Girlfriend's laptop stolen from car

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GJSNeptune

[H]F Junkie
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Some jackass(s) broke into my girlfriend's car while we were laughing during The Simpsons movie just hours ago. They stole her laptop bag from the backseat floor behind the driver's seat. It was broad daylight though a bit cloudy and rainy. The theater doesn't have cameras in the front.

-laptop bag
-laptop
-digital camera
-boice recorder
-various peripherals

Her Windows is password-protected with no guest account. I'm not sure if she ever set an admin. password. How safe (from their eyes) is her data should they try to see what's on it? Just figures we're in Ohio. Maybe they were hoping for personal information of thousands of people? I'm assuming they'll likely wipe it and sell it though. She has tons of personal pictures, music, school work, and stuff she's written for work. It's disgusting how horrible people can be. She's absolutely undeserving of this.

Also, is there any way to trace her NIC serial or whatever? We have a home router, but I'm assuming it doesn't store any information about the computers connected to it. Just throwing out ideas.

What can we do?
 
Windows local user name and password are actually very easy (for anyone who knows how to turn a computer on) to get with a bootable password cracker like Ophcrack.

Also it's possible to just connect the HDD to another PC to browse through everything so the data is not safe at all unless it was encrypted.
 
You can bypass Windows passwords with a boot cd in less than a minute. Any private data should always be secured by at the least, a password protected archive (Especially on a laptop). Any of her personal data should have been backed up. If you have the serial number you can provide it to the police and check some of the local pawn shops.
 
hopefully she didnt put any important info (Social Security..saved passwords to whatever) on it...other than that i dont think that you can even trace the ip...thats gateway based
 
You don't even have to have a cracker, you just have to get into safe mode and delete the password.
 
Outside of that initial loss, including car damage, I wouldn't worry to much about the data on the machine. They will either A) Reinstall Windows B) Sell it to someone as is and that person will Reinstall Windows or format it.
Odds are if you are breaking into cars for a living, identity theft or hacking is not very high up on the skill set.
Just my 2 cents. Had my car broken into 3 different times. One for a factory radio and change from the ashtray, another for a child's backpack (Thomas the Train), and another for a laptop that was also hidden away under the seat. The laptop was also stolen in a busy shopping center in broad daylight. I don't see how nobody could have seen it take place as it was in plain view with people shopping all around. Windows were also tinted, black interior, and black bag so they must have been investigating the car for some time as there would be noway you could just glance in and see it. When I came out nobody was parked around me and I couldn't figure out why until I saw the shattered glass all around.:mad:
 
Sorry to hear about the unfortunate event that happened... hopefully you don't have any sensitive information that is contained in the laptop. Pretty sure 9 out of 10 times, the thief is going to sell the stuff thru eBay or pawn shop instead of using it personally.

In terms of tracking the laptop, unless you have something like lojack for laptops it's pretty much gone. File a report to the police, notify your car insurance company for the damage to the car, and also notify your homeowner insurance for the property loss.

Hope everything turns out okay at your end.
 
lgestle said:
Odds are if you are breaking into cars for a living, identity theft or hacking is not very high up on the skill set.
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Yeah most are freakin' retards. In-fact my 75 year old grandmother was able to fight off this dumb @#^& purse snatcher with her bare hands and a shopping cart. He was that stupid.
 
FIDDYOWNZ said:
Yeah most are freakin' retards. In-fact my 75 year old grandmother was able to fight off this dumb @#^& purse snatcher with her bare hands and a shopping cart. He was that stupid.
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i feel bad for your grandma but thats pretty funny that she beat off some druggie
 
Let's back on track please.

Update: Well her awesome aunt and uncle bought her a new Dell Inspiron 1520. She's super excited. It's definitely helping ease the anger and frustration. Unfortunately the digital camera was mine and the voice recorder was my mom's. Those things aren't very important though.
 
Well the laptop is gone, no way of "tracking" it. :(

Did you have backups of anything?
 
FIDDYOWNZ said:
Yeah most are freakin' retards. In-fact my 75 year old grandmother was able to fight off this dumb @#^& purse snatcher with her bare hands and a shopping cart. He was that stupid.
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[H]ardcore Granny vs. Hippie/Gangsta... duh ding

Hippie/Gangsta gets his ass beaten. :D
 
Man, sorry about what happened to your girlfriend's stuff. Some people serve no purpose in this world other than to be parasites.

Sorry if this takes the thread off target (I think it's somewhat related and maybe a good direction for the thread to go).

Now that she has a new laptop, maybe we could discuss all of the ways to keep the data secure and possibly talk about things that may be coming out in the future such as GPS tracking, etc. I don't know much about these issues myself, but I'm also very curious about these things as I would like to get a laptop at some point and I want to know how to keep it secure.

Is some sort of GPS tracking chip/add-on card available or is something like that supposed to be out in the future? (Similar to what they are doing with the more expensive cars)

Also, I'd like to know about programs to keep data secure in windows, etc. I'm sure an easy way to keep private data secure is to use Linux, but there are some things people have to use windows for, so I think this would be valuable information in general.

Again, sorry if you feel like I'm taking this thread off course, but I thought this thread might be a good place to discuss these things.
 
Well the chances are it was some dumbass criminal who hopefully wont have the brains to crack the password to see any data.

As for protection, I would write my address in a ultraviolet pen on the bottom and apply a boot password whenever it leaves the house.
 
I'm sure that laptop has now been traded for a few hits or tabs or whatever these people stole the laptop for....

Sucks bad :(
 
JSClark said:
I think we found something to replace the Tuesday Night Monkey Knife Fights...

Tuesday Night Granny Knife Fights :D
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If all you can do is crap on a thread, please hit your Back button. Thank you.



Her uncle opted for the 3-year LoJack Theft Recovery Service. I'm not entirely sure what it is. I know Gateway (I think) is or will be using that software bug that would connect to the internet if the device were ever connected and disclose details or whatever. Is this the same thing? I suppose I could Wiki it.

I wouldn't say her laptop had anything private or financial, but she lost a lot of hard work that she has to do over. Luckily she backs up school work after ever quarter, although she didn't backup Spring quarter because she was going to hold off until after Summer. She also usually prints documents. Luckily she printed her Senior Essay and sent it to one of her professors as well as her aunt and uncle.

If she feels she needs to better protect certain information, I'll help her encrypt it. And it's safe to say she'll never again leave her laptop bag in the backseat.

Any other suggestions though, maybe hardware-wise too?

She went with the pink. :D
 
Well a couple of BIOS passwords could prevent it from booting. How about one of those lock things?
 
GJSNeptune said:
That's precisely the problem.
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Well, sorry for your girlfriend's loss, but don't give me flak because I decided to take a crack at someone else's comments. It's not like I'm laughing at you for having your girlfriend's laptop stolen or anything.
 
JSClark said:
Well, sorry for your girlfriend's loss, but don't give me flak because I decided to take a crack at someone else's comments. It's not like I'm laughing at you for having your girlfriend's laptop stolen or anything.
Click to expand...

This isn't Last Comic Standing. If you want to make a crack at someone's post, please include something useful to the thread as well.
 
I don't have enough experience with encryption software to say what is better over another but I've used True Crypt before and I recommend it. Freeware. Very intuitive.
 
GJSNeptune said:
No, stop crapping on my thread please.
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Once again, I only commented. And it's called ''Hijacking'' (Not ''crapping'') which I didn't do, since I posted in response to the original post...

'Sides, who says I have to do what you say?
 
If you're really serious about security, try something like this http://www.biometric-control.co.uk/t4230.htm

This kind of thing is designed for commerical & government applications and whilst not fool proof, is definately beyond the skills of your typical thief. Best of all, think of it like one of those car radios with a removable cover. You leave the laptop in the car and take the card with you (pretty sure you can get PCIMA leather wallets or similar). Even if they do take the laptop, they're screwed.
 
FIDDYOWNZ said:
'Sides, who says I have to do what you say?
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lol.gif


Apparently Kyle does. The mods here dislike any kind of off topic conversation so much, that they even dedicated rules 2, 3, and 4 to it.


Anyway, back on topic. I've actually never owned a laptop before, but I do know that when I end up buying one I'll invest every kind of security measure possible. I'd really like to look into getting some kind of functional GPS tracking system for it so that I can recover anything that was stolen. On top of that I would surely have boot passwords, encryption, physical locks, regular backups, etc. Basically everything short of handcuffing the thing to my wrist. :D

It was bad enough ten years ago when everyone was trying to break into my car for the stereo and speakers. Now I can't stand the thought of them breaking in for other expensive items like laptops as well. :(
 
GJSNeptune said:
Any other suggestions though, maybe hardware-wise too?

She went with the pink. :D
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External USB drive (or E-SATA if laptop supports it) and use windows backup to backup all users "My Documents" folder to the USB drive every Sun morning at 10am etc. etc. Windows Backup has actually gotten fairly decent. I do recommend readin through the help files, it even has a couple of suggested strageties for backups if you want to really get into it. But a "my documents" every week that overwrites the old backup, with verify on, would probally be sufficient. Of course she must be trained to ALWAYS save ANYTHING of value in My Documents. No biggie.

Running the ASR utility in Windows Backup once and creating the ASR floppy is not a bad idea either in case the drive dies for no reason. Even get her to get in the habit of copying important papers/school work over the the USB drive when finished as well as a local copy on the laptop.

Sorry to hear about the trouble.
 
Here's some good information:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laptop_theft
It's worth checking out.

Thieves are lurking about everywhere. You can never be too careful. At my school library, after taking a shit in the bathroom, I came back to my studying area with a missing textbook. :mad:
 
Blu_Haze said:
Personally, I think that some people like Neptune around here overreact to this sort of thing a bit too much. I can understand getting miffed if people are constantly going off topic, in a single thread, or if that person is known to do it everywhere they go, but you should really let a single innocent comment here or there slide. Even if the rules are on your side, becoming hostile about it really doesn't help much.
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A single comment? Go back and count how many off-topic posts there are. I'm not being hostile. I'm super pissed that someone busted my girlfriend's car window and stole something from her that she worked extremely hard for. I have a thread about security and I have people talking about hippies and grandmas.


She's gonna have Vista Home Premium. I haven't even used Vista yet. It'll be a learning experience for both of us. We may get an OEM copy of XP Home if she doesn't like it and/or it doesn't work well with the other computers at her work. I'll have to research on some good security tips for Vista.

Thank you to everyone actually contributing and trying to help.
 
....and don't think the Admins fail to look in on every forum, so knock it off ...back on topic or it will close ;)

Blu_Haze said:
lol.gif


Apparently Kyle does. The mods here dislike any kind of off topic conversation so much, that they even dedicated rules 2, 3, and 4 to it.

Personally, I think that some people like Neptune around here overreact to this sort of thing a bit too much. I can understand getting miffed if people are constantly going off topic, in a single thread, or if that person is known to do it everywhere they go, but you should really let a single innocent comment here or there slide. Even if the rules are on your side, becoming hostile about it really doesn't help much.


Anyway, back on topic. I've actually never owned a laptop before, but I do know that when I end up buying one I'll invest every kind of security measure possible. I'd really like to look into getting some kind of functional GPS tracking system for it so that I can recover anything that was stolen. On top of that I would surely have boot passwords, encryption, physical locks, regular backups, etc. Basically everything short of handcuffing the thing to my wrist. :D

It was bad enough ten years ago when everyone was trying to break into my car for the stereo and speakers. Now I can't stand the thought of them breaking in for other expensive items like laptops as well. :(
Click to expand...
 
Where are you from in ohio, I had my laptop stolen along with around 3000 dollars worth of car audio equipment. We were at beldon village mall in canton and it was o about 8:30 last wensday and we were just leaving sears when i saw a black SUV Ford most likley with a bunch of white teenage boys jumping into it an speeding off. Unfortunetly I didn't catch the license plate number. well i got the my 1500 dollar memphis amp back( found it at a pawn gave shop and i had the serial number in my wallet and i called the cops they came and got it back for me. The police have had a few leads from lojack about my laptop but have not been able to recover it. Also, two or so days before the theft I had had my windows tinted to it wasn't in like plain site, in my back pack too.
 
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