[NetMonkey]

I think this actually went pretty well.

- Internet crime is reported

- Police IT team tracks it to specific IP and address

- Contacts owner, she says (incorrectly) the WIFI is secured with only the two people at the address having access

- Regular police is sent to collect all computers at the address

- When the police IT team realizes the computers weren't connected to the scam, they are returned within two weeks.

The only thing that really went a bit bad is the reported attitude of the regular police officers sent to the address.

Of course it would have been better to have sent someone better at both IT and english. If either of those had been different they might never have taken the computers, but the two weeks to clear things up are pretty good as government organizations goes.

[jeltz]

Agreed, other than the bad attitudes everything went as it should. The police only keeping the computers for two weeks and then handing them back personally is better than I expected and shows the Danish police is professional.

[altero]

Two questions:

* did police payed the damage caused by confiscating computers? It could be easily thousands euro.

* crime was a few stolen theater tickets. Confiscating stuff seems like over-reaction, when bike is stolen (similar value) they do not even bother to come to crime scene.

[corin_]

As much as I normally hate political/police over-reactions of anything because it's digital, I think it's not reasonable to make a tickets--bike comparison.

They weren't there because someone stole theatre tickets, they were there because someone stole credit card numbers - which is more serious, largely because it's a lot more scalable than stealing a bike.

[altero]

I think it is fair comparison. There are gangs stealing bikes, it is also frequently target to vandalism. And it is scalable to the level, that is not safe to leave your bike without lock.

Also article only talks about single credit card.

We should not make difference between crimes, just because one has strong bank lobby behind it.

[kbar13]

? You can't make purchases anywhere with a bike.

[aroch]

It's pretty easy to sell bikes...We have several specialty bike stores around here and if you walk in with a decent road bike in good condition you can walk out with $500 easily.

[thret]

Surely someone from the police IT team ought have been there to save everyone the hassle. It should have taken only a few minutes for a person of average intelligence to determine that he was in innocent.

[rbanffy]

An IT person should be there just to make sure everything relevant is collected.

He could be stealing credit cards using a VM stored in a USB stick.

[kamjam]

This was 2008, things have moved on a bit and hopefully everyone is a little more savvy. I think give them the benefit of doubt and hopefully things are a little more intelligent now...

[rbanffy]

Having a 2008-tech-savvy cop in 2008 is just common sense. If the description is accurate, the two guys who came to confiscate the computers were completely clueless and would be easily fooled by anyone reasonably knowledgeable with computers.