Laptop Thief Beware

R. Richard

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You steal a laptop computer, wait a few months and you have a free laptop. Think again! Comment?

'Stolen' laptop leads to Carmel 'victim's' arrest by White Plains cops

WHITE PLAINS - An anti-theft bug planted into a "stolen" computer has led to the arrest of a Carmel man who reported the theft of his company laptop five months ago.

White Plains police Lt. Eric Fischer said Faisal Suleman, 32, of 229 Fox Run Lane, was caught when a computer security company was able to determine that he was using the laptop.

"This is the third time in less than a year that technology installed in stolen property, or in this case, allegedly stolen property, has led to an arrest (in White Plains),'' Fischer said today.

Cops said that Suleman, a salesman for a pharmaceutical company, reported on Sept. 11 that his company-owned laptop had been stolen from his car while it was parked in a North Broadway garage.

On Tuesday, Fischer said, police received a call from Absolute Software Corp., a Vancouver, Canada-based company that installs and monitors a specially designed security software program known as Computrace, which sends a signal over the Internet to a monitoring center.

"They told us that the computer began being used on Jan. 31,'' Fischer said. "Using their software, they were able to retrieve information that identified Mr. Suleman as the person using the computer."

Police went to Suleman's home Tuesday night and arrested him after finding the computer there.

He's charged with criminal possession of stolen property and falsely reporting an incident, both misdemeanors. Bail and court information was not available.

"He obviously thought that he could lay low for awhile and that it would be forgotten about, and he'd have a free laptop,'' said Stephen Midgleyl, a spokesman for Absolute Software. "But the Computrace program activates whenever the computer is turned on. If it's flagged as stolen, it sends a signal to us every 15 minutes and allows us to get information on where it is and, in some cases, who is using it."

He said the company recovers about 60 stolen laptops a week.

Suleman joins three other suspects who were caught thanks to programs contained in the laptops they were accused of stealing.
 
Funny, that. Of course, trying that with our school district's laptops would just get you a crummy laptop!
 
This is why I gut, rebuild, reformat and install linux and all the laptops I steal :rolleyes:
 
Our minimally qualified IT guys finally got it working again. Now I'm having trouble with the MacBook! :rolleyes:
 
Good question. I'll try and remember to check. It isn't enough to buy the best talent, I'll tell you that much.
 
damn..... that sucks. Then again, around here we had a local magazine do a 6 page spread on "the other people you don't know at school" the local librarians, janitors, bus drivers etc. every other position was highlighted except the tech staff.

7 counties, 200+ schools, and not one mention of the folks who make things beep and buzz and blink keep working. :rolleyes:
 
Sounds a bit iffy to me. OK they caught the guy who stole and used the laptop bang up job on detection but they found out exactly who he was because the program reported back?

Looks to me like they got a fair bit of private information from his 'puter without his knowledge or consent. You have to get at least a warrant for phone taps for expectation of privacy.

What's next? Putting broadcasters in floggers?
 
As one who had a laptop stolen a few years back with all my stuff on it and minimal backups, I feel for anyone who loses one. I check with the police in the town where it was stolen but so far no luck. The only consolation i have is that whoever stole it never got to use it. I had the bios and the operating system both passworded. Without the bois password the computer won't start even if you change the operating system.
 
As one who had a laptop stolen a few years back with all my stuff on it and minimal backups, I feel for anyone who loses one. I check with the police in the town where it was stolen but so far no luck. The only consolation i have is that whoever stole it never got to use it. I had the bios and the operating system both passworded. Without the bois password the computer won't start even if you change the operating system.
A low level format, plus an OS disk solves all problems.

In contrast, trying to restore a Windoze PC trashed by a virus, without using up M$ credits is much harder.
 
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