Smart TV Tracking for Police

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cruxis

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#207667 7-Jan-2017 16:10

Its the burglary season, Our house was smashed into and a 4k LG webOS 2.0 TV was taken.

I was thinking since the netflix and youtube app would auto sign in when used. If the person connects the TV to the internet and used those apps on the TV that would give me its current IP address via Netflix/Youtube recent activity tab ?

Question is do the police bother to follow up on a IP address of a stolen TV/ items from a burglary?

I assume a ISP would require a warrant to give account info out, so its not worth the effort for a house burglary. Unless firearms were taken.

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#1699924 7-Jan-2017 16:26

Apparently a law change is required for them to do this or even find a stolen iphone using the app.

BarTender

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#1699926 7-Jan-2017 16:34

I think if you can supply a valid IP and timestamp then getting a warrant is pretty easy and quick.
I would say as long as you don't give up then you should be in luck. It depends on the officer you deal with.

floydbloke

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#1699931 7-Jan-2017 16:48

I recall seeing an item on the news three or so months back about a girl who had her iphone stolen. She managed to track it to a specific address. Police weren't interested and when confronted by TVNZ came up with some lameass excuse about the tracking not being accurate enough to pinpoint a single house.

Hopefully the OP has better luck with them.

Did Eric Clapton really think she looked wonderful...or was it after the 15th outfit she tried on and he just wanted to get to the party and get a drink?

Jase2985

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#1699944 7-Jan-2017 17:22

and if its a CGN IP address?

Dratsab

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#1699945 7-Jan-2017 17:33

BarTender: I think if you can supply a valid IP and timestamp then getting a ~~warrant~~ production order is pretty easy and quick.

This.

BarTender: I would say as long as you don't give up then you should be in luck. It depends on the officer you deal with.

This even more. It shouldn't be but unfortunately it is.

Edit: corrected BarTender's terminology :-)

richms

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#1699946 7-Jan-2017 17:38

Jase2985:

and if its a CGN IP address?

You would hope that the ISP logs things.

Richard rich.ms

robjg63

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#1699948 7-Jan-2017 17:53

Sadly, unless you told them there was a dead body, stuffed full of drugs inside the tv, the chances of them doing anything would be pretty much zero.

I know someone that got a bike stolen and managed to chase it to the house it was taken to. They called the police on a mobile while standing outside the property and we're told they wouldn't/couldn't send anyone.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

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Geektastic

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#1700030 7-Jan-2017 21:45

Is there a way to lock a stolen smart TV like you can phones?

gzt

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#1700060 7-Jan-2017 22:05

cruxis:
I was thinking since the netflix and youtube app would auto sign in when used. If the person connects the TV to the internet and used those apps on the TV that would give me its current IP address via Netflix/Youtube recent activity tab ?

It would. I assume you can go one step further if the apps are never used with your login.

I'm thinking the Netflix app and a few others will send serial numbers to service providers like Netflix as part of normal communication.

You would need the purchase info and serial obviously, then enforcement would need to submit a request to Netflix for the IP address etc associated with that serial. Edit: this assumes the new 'owner' in future subscribes to Netflix.

gzt

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#1700063 7-Jan-2017 22:15

I'd guess serial might be a factor in things like firmware updates amd update checks. No doubt this all varies model to model, etc.

itxtme

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#1700086 7-Jan-2017 23:39

Why not just make it so it is unusable for the party with the stolen goods. Much like a PUK code, lock that bad boy down over IP. No police required.

richms

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#1700097 8-Jan-2017 00:35

They have bluetooth in them, nothing stopping LG or whoever making their app track the locations of them which might help stop people using them. App could even pass a signed brick-yourself command from the mothership to the TV so if it is not connected to the net, as soon as someone with the appropriate app got in range it would brick till proof of ownership was sorted out.

Richard rich.ms

freitasm

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#1700098 8-Jan-2017 00:59

I have removed some completely and pretty bad off topic replies.

blackjack17

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#1700112 8-Jan-2017 07:48

floydbloke:
I recall seeing an item on the news three or so months back about a girl who had her iphone stolen. She managed to track it to a specific address. Police weren't interested and when confronted by TVNZ came up with some lameass excuse about the tracking not being accurate enough to pinpoint a single house.

Hopefully the OP has better luck with them.

I seem to remember in this case it was an apartment building or block of flats and they could narrow it down to which one it was.

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cruxis

481 posts

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#1700124 8-Jan-2017 09:09

Netflix has a nice timestamp, when a smart tv logs in. They just need to run the app while connected. A smart person would run it disconnected to disable auto login and change the account details first.

Still waiting for a login been 2 days.

6/12/16, 8:24:53 pm GMT+12

New Zealand

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Smart TV

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