My buddy and I are driving across Canada. As we are college students, we have been sleeping in campgrounds or our car to save money. Last night, we accidently spilled gas in our car and decided to spend the night in a hotel. About two hours ago, somebody broke the window of our car and stole his laptop and my camera. I know his mail servers admin and I have two IP addresses that have connected to his mail account since we went to bed last night. I also have access to the hotels wifi router. Any idea what I should do? I have reason to believe that the computer is still on the premises. The police were called over an hour ago and still haven't come yet.
Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
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Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#2Try accessing a site such as http://www.whatismyip.com/ via the wifi router, to see if the external IP of the hotel router matches the one you've found connecting to your mail server. In an attempt to confirm whether its likely the laptop is in the hotel.
You could also try a tool that maps an IP to location e.g. http://www.geoiptool.com/ - these aren't particularly accurate too be honest
Edit: If you know the Laptop is running a server e.g. SSH you could try scanning the network for the local IP of the laptop with nmap.
e.g. nmap -A 192.168.1.*
(With the '-A' option, machines will also attempt to be fingerprinted, to determine their OS etc, to start with it may be better running without '-A' as it takes a fair bit longer)
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#3Why did you leave the equipment in the car?
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#4Why did you leave the equipment in the car?
While something to consider later, this is completely unhelpful and beside the point right now.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#5If you think you may have the IP address, is there any chance that whatever OS you have running on it will let you discretely log in remotely? Then you can drop some sort of homing beacon on for now so that if the criminal moves (likely, given it's a hotel, of course), you're not SOL.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#6If you think you may have the IP address, is there any chance that whatever OS you have running on it will let you discretely log in remotely? Then you can drop some sort of homing beacon on for now so that if the criminal moves (likely, given it's a hotel, of course), you're not SOL.
Or make it make a sound like you are getting email every 30 seconds or so. Then go from door to door listening for it.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#7Why did you leave the equipment in the car?
Clearly they were high on gas fumes.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#8The police will likely be pretty limited in what they're able to do. I suspect they'll have you file a police report, and then leave. Here's what I'd do ... and the success of this tactic will probably depend on how large the hotel is, and how helpful whomever you're dealing with wants to be.
1. See if you can get an idea from the hotel about how many of the rooms are occupied, and if it's a small number see if it's possible to get that list.
2. Give each person in housekeeping $10, and ask them to tell you if they see any of your stuff in the rooms they're cleaning.
3. Focus on rooms with the do-not-disturb signs hung up if it's a limited number. You know that somebody is staying on those rooms, and that they prefer privacy. While this doesn't mean they took your stuff, it helps locate the rooms with patrons.
4. Write down the license plates of the cars in the lot (if it's not an overwhelming number). If there's one way for vehicles to leave the property, you could wait by the exit and ask drivers as they leave if they know anything. If the driver stops, you'll get a read on their response. You can also write down license plates based on how drivers handle this (whether they stop, how they react, etc.) and cross-reference this against the ones you recorded from the parking lot.
5. Check the trash. Sometimes people steal things, get scared, then dump whatever they've stolen.
Good luck to you. The odds aren't in your favor.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#9This reminds me of when my friend's fairly high-end laptop was stolen from a party at his house. This was back in my wardriving days, so we went out several times looking for the MAC address of the wifi card. We didn't end up finding it though, and his parents' homeowners insurance replaced it.
If you have the MAC address and think it is still in the local area, you can definitely use a tool like kismet to look for it.
Re: Ask HN: My friend's computer was stolen, and I might have the IP address.
#10Real life cops aren't like TV.
They might take a report but won't spend an ounce of energy looking otherwise, even if you have the IP.
Then again it's Canada so maybe they are less lazy/corrupt than US cops.