Urgent - Stolen laptop

Spacedog

yeah, aircrack_ng FTW

knuth

Spacedog wrote: »

yeah, aircrack_ng FTW

What has aircrack-ng got to do with anything?

Do you mean airodump-ng? :rolleyes:

spider guardian

I'm assuming that the laptop was password protected, so the knuckleheads who stole it probably aren't going to be burning any password cracking ISOs any time soon. Which means the laptop is probably sitting in a cupboard switched off. If so it won't be broadcasting any MAC addresses. I wouldn't get your hopes up OP.

Out of interest, can the MAC address be picked up if it was just sitting at the login screen? Or will it only start broadcasting once the laptop is logged in?

How about if the laptop was connected to a WPA/WPA2 encrypted network?

Capt'n Midnight

spider guardian wrote: »

Out of interest, can the MAC address be picked up if it was just sitting at the login screen? Or will it only start broadcasting once the laptop is logged in?

How about if the laptop was connected to a WPA/WPA2 encrypted network?

Yes
No
Yes



Kismet is a handy scanner too



If the only password was a windows password then any live OS on a bootable CD can access files, password reset on windows is trivial so unlikely to be stuck in a press for long

Nothingbetter2d

spider guardian wrote: »

I'm assuming that the laptop was password protected, so the knuckleheads who stole it probably aren't going to be burning any password cracking ISOs any time soon. Which means the laptop is probably sitting in a cupboard switched off. If so it won't be broadcasting any MAC addresses. I wouldn't get your hopes up OP.

Out of interest, can the MAC address be picked up if it was just sitting at the login screen? Or will it only start broadcasting once the laptop is logged in?

How about if the laptop was connected to a WPA/WPA2 encrypted network?

nope the laptop has had its bios reset via removing a battery for a bit...... then a fresh new os installed.


op's laptop is long gone along with his thesis. silly boy should have emailed himself a copy at one point or another to ensure a recovery option.

os passwords are so easy circumvent. as long as the computer posts past cmos u can reinstall the os without ever needing to know any os passwords. reseting a cmos password is as easy as pulling out the cmos battery.

Capt'n Midnight

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

reseting a cmos password is as easy as pulling out the cmos battery.

depends on the brand, most store passwords in flash so removing the battery just resets the date and time
thinkpads won't boot if the checksum on the flash doesn't work out

ricman

It could be sold on gumtree ,or at a market,if the person who robs it sees a password ,they,ll sell it to someone ,who ,ll just reinstall windows ,unless theres a bios password.Theres probably people out there ,who specialize in selling stolen phones ,laptops ,ipods etc most people know someone whos handy at fixing pcs .eg there was a program on rte ,they found about ten per cent of cars sold secondhand were clocked ,or involved in a accident.
I presume you have reported the theft to the gardai, cos they recover alot of stolen material,pcs,tvs,etc and its sold at auction if they cant find the owner after a certain amount of time.You could get the serial no, off dell or the shop you bought it in.
I wonder would it be possible for the mac adress to be detected by an isp.its its used on the web in ireland,
like phone companys can track stolen phones thru the imei no.

CorkMan

Any update OP?

JonJoeDali

Not having a backup of a PhD thesis and storing it on a laptop hard drive is pretty dumb...

Little sympathy. Especially when there are free services like Dropbox out there.

cookie1977

JonJoeDali wrote: »

Not having a backup of a PhD thesis and storing it on a laptop hard drive is pretty dumb...

Little sympathy. Especially when there are free services like Dropbox out there.

Cheers Captain Hindsight

http://vimeo.com/16315458

ironclaw

JonJoeDali wrote: »

Not having a backup of a PhD thesis and storing it on a laptop hard drive is pretty dumb...

Little sympathy. Especially when there are free services like Dropbox out there.

I fully agree but its amazing how many people don't back up still. DropBox is an amazing step forward and I can't recommend it enough. It even keeps snap shots.

teednab-el

JonJoeDali wrote: »

Not having a backup of a PhD thesis and storing it on a laptop hard drive is pretty dumb...

Little sympathy. Especially when there are free services like Dropbox out there.

hear hear, depending on one piece of equipment to store your future. Unforgivable. When I was in college and I did a thesis, I kept three copies of my thesis along in different locations/devices and a copy on my laptop also so It would virtually be impossible for me to loose something. It was too important.

ArtyM

Hey,
Sorry to hear about your bad luck - hope things take a turn for the better for you.
On reading your post and the responses you got I thought I might throw in my suggestions, for what they are worth.
Bear in mind that these all rely on the thieves turning on the laptop and going online - not an entirely unlikely scenario given they were cocky enough to break in and rob you in the 1st place.
Lets imagine they do start her up - what then?
Well, 1st thing they will most likely do is search for your saved porn - hope you aint been takin photos of yourself!
When done with that, they will go online if they have BB. If they do this you may stand a chance - albeit a very small one.
If you had email accounts setup on the laptop either through a client (Outlook, Outlook express, Mail, etc) or via a browser-saved login they may try those - looking for personal info. This also applies to any other sites that you may have had setup to auto login i.e. via Bookmarks or Favourites.
My point is that if you login to your gmail account, for example, it shows at the bottom of the page what ip address you last logged in from. Their ip would be displayed. Many other sites also display this info.
I am sure someone on boards could tell you how to reverse trace this.
Maybe even the Gardai could help, once you had that ip.
As I said, It is a real real long shot - but then again whenever I see those muppets Jedward on TV it re-enforces my belief that absolutely anything is possible in this world.
Good luck all the same
ArtyM

knuth

ArtyM wrote: »

Hey,
Sorry to hear about your bad luck - hope things take a turn for the better for you.
On reading your post and the responses you got I thought I might throw in my suggestions, for what they are worth.
Bear in mind that these all rely on the thieves turning on the laptop and going online - not an entirely unlikely scenario given they were cocky enough to break in and rob you in the 1st place.
Lets imagine they do start her up - what then?
Well, 1st thing they will most likely do is search for your saved porn - hope you aint been takin photos of yourself!
When done with that, they will go online if they have BB. If they do this you may stand a chance - albeit a very small one.
If you had email accounts setup on the laptop either through a client (Outlook, Outlook express, Mail, etc) or via a browser-saved login they may try those - looking for personal info. This also applies to any other sites that you may have had setup to auto login i.e. via Bookmarks or Favourites.
My point is that if you login to your gmail account, for example, it shows at the bottom of the page what ip address you last logged in from. Their ip would be displayed. Many other sites also display this info.
I am sure someone on boards could tell you how to reverse trace this.
Maybe even the Gardai could help, once you had that ip.
As I said, It is a real real long shot - but then again whenever I see those muppets Jedward on TV it re-enforces my belief that absolutely anything is possible in this world.
Good luck all the same
ArtyM

Have you read any of the previous posts?

If the OP has the mac address of the laptops wireless card it's possible to "find" the card (once powered on via kismet / airodump REGARDLESS OF IT CONNECTING TO THE INTERNET OR BROADBAND.

ArtyM

Yup, I did read the posts.
I also read the ops thread over in the security forum, and he really did seem to be out of his depth regarding Mac address scanning.
I was simply putting forward another possible alternative to try and help the guy out.
No need to have a go at me for chipping in. Jeez.

yomamasflavour

To be fair, after 5 weeks it's likely been wiped and sold on.
Which is pretty crap for OP's friend.

Though what was suggested here and in the security section isn't that difficult to setup, the difficult bit is knowing what the MAC was and also where to look for the laptop.

Pov06

yomamasflavour wrote: »

To be fair, after 5 weeks it's likely been wiped and sold on.
Which is pretty crap for OP's friend.

Though what was suggested here and in the security section isn't that difficult to setup, the difficult bit is knowing what the MAC was and also where to look for the laptop.

The data can be still recovered even if it was wiped

Capt'n Midnight

Pov06 wrote: »

The data can be still recovered even if it was wiped

From a quick format yes maybe.

Otherwise you are into CIA/NSA stuff.

yomamasflavour

Point I was making is that the laptop's probably gone from the thief's house.
(assuming he/she was the one who stole it)

Thus scanning for mac address is pointless.

Blatter

Hi Cavehill Red, how did your friend get on in the end, did he get something sorted?