Stolen Laptop

whats the service tag number? call dell with it and say its stolen.
anybody can acess it btw its really easy to remove any password bios or windows

Yeah sorry for laptop but it is not hard at all to remove/crack the passwords now.

out of curiosity, why did you bring a laptop to a club?

well did you put a BIOS password on it? Or just a HD password? Because if its a HD password, and they install a different HD, then Lojack will still work. But if they can't boot the system, then obviously lojack can't work. That's why I have my name, number and the promise of a $1,500 reward (owing to encrypted development info) on the bottom of the machine. It makes it much more tempting for a thief to just return the machine to claim the reward than to try to mess around with the password and everything. Of course, if its stolen I will never pay the $1,500, since they are legally required to return it to me or else they can be charged with possession of stolen goods. I'm just hoping they would be greedy enough to call me, so the police have something to go on. But luckily I haven't had to test my theory yet.

Ok, then there is basically nothing stopping someone from using your machine. The Windows passwords are super easy to disable/get around. If you put a password on your hard drive, this is MUCH more secure. Even if someone would put that HD in another machine, it would still require a password, otherwise it cannot be used. It can't be seen, formatted, etc. It will just fail to work. The only way to access the data is to remove the drive platters and put them in a new HD assembly...which would be impossible without the use of a clean room.

But I digress....the point is:

So, basically this is good for you, because hopefully as soon as the person boots the machine near somewhere with Wifi access, it will transmit its position to the lojack company. My advice to you would be to report it stolen with the police AND Lojack ASAP. File a police report, get a case number and go here:
http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/repo...or-laptops.asp

This of course assumes that you properly registered your machine with them.


When you visit that web site, your machine will be flagged in their database. Now, your machine contacts their server once a day or so. Next time it contacts their server, the server will see that it was flagged as stolen. Now, the laptop's "polling interval" will be set to every 15 minutes.

Even if the person is using "free" internet like at a coffee shop or something, they can still be traced. LoJack will send its IP address to the police, and the police will contact the ISP that owns that IP so they can find out where exactly it connects to. If its somewhere like a coffee shop, the Police can very easily send an officer with a description of your laptop (and possibly you) and search the area for someone with a machine that matches the description. They can then very easily look at the bottom of the machine and see the service tag. Even if it has been removed, the tag is still accessible in the BIOS. If you're not sure what your tag is, find your Dell invoice or call them and ask. If you provide enough information, I'm sure they can recall it for you.

Depending on where you live, the police might just ignore your report because they have "more important things to do". DONT LET THIS HAPPEN. I know it sounds weird, but sometimes the police just take your report as a record that something happened, with no follow up. The chances of you getting your machine back are very high IF they cooperate.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

i am not sure about that one, my friend. I mean some officers don't even know what IP adress is...unless they are from say.. child pornography unit which would make them knowledgeable enough of computers and how to trace people based on IP...cause they always do it so they are familiar with the term "IP adress". But to this day, the regular police offers might reffer to their computer as hard drive. They can go like: "My hard drive is little RAM, that's why its slow". I mean i am not dissing the police or anything, but by the time LoJack sends the IP..and by the time the police get to it after their "donuts-n-coffee" and send an officer there...assuming there is a free officer who want say "I have more important stuff to do than a stolen laptop" then by the time he gets there, the thief will be on his way from coffee shop. Police need to work with community more....and have more internet knowledgeale people. So that when somebody reports an internet crime...such as ebay fraud or paypal fraud, they dont go like: "what is PayPal?"

I use one of these. Never fails!





ps: dont leave your laptop unattended in public places. the public is ghey.

Next time, you should get one these and put it on the keyboard:



No one will touch it! I know I wouldn't..


JL

I agree with you completley. That is why I mentioned they might not be cooperative. They don't have a clue about the technology and therefor they don't want to waste their time with it, because they don't realize how easy and powerful it is. They just think "another stolen laptop that we have a snowball's chance in hell of finding." I just hope Lojack made their system idiot-proof enough so that the cops that do try to use it can do so effectively.

so is there anything new with ur laptop?

probably not, and then to get a search warrant from a judge to enter the house of the neighbor that only maybe has the laptop...

unless the files were of incredible significance to you (probably reformatted anyway), why did you choose against a full refund? the laptop, even if found, will not be returned to you in equal condition.

Excuse me, return what exactly? What box?