Someone stole my roommate's laptop- HELP!

[Paktu]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: pontifex
why are you guys asking if he knows the mac address or can ping it?

how is that going to help him physically locate the PC?

If its a slow ping, its out of his house. A fast ping would tell you that he is close by.

It doesn't seem to respond to ping. Wireless/the computer might be turned off right now though.

 

[indamixx99]

Originally posted by: Greyd
make sure you refresh your client list so that you know its not the old list you are seeing.

That's what I was thinking. Usually some routers keep a computer's dhcp ip address for up to 24 hours after it's last refresh.

How powerful is the router? 802.11n?

 

[Paktu]

Originally posted by: indamixx99

Originally posted by: Greyd
make sure you refresh your client list so that you know its not the old list you are seeing.

That's what I was thinking. Usually some routers keep a computer's dhcp ip address for up to 24 hours after it's last refresh.

How powerful is the router? 802.11n?

Yes. It's a D-LINK DIR-625

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Block the IP address from the router. Then when one of your roomies says how come my PC won't connect to the network? You'll have found the culprit

 

[Paktu]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
Block the IP address from the router. Then when one of your roomies says how come my PC won't connect to the network? You'll have found the culprit

The guy that I think stole it, he's really short on money. If he took the laptop, it was to sell it.

 

[NuclearNed]

net send * "I'm getting unblocked XXX pron on my TV cable box!!!"

You'll find out soon enough who has the laptop.

 

[Steve]

#5273 +(25265)- [X]

<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.

 

[deerslayer]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
net send * "I'm getting unblocked XXX pron on my TV cable box!!!"

You'll find out soon enough who has the laptop.

LOL, best idea yet.

 

[indamixx99]

Lojack for laptops. :thumbsup:

...a little late for that though.

 

[NoShangriLa]

Change transmit power range, refresh network, and by using process of elimination with another laptop for range. You will find out the approximate distance the missing laptop is located from the router.

 

[NoShangriLa]

Originally posted by: deerslayer

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
net send * "I'm getting unblocked XXX pron on my TV cable box!!!"

You'll find out soon enough who has the laptop.

LOL, best idea yet.

Only work if the firewall isn't enable.

 

[indamixx99]

I thought the messenger service is disabled by default on most windows xp machines. At least it is on my machines.

 

[ghostman]

I was thinking about remoting to his computer, then playing an audio file really loudly. But that depends on having access to the PC over the network and having Remote Desktop enabled. You can probably do the same with WMI, but that depends on the destination computer's setup as well.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Originally posted by: sm8000
#5273 +(25265)- [X]

<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.

Ahhh...a classic.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: dawks

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: pontifex
why are you guys asking if he knows the mac address or can ping it?

how is that going to help him physically locate the PC?

If its a slow ping, its out of his house. A fast ping would tell you that he is close by.

As said before, it may be an old listing. Depending on the router, that list is not updated daily, or even weekly. It might say a PC is 'connected' even if it hasn't connected in 7-8days. At which point it wouldn't help.

If he can ping it, then its still in range and would be easier to track down.

One thing I wanted to do was make a program that would launch hidden and and email me it's IP address every hour or so. So if it did get stolen, I'd know which network it was on. The only challenge then would be getting the ISP to release the account details of that IP, which they would probably never do without a court order.

To: dawks
From: dawks' old laptop
Subject: My IP address

192.168.0.4

 

[Spineshank]

Originally posted by: paulney
I remember there was a thread about a stolen laptop, and the person being able to log into it remotely because Windows Assist or Remote Desktop was enabled. I forget, how he discovered the laptop on the net however. I think laptop was pinging his home network or something.

We figured he had DDNS setup.

 

[cbrsurfr]

Originally posted by: indamixx99
Lojack for laptops. :thumbsup:

...a little late for that though.

That is useless. All you have to do is swap the hard drive or change the boot order and reload the OS. Of the 20+ laptops we've had stolen only 1 was recovered using Computrace and it will be with the police for a few years. By the time we get it back it will be junk.

We spent tens of thousands investing in Computrace only to scrap it. It alledgedly only calls in once per day but it spreads the data out in case it's conncected via dial-up. Our proxy server would get hammered every day. SAV likes to label it as a trojan every now and then. Earlier versions would also clash with touchpad drivers and use 50% of the CPU.

 

[spidey07]

Get a spectral analizer and a directional antenna. Then you can locate the cards radio.

Essentially where ever you point the antenna and get the highest strength - keep going that direction. Remember to operate in 3 dimensions.

 

[Kelemvor]

Some of those programs integrate themselves into the BIOS as well so it's near impossible to get rid of them without doing major surgery.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Get a spectral analizer and a directional antenna. Then you can locate the cards radio.

Essentially where ever you point the antenna and get the highest strength - keep going that direction. Remember to operate in 3 dimensions.

Yup, so make sure you have a jetpack ready to boost you up =)

 

[yuppiejr]

Originally posted by: ghostman
I was thinking about remoting to his computer, then playing an audio file really loudly. But that depends on having access to the PC over the network and having Remote Desktop enabled. You can probably do the same with WMI, but that depends on the destination computer's setup as well.

What about using PSEXEC from the PSTools kit? (http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/PsTools.zip)

Drop to a command line on your PC, execute "PSEXEC \\<putername> CMD.EXE" - you may need to pass the administrator login ID/PW but that will get you a command shell on the remote box. Just do a PSEXEC /? to get a list of commands and syntax - it's pretty easy to use.

Of course if the user figures out you can access the box he/she may just shut it down so you might want to be stealth in your approach. A loud sound file might just tip them off that you know the laptop is missing and encourage them to shut it off and then you are SOL. Throwing a DDNS client and enabling a "quiet" remote connection client on the box that would be internet accessible might be a good insurance policy if they do drop off of your network and connect elsewhere later.

Then again, if it's more than likely a roomie borrowed it to watch pr0n in the privacy of his/her room the sound file will work like a champ. I'd bring a bottle of 409 along if you do find it under someone's pillow though...

*edited for clarity

 

[indamixx99]

Originally posted by: Kelemvor
Some of those programs integrate themselves into the BIOS as well so it's near impossible to get rid of them without doing major surgery.

Yeah i read somewhere a lot of newer laptops have the ability to have this software load in their BIOS'es, so replacing the hard drive wouldn't help much. Besides, if someone's gonna steal a laptop, you think they're gonna have a spare hard drive laying around?

 

[CravenTacos]

wififofum and a handheld. if it's running in peer mode you can use the radar to navigate right to it

 

[yuppiejr]

Can you use Airsnort or another wireless packet sniffing tool to trace wireless clients transmitting within a certain range? Since you know the security key it's not like cracking security for the packets you're sniffing is going to be a problem. I don't recall if it's possible to look at signal strength/SNR or other properties of connected client connections but I think that's the only way if your router doesn't have a site survey feature.

 

[yuppiejr]

Originally posted by: CravenTacos
wififofum and a handheld. if it's running in peer mode you can use the radar to navigate right to it

Will WiFiFoFum locate clients or just AP's? I assume the OP's laptop adapter is configured for client mode and not ad-hoc since it's connecting to an AP.