[alanl]

So this happened to me in Feb.

I had my MBP taken with http://preyproject.com/ installed. Now I live outside the US , (in Ireland) and while the police where helpful & curious about how the tech worked, they just did not do anything, even though I got a photo of the guy, his first name and geo location of his apartment block in the first week.

So 3 months later, and although I'm still watching the guy watching porn on my laptop, I have built up a substantial profile of him, through persistent (obsessive according to my girlfriend) tracking.

So just this week I passed on the following details to the cops - fullname - email - phone number - postal address - bank account no - online betting account no - lots of photos of him and his flatmates/friends.

They were kinda shocked I was still on the case, but said they will dispatch someone to go pick up the laptop this week.

So my advice; if you stick with it, and hand them the case on a plate it might work out.

[jessedhillon]

Please post a writeup of your experience if/when this is resolved, and submit it to HN.

[bluesmoon]

Why not watch the DEFCON video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSTFP6BYXAE

This is how one hacker got his computer back from a thief after tracking him for a few years.

[alanl]

will do

[dorian-graph]

How do you find Prey? I'm trying to decide which one to go with:

Prey, Hidden or Undercover.

[alanl]

I haven't tried the others but I can highly recommend prey. You only have to subscribe once your laptop goes missing. Its also open src so I believe you can setup the serverside yourself if you're worried about prey being hacked.

It does have a few small bugs, and one thing I didn't like is the 100 report limit. You see, the 100 rpt limit means that if you want to do 2min monitoring you have to really keep on top of the reports.

Overall 2 thumbs up from me for prey.

[Danny72]

At that point, you could of just done a bit of identity theft and bought yourself a new MBP.

[dreyfiz]

Being able to control your impulses and operate with some level of civilized executive function makes your identity worth stealing, because you're likely to have good credit. Petty thieves and other criminal morons are unlikely to have an identity worth stealing.

[rbanffy]

And that doesn't mention that you'd be committing a crime.

[alanl]

Yeah, I decided from the start that I wanted to stay on the right side of the law on this. Plus it was stolen from my house, so the guy knows where I live.