Short version: the cops used the info I gave them to get a warrant and knock on the dude’s door. He bought it from someone - of course they can’t say who or how or where, because there’s an ongoing investigation, but it sounds like they’re on the guy’s trail. They didn’t find Kristin’s Thinkpad, but there was at least one other MacBook stolen, and the detective says they’ve got leads on the perp, so, that’s good. Unfortunately, my recovered machine might be pulled back in as evidence sometime if the case comes down, so I can’t sell it or really use it for anything for six months or so, or do anything really useful with it. But hey, leads, right?

So, thanks to Undercover for the awesome software, Shannon and the crew at KXAN for helping to get the story out, Detective Gaddy and the APD for busting the guy, and thanks to all my friends here and out there in internet land for the support and encouragement and spreading the word.

Citizens, lock your shit down, make a home inventory, get an alarm system, and monitor your hardware as best as you can. Criminals, next time you might not get off so easy. I just might be that cranky old man sitting on his porch with a shotgun you come sniffing around again…

For those of you not in the Austin area, here’s a link to the story that the local news station did on my situation. Thanks to Shannon Wolfson from KXAN for coming out and listening to me jabber about my stupid stuff!

Austin man tracks down stolen laptop

(Oh, and it’s “may-chur” or like “major”, not … however they pronounced my last name there…)

With the police, anyway. I got a call this morning from the detective assigned to the case - she’d been off all weekend, and away for training on Monday and Tuesday. I told her all the details that I knew, and she took down the info and told me that she’s grabbing the evidence that I submitted to the other officer today. I’m sending her all of the photos and screenshots and whatnot that I have, and she’ll file a subpoena to get the street address from the IP address tonight. Of course, that process might take a while, but at least it’s forward motion.

Haven’t had any other broadcasts from our boy since Saturday night, though, when the cops rolled through. From the screenshots, it looked like he was running on battery only, and it was pretty low, so I don’t know - maybe he didn’t get a cord in the deal after all, and hasn’t been able to charge up? Or maybe he figured that we were on to him somehow, and decided to lay low for a bit. Either way, it would have been nice to get him while the getting was good, but at least the wheels are in motion now, slow as they may be…

I dropped inSSIDer onto my netbook this afternoon and swung by the little trailer community just west of the South Austin Park and Rec center where the suspected thief lives. (It’s a bit west of the pinpointed location on the map below, but that’s normal, apparently. Still within the circle, though.)

Sure enough, when I got down to the area I figured he’d be, there were the three networks noted, and a trailer that had an exterior that looked an awful lot like the one in the photos. It was hard to tell, but it was at or around #67 down in Woodview, there, at 1301 West Oltorf. There’s not a Google Street View of the area, but I got a crappy photo or two before I had to head out.

I don’t intend on confronting the guy myself, and I’d be really conspicuous hanging out right there, but I’d love to get a good photo of someone coming out of there to match up with the iSight photos that my laptop is sending me of our mutual friend there…

The guy moves outside, shares the screen with a friend or two.

Another screenshot.

Hey look, wireless networks!

Screenshots ahoy!

Here’s the first post that I made on Facebook about the whole deal. It’s awesome to see how many people are interested in this tool being caught.

This is the dude that stole my laptop. (Or who bought it from the thieves.) His IP address is 99.93.101.112, home network name “bolo”. He lives just south of the South Austin Park and Recreation Center, around the Cumberland/Ray Wood/Locke area. I’ve got more photos of him, and screenshots of him browsing some porn videos at 9:30am and installing Firefox and DVD software. Didn’t even rename the computer - it’s still “Silcron”. Logged in from 8:30am-11:30am this morning.

From here.

More photos of the dude.