Any way to catch the thieves who took my laptop and PS3?

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Any way to catch the thieves who took my laptop and PS3?

Galta304

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#39996 22-Aug-2009 23:55

On Thursday morning my home was broken into. Many items were stolen including my laptop and my Playstation 3. The passkey for my wireless network was loaded into these systems. This evening I finally gained access to my internet usage and found that somebody (the thieves) have been using the internet through my wireless router. My PS3 account has also been used. So they must close by!

Is there anyway to pinpoint the location were my laptop is being used? I have a D-Link DIR-615 router.

Help me please!! They virtually gutted my entire house in broad daylight and to rub salt into the wound they are using my internet in front of my eyes.

xpd

Geek @ Coastguard NZ
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#249756 23-Aug-2009 08:09

Change your passkey...at least save yourself money. As for actually locating the items... dont kbnow of any surefire way sorry.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

LinkTree

plod

272 posts

Ultimate Geek

#249771 23-Aug-2009 11:20

Go around all your neighbours telling them you have put a bounty on the low life scum.Even better if you can take a big hairy mate with you

heavenlywild

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#249786 23-Aug-2009 11:49

If the scum is still using your internet then most likely they are either to your immediate left, right, back or front. Too far away they wouldn't be able to use your internet.

These a$$es really need to get pinged. NZ is now full of such scums knowing that there are no consequences to their actions.

DataCraft

173 posts

Master Geek

#249795 23-Aug-2009 12:26

What sort of property do you live in - through walls etc most wirless is only good for around 30m they will be very close.

Borrow another laptop that has wireless, then download some software that will accurately test the signal strength coming from your access point. Walk around your property you might be able to work out which properties can get a signal and which one doesn't.

Try moving your router to the far end of each part of your house - if they can still get access at one end and not the other that might give you some clues in which direction, they are accessing it from.

I have stumbled upon wireless before and have been able to work out which house was transmitting by doing some of these techniques. However it will be a lot harder in your case because you are looking for a receiver not a transmitter.

Once you have worked out which properties could have your gear - go wait for the neighbors to leave and go and have a look through the windows - your PS2 will be hooked up to a TV - so you might be able to see it.

If you find your gear - open the front door and take it back - you may need my special crowbar key to get in ;-)

macuser

2120 posts

Uber Geek

#249796 23-Aug-2009 12:30

Do you have another wireless device/laptop you can do a bit of range hunting with?

If you walk around with your laptop, you will be able to get a radius of the wireless. Within that radius should be the culprit.

Inform police and they will check if there are any suspects in the immediate area.

also, your router should be able to tell you the MAC ID of the devices connecting, which if matches your laptop(it may be on the box that came with your laptop etc) then you have made a positive ID.

You need to be careful not to accuse people who are just stealing your wifi from their own laptops(there are plenty of wifi code crackers around)

If you want to clear files from a computer on your network, you can do that using SSH (I think)

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#249822 23-Aug-2009 15:03

How about you head on down to the police station and talk to the detective in charge of your case. There is a good chance that the individuals that did this have a record etc. of previous such crimes. The police may even have their location on the mapping software. In other words if you give police the info you may end up getting the guys caught!!

heavenlywild

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#249832 23-Aug-2009 16:00

Keep us posted, very curious to find out the outcome!

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Krisando

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#252854 3-Sep-2009 10:01

I'm thinking, if you have set up an ad-hoc connection on your laptop you could go house to house until you find a strong connection.

dolsen

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#252873 3-Sep-2009 11:08

Don't disable their access, it could be used to find out who they are.
Put a proxy between the access point and modem, or if they are the same, see what logging you can do with the router. If you can see where they are going, it may help - ie, some urls may contain their username / realname.

dolsen

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#252875 3-Sep-2009 11:09

Hmm, just looked at the dates, seems this is fairly old. Did you get anywhere with this?

Masada

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#252909 3-Sep-2009 13:24

You can also tap their data usage with a 802.11 packet sniffer. It has been a long while since I attempted such things, but I'm sure the software is out there. A packet sniffer could tell you every thing they were doing. For example if they are accessing their own instant messenger/email accounts... using their login names, etc. I think perhaps ethereal/wireshark might have this ability.

If not, then the police can certainly tap your access.

My posts reflect my best attempt at understanding and do not represent the views of my employer.