Bio professor owns one student!

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: tyim
90% chance his MAC was registered to get on Berkeley's network. (I'm a student and work in Berkeley's IT). For wifi, access point tracking is all probably. For a NIC access, if the ips are set statically...it could theoretically be possible to have a map of the location of ips (though quite unlikely).

Yeah but his ethernet MAC address, not the wireless card MAC address. The guy didn't connect using ethernet anywhere, which he probably couldn't do without registering that ethernet MAC address to his dorm ethernet. I doubt he's that stupid. Here at NYU they make you register your ethernet MAC address to your dorm room. However it is just as easy to register a router and hide behind that.

since when was wireless not ethernet?

 

[Digobick]

I don't think the professor was lying about Microsoft or connecting with Wifi. However, I do believe that the professor doesn't know enough about computers to understand what he's saying, and here's why:

1. He said that Microsoft was curious as to why there were multiple copies of Windows running on two different machines. What he's most likely referring to is the Windows XP activation. When he attempted to activate the new machine using the old key, a message box probably popped up asking him to call Microsoft. The professor - not knowing how the activation works - most likely assumed that Microsoft was "tracing" the stolen laptop somehow.

2. As for the professor saying the laptop has a built-in transponder...again, he was probably ignorant on how the technology works. An IT guy probably noticed that the laptop had been logged in on various access points across campus and relayed this information to the professor. The professer, not knowing what an access point is or how it works, assumed that the position of the laptop was "triangulated" somehow and referred to the wifi card as a "transponder" that could be traced.

He could be simply BSing everything, but to me it sounds like he just isn't knowledgable about what he was talking about.

 

[DrPizza]

Thanks Vood0g for the summary.

Prof is grasping for straws. If the data were truly THAT important, they've have gotten the computer back nearly immediately, since it has a "transponder"

 

[Tab]

Ha! If a professor told me that I'd keep the laptop and post everything online! Or sell the trade secerts.

 

[ABErickson]

Originally posted by: Tabb
Ha! If a professor told me that I'd keep the laptop and post everything online! Or sell the trade secerts.

Doing either of those two would pretty much guarantee you getting caught.

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: ABErickson

Originally posted by: Tabb
Ha! If a professor told me that I'd keep the laptop and post everything online! Or sell the trade secerts.

Doing either of those two would pretty much guarantee you getting caught.

Sell it to the russians ^_^

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: DAWeinG
The professor made a smart move, although some parts of his speech could have been made more believable and better. No one is going to hand him his laptop while he sits idly by. He knew all of the stuff he was saying to begin with. He knows that he didn't get a call from Washington, he knows that he doesn't have a transponder. It was a worth a shot.

I'd like to hear from everyone who is calling him a moron what they would have done. In reality, there's not much you can do. It was his best chance at getting his laptop back.

Are you kidding?? With all that heat, the thief - if he has a brain at all - will make that laptop disapear for good. If the prof had kept his mouth shut, it might have turned up in a pawn shop, eBay, something. Hell, they might have even tracked it down on the campus network, though not as easily as he claims. Now its gone forever.

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: Armitage

Originally posted by: DAWeinG
The professor made a smart move, although some parts of his speech could have been made more believable and better. No one is going to hand him his laptop while he sits idly by. He knew all of the stuff he was saying to begin with. He knows that he didn't get a call from Washington, he knows that he doesn't have a transponder. It was a worth a shot.

I'd like to hear from everyone who is calling him a moron what they would have done. In reality, there's not much you can do. It was his best chance at getting his laptop back.

Are you kidding?? With all that heat, the thief - if he has a brain at all - will make that laptop disapear for good. If the prof had kept his mouth shut, it might have turned up in a pawn shop, eBay, something. Hell, they might have even tracked it down on the campus network, though not as easily as he claims. Now its gone forever.

Yep... I would dump that POS in a Bums Burn Barrel .. or dump it in the Ocean ..

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: DAWeinG
I'd like to hear from everyone who is calling him a moron what they would have done. In reality, there's not much you can do. It was his best chance at getting his laptop back.

Offer a no-questions-asked reward for it's return, and don't tell people what's on it. Student could turn it in via a proxy if they were really scared.

Wagging the e-Pen0s only works when it's longer than two e-Inches. This prof's hung like an abortion.

- M4H

 

[helpme]

Let's see here:

Important Secrets on Laptop... Check
Two factor authentication (Hardware key + Biometric signature)... Missing
Data Encryption tied to the two factor authentication... Missing
20$ Laptop Lock... Missing

Professor getting owned by not securing data and laptop (ignoring policies)... Priceless

University of California policy requires personal data to be encrypted for privacy protection. However, Felde said, the files on the laptop were downloaded for internal campus research the previous day and had not yet been encrypted.

Whoops, I wonder if that's grounds for dimissal.

In the stolen laptop, the information pertains to applicants to graduate programs other than law at UC Berkeley between fall 2001 and spring 2004; graduate students who enrolled at Berkeley between fall 1989 and fall 2003; and recipients of doctoral degrees between 1976 and 1999.

The official statement has no mention of any data other than the students. No mention of corporate or government information. Does this mean they professor was BSing, or they just don't have to mention the data since it's not theirs.

The university-owned laptop was stolen March 11 from a restricted area on the fourth floor of Sproul Hall, the student administration building. A campus employee spotted a woman slipping out of the area, toting a laptop.

I guess it's a lady who stole it.

 

[BrokenVisage]

Heh, she'll be chopping rocks with the other cheating college girls.

 

[user1234]

Originally posted by: BrokenVisage
Heh, she'll be chopping rocks with the other cheating college girls.

Chopping rocks ?!?!? LOL

 

[MrCodeDude]

It is all a bluff

1. If they had a partial, eyewitnesses and a transponder they would have caught the kid already.
2. The prof either does not have sensitive data on the laptop or is going to be in huge sh!t with the company he consults for. To leave a laptop open where it could be stolen with that kind of information on it isn't a good thing. I'm also going to bet it isn't a good idea to keep school related documents and TRADE SECRET documents on the same laptop. If you consult for a huge company that have trade secrets on them, that should be the only thing on the laptop.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: tyim
90% chance his MAC was registered to get on Berkeley's network. (I'm a student and work in Berkeley's IT). For wifi, access point tracking is all probably. For a NIC access, if the ips are set statically...it could theoretically be possible to have a map of the location of ips (though quite unlikely).

Yeah but his ethernet MAC address, not the wireless card MAC address. The guy didn't connect using ethernet anywhere, which he probably couldn't do without registering that ethernet MAC address to his dorm ethernet. I doubt he's that stupid. Here at NYU they make you register your ethernet MAC address to your dorm room. However it is just as easy to register a router and hide behind that.

since when was wireless not ethernet?

Semantics; you know that wherever I said wireless I meant wireless ethernet and when I said ethernet I meant regular RJ-45 style ethernet.

 

[austin316]

nice video and the prof is full of shite. Basically, he is the one that is extremely scared.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: DAWeinG
The professor made a smart move, although some parts of his speech could have been made more believable and better. No one is going to hand him his laptop while he sits idly by. He knew all of the stuff he was saying to begin with. He knows that he didn't get a call from Washington, he knows that he doesn't have a transponder. It was a worth a shot.

I'd like to hear from everyone who is calling him a moron what they would have done. In reality, there's not much you can do. It was his best chance at getting his laptop back.

You're actually right. The average person isn't tech savvy enough to dismiss his threats so easily.

He could have made it a little better though. He could have said something along lines of they don't have enough information to track the thief down but enough that the advanced forensics of the FBI would be able to and that he is on the verge of calling the FBI (and the US Marshalls and whoever else) because of the nature of the data on the machine and that they will not only track the thief down but prosecute the thief for all those violations. He could have given the thief a deadline within which the matter would be dealt with internally at UCB before it got released to LE. That probably would have given him the best odds of getting that machine back.

 

[user1234]

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

since when was wireless not ethernet?

Semantics; you know that wherever I said wireless I meant wireless ethernet and when I said ethernet I meant regular RJ-45 style ethernet.

no, wireless (as in 802.11a/b/g) is NOT ethernet. Theses are two different types of LANs, one is wireless the other wired. They have to different standards.

Don't get confused (which you obviously are) by the fact that wireless and wired machines can connect to each other. That's is due to bridges and routers which connect networks together.

[pwned]

 

[imported_g33k]

Wow one guy gets his laptop stolen and it's 15 pages of comments.

 

[plastick]

Originally posted by: Actaeon
Real player and everything associated with it = suck. People need to stop using it so the format dies once and for all.

UGH! Amen to that!!!!!

 

[Dessert Tears]

helpme, I think you're mixing up two different incidents. The one you quote from an article about is the theft of information regarding thousands of Berkeley grads, stolen on a laptop from an adminstrative office.

The second incident sounds like someone walked out of lecture with the prof's personal laptop with the assumed goal of finding midterm solutions.

 

[helpme]

Originally posted by: Flatscan
helpme, I think you're mixing up two different incidents. The one you quote from an article about is the theft of information regarding thousands of Berkeley grads, stolen on a laptop from an adminstrative office.

The second incident sounds like someone walked out of lecture with the prof's personal laptop with the assumed goal of finding midterm solutions.

Whoops, I believe you are right.

However, the point about not encrypting the data is still valid...

I think this might be a better link for the correct story:

http://www.kelvinjiang.com/e/2005/04/berkeley-laptop-thief-run-for-your-life/

 

[helpme]

On April 4, a student in the General Biology (Bio 1A) course at the University of California, Berkeley stole the professor's laptop as the professor was surrounded by students with questions after class. The thief appeared to be after the contents of the laptop, which contained data for the midterm examination that was to be held two days after the theft. The professor asked for the laptop to be returned, but got no response. Eleven days later, the professor ended his lecture with an outburst towards the thief, citing serious consequences for the crime. He claimed that there were sensitive sources of federal and corporate data on the laptop, and that multiple forms of electronic tracking on the laptop will force the thief to leave digital footprints.

However, UC Berkeley's recent encounter with laptop theft and sensitive data leak in March (a separate, unrelated incident) probably prompted school officials to quickly set the facts straight. It turns out that the professor had exaggerated about the various forms of tracking employed, along with the sensitivity of the data on the laptop. Since then, this story has gained national coverage. You can check out videos of the professor's tirade at BoingBoing, or read the transcript.

I can't find where he is quoting that from though

 

[aplefka]

Originally posted by: g33k
Wow one guy gets his laptop stolen and it's 15 pages of comments.

Only if you're a n00b and don't have it set to 500 posts per page.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: user1234

Originally posted by: sxr7171

Originally posted by: Pepsi90919

since when was wireless not ethernet?

Semantics; you know that wherever I said wireless I meant wireless ethernet and when I said ethernet I meant regular RJ-45 style ethernet.

no, wireless (as in 802.11a/b/g) is NOT ethernet. Theses are two different types of LANs, one is wireless the other wired. They have to different standards.

Don't get confused (which you obviously are) by the fact that wireless and wired machines can connect to each other. That's is due to bridges and routers which connect networks together.

[pwned]

:roll: Get over yourself, asshat.

 

[user1234]

whoever uses the term asshat can only be a complete moron

[pwned]