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Tracking a stolen laptop in real time with prey

  • 14-12-2015 02:51PM
    #1
    DavisBXL
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 66 ✭✭


    Our house was recently robbed and this morning I got an alert from the tracking service Prey (preyproject.com) I'd installed on one of the laptops.

    Wow, I thought and promptly logged into see the thief (or buyer) is currently online about 20 mins from where I am down near a major train station. I went myself and proceeded to walk around with the Prey map open. Unfortunately it leads to a part of the station which isn't public - in fact from the outside it seems to be where the station ends and the rail lines just travel along above the road. So either the wifi they are on is on a random public wifi system for the station that's inaccessible and a little misleading, or they are in one of the run down apartments boarding the rail lines, and the GPS is a little off.

    Prey is a cool service for being free, but I'm unlucky in that this laptop's webcam isn't taking photos of the thief, nor savings screenshots to help identify them due to either a flawed boot or the fact they aren't logged in. Unfortunately it's not something portable like a phone that I could hope to see moving and follow. For now I see to have a dumb/unaware thief who is staying put for multiple hours on this signal.

    I have the public IP address they are on via Prey, but not the SSID or any other details. All I can see from a lookup is the ISP is a standard company here, so perhaps more likely it's a home wifi.

    Obviously I've contacted the police, who tell me I have to wait for the fella who took the report of the robbery to come in to work tomorrow before even listening to the information we have. I don't want to get my hopes up that they can/are willing to contact the ISP and request more information.

    Does anyone have any other ideas for ways to find out more about this lovely people? It's incredibly frustrating to know it (and perhaps more of my stuff) is nearby but unreachable.

    Thanks!


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