[luau] Be on the lookout for Stolen laptops

[Ted Kanemori]

An article in this morning's Advertiser goes over the dastardly deed.
It's in the Hawaii section, page B5.
Publicity makes it hard for dirt bags to pedal their stolen goods.
Good going, Advertiser.

Ted


-----Original Message-----
From: luau-admin at videl.ics.hawaii.edu
[mailto:luau-admin at videl.ics.hawaii.edu] On Behalf Of R. Scott Belford
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 9:29 AM
To: luau at videl.ics.hawaii.edu
Subject: Re: [luau] Be on the lookout for Stolen laptops

Ronald Willis wrote:
> Does anyone know if these unfortunate travelers had a beacon installed
or if
> they
> have record of a mac address?

This reminded me of a great article I found on /. in 2002.  I hunted it
down

http://macscripter.net/unscripted/unscripted.php?id=12_0_1_0_C

They didn't use the mac address, but they did find the stolen laptop.

I will always remember the very nice iBook one of the cashiers at Price 
Busters showed me and said that her cousin had bought it for only $200, 
without the power supply.  It was so hot I wouldn't even touch it.  I 
asked her to please report it.

What stands out is that the thief did not take the laptop to a shop, he 
sold it as is to a friend, who then gave it to his cousin, the cashier, 
so that she could as her company's "computer guy."  If these laptops 
take a similar route, I fear that it would be hard to recover them.

This makes me wonder, and perhaps some of you have an answer, what is 
the best way to get your laptop back if it is stolen?  I suppose that if

one can boot off of a cd and re-install, all bets are off.  Does anyone 
out there have a strategy or a technology in place to prevent this?

--scott

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