you lose on taking his offer, and
every theft imho should be reported, if only for making statistics.

------
DarrenMills
Short and simple; two-fold.

1\. Read the advice on this page so that you've allowed yourself to see all
possible angles. 2\. Call the police and take it one step at a time with them.

------
DavidSJ
It sounds like he may have visited the website of your email provider. Contact
them directly and see if you can get an IP address from them.

------
slowpoison
My question is how did he unlock your computer in the first place?

------
darwinGod
tough luck...have heard quite a bit of unpleasant stuff about Oakland :(
But,why would you want tell the whole world(HN), the exact contents of the
mail?

And if he were to follow HN.. with comments about tracing IP, etc .. he might
have gotten really scared...perhaps your laptop is enroute to your house!

------
pizzaman
filevault & crashplan.com

------
spyne-02139
post the email headers here

~~~
mthoms
Now, now. Let's not go vigilante. There's a site dedicated to that stuff if
the OP is interested. It's called Reddit.

Edit: By the downvotes, I see that apparently HN is not above internet mob
justice. My mistake, carry on.

~~~
wizard_2
I can tell you first hand the police don't have the manpower or knowhow to
track people on the internet. They're good but they need help.

------
shareme
Ask the police permission to send him a virus by email..

