Stolen tools & Police/ sheriff's database

[Dude1000]

Database

article this: On a dreary Monday morning you board the train into work with your laptop for the start of yet another long work week. As the train pulls into your station you sleepily stand up and dash out the door for the platform along with dozens of other commuters. But wait! You're missing something. You forgot your laptop on the train! You rush back inside the train before the doors close and look frantically under your seat. But your briefcase with your laptop is nowhere to be found!

This situation is more prevalent than you may think. In 2003 there were more than 600,000 laptops stolen (Safeware Insurance, 2003 report). That's more than 1,640 laptops stolen every single day.And to compound the problem, even if the police were to find the thief and recover your laptop, they have almost no idea who owns it or how to get it back to you! Why? Because you never wrote down the serial numbers and the paperwork accompanying it is long gone. You filed a police report, but with no serial number to report, your laptop could be stored away in some police evidence room with thousands of others just like it across the state or across the country, never to be returned to you again.

That's where JustStolen.net comes in. Our website was established by Police Officers to assist consumers, college students and business owners retrieve lost or stolen valuables. The website is a powerful database that members can use to register their personal property. Any descriptive information can be entered into the database including make, model, color, serial number and any thing else you can think of. You can even upload photographs of your items.

But along with the other great advantages of being a member, there are two fantastic features about JustStolen.net: =B7 Once your items are registered, if they are ever stolen or lost you have all the information you need to give to police. Your descriptive information about the item has been stored in our secure database. =B7 But here is the best part: When your item is recovered by police across the state or across the globe, they only have to log onto one simple-to-use website to search for its owner. They just enter the serial number or description of your laptop, iPod, DVD player or other valuable, and the item's description and the email address that you entered when you first registered is there for them to contact you!

Your valuable item won't be sitting in some far away evidence room, because the police now know who the owner is, and they have an easy way to get in touch with you. It's as simple as that! Your property is returned and there's no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace it.

And best of all, JustStolen.net is FREE to use; free for consumers, college students and business owners, and free for all law enforcement personnel. There is never any charge to use our service.

What are some of the other benefits of how JustStolen.net gets your valuables back to you? =B7 There's no need to spend your hard earned money to replace lost or stolen valuables =B7 There's no need to fill out time-consuming insurance claim forms =B7 No insurance claim means lower premiums =B7 Your irreplaceable items (data in your laptop, photographs in your digital camera) have a better chance of being returned to you =B7 You, the victim of a crime, can now assist the police in a successful prosecution of the thief =B7 Police won't waste precious time trying to find the owner of recovered merchandise, freeing up time for crime fighting =B7 Your member information can be accessed by you from any internet- accessible computer across the globe =B7 Police only have to search one powerful database for owner information when they recover lost or stolen goods

[RicodJour]

As this is the only topic the OP has posted on, and that to a number of newsgroups, I believed that this was just more spam. From that PC World article: "I talked to Tom Shea, a police officer with the Brookline, Massachusetts Police Department, about his Juststolen site." So, it doesn't seem to be just spam.

I wonder if computer literate thieves could hack the database and go "shopping" on the site. "Let's see, I think some Festools would be fun to boost. I wonder who has some in Worchester, MA... Bwahahahahahahaha!" ;)

Does seem like a good idea. Wish they'd had it when my entire shop was stolen 12 years ago. Driving around to pawn shops in the area, boiling mad, and looking for your stolen tools quickly loses its attraction.

R

[Larry Blanchard]

I wonder if that's the whole purpose of the spam?

--=20 It's turtles, all the way down

[Upscale]

I've heard of one good method for protecting/recovering laptops on the market. Most/many new laptops have internet connectivity. One method is that if a laptop doesn't have the proper password entered with it's powered up, it automatically connects to the internet and reports it's position via an internal global positioning chip. As I understand it, it can also be programmed to broadcast regularly without need of password on powering up.

Considering what some laptops cost, this $100 or so expense is not a great amount to protect your property.

[Leon]

As this is the only topic the OP has posted on, and that to a number of newsgroups, I believed that this was just more spam. From that PC World article: "I talked to Tom Shea, a police officer with the Brookline, Massachusetts Police Department, about his Juststolen site." So, it doesn't seem to be just spam.

I wonder if computer literate thieves could hack the database and go "shopping" on the site. "Let's see, I think some Festools would be fun to boost. I wonder who has some in Worchester, MA... Bwahahahahahahaha!" ;)

Does seem like a good idea. Wish they'd had it when my entire shop was stolen 12 years ago. Driving around to pawn shops in the area, boiling mad, and looking for your stolen tools quickly loses its attraction.

R

Then there is LoJack for portables that came with a 4 year subscription on the Dell laptop that I just bought.

[Larry W]

In some cases the GPS capability is not even needed. There was an interesting ariticle a few weeks ago, sorry but I don't remember where I saw it, about recovery of a stolen laptop. You may have heard of the SETI project, similar to the "fold at home" project, where people leave their computers connected to the internet and donate processing time to a distributed project of some sort. In the SETI case it is analyizing radio telescope observations for signs of intelligent origin. Seems that a woman had her laptop set up to do this when idle, when it was stolen. Her husband, IIRC was a computer geek of some ability. He was able to access the SETI logs and found records of her computer logging in _after_ it was stolen. By tracking the IP address and ISP used, he was able to find the physical location of the laptop and also able to convince the police to help. The laptop was recovered.

[Vern]

This scenario is exactly why I have Lojack for my laptop.

This situation is more prevalent than you may think. In 2003 there were more than 600,000 laptops stolen (Safeware Insurance, 2003 report). That's more than 1,640 laptops stolen every single day.And to compound the problem, even if the police were to find the thief and recover your laptop, they have almost no idea who owns it or how to get it back to you! Why? Because you never wrote down the serial numbers and the paperwork accompanying it is long gone. You filed a police report, but with no serial number to report, your laptop could be stored away in some police evidence room with thousands of others just like it across the state or across the country, never to be returned to you again.

That's where JustStolen.net comes in. Our website was established by Police Officers to assist consumers, college students and business owners retrieve lost or stolen valuables. The website is a powerful database that members can use to register their personal property. Any descriptive information can be entered into the database including make, model, color, serial number and any thing else you can think of. You can even upload photographs of your items.

But along with the other great advantages of being a member, there are two fantastic features about JustStolen.net: · Once your items are registered, if they are ever stolen or lost you have all the information you need to give to police. Your descriptive information about the item has been stored in our secure database. · But here is the best part: When your item is recovered by police across the state or across the globe, they only have to log onto one simple-to-use website to search for its owner. They just enter the serial number or description of your laptop, iPod, DVD player or other valuable, and the item's description and the email address that you entered when you first registered is there for them to contact you!

Your valuable item won't be sitting in some far away evidence room, because the police now know who the owner is, and they have an easy way to get in touch with you. It's as simple as that! Your property is returned and there's no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace it.

And best of all, JustStolen.net is FREE to use; free for consumers, college students and business owners, and free for all law enforcement personnel. There is never any charge to use our service.

What are some of the other benefits of how JustStolen.net gets your valuables back to you? · There's no need to spend your hard earned money to replace lost or stolen valuables · There's no need to fill out time-consuming insurance claim forms · No insurance claim means lower premiums · Your irreplaceable items (data in your laptop, photographs in your digital camera) have a better chance of being returned to you · You, the victim of a crime, can now assist the police in a successful prosecution of the thief · Police won't waste precious time trying to find the owner of recovered merchandise, freeing up time for crime fighting · Your member information can be accessed by you from any internet- accessible computer across the globe · Police only have to search one powerful database for owner information when they recover lost or stolen goods

[RicodJour]

Interesting. One good turn deserves another. Give up some of your unused computing power for a worthwhile project, and get free LoJack benefits.

They should market SETI and the protein folding project that way.

R

[RonB]

Oh its prevalent. Our son is a construction manager in the Bentonville/Rogers Arkansas area. Construction is a very big business down there and stealing from job sites is big business. About a year ago someone broke into a tool locker on one of his sites and stole a pickup load of hand and power tools. He had the police come out at about 7:00am. Later that morning the detective called him and asked him to take a ride to a "garage sale" at a certain address. There was no doubt that the dummies were selling equipment, with his company's asset tags, from the back of a pickup in their driveway. The 'businessmen' took a short trip to the police station about three blocks away.

He has even had items as big as Bobcats get hauled off of a site.

RonB

This situation is more prevalent than you may think. In 2003 there were more than 600,000 laptops stolen (Safeware Insurance, 2003 report). That's more than 1,640 laptops stolen every single day.And to compound the problem, even if the police were to find the thief and recover your laptop, they have almost no idea who owns it or how to get it back to you! Why? Because you never wrote down the serial numbers and the paperwork accompanying it is long gone. You filed a police report, but with no serial number to report, your laptop could be stored away in some police evidence room with thousands of others just like it across the state or across the country, never to be returned to you again.

That's where JustStolen.net comes in. Our website was established by Police Officers to assist consumers, college students and business owners retrieve lost or stolen valuables. The website is a powerful database that members can use to register their personal property. Any descriptive information can be entered into the database including make, model, color, serial number and any thing else you can think of. You can even upload photographs of your items.

But along with the other great advantages of being a member, there are two fantastic features about JustStolen.net: · Once your items are registered, if they are ever stolen or lost you have all the information you need to give to police. Your descriptive information about the item has been stored in our secure database. · But here is the best part: When your item is recovered by police across the state or across the globe, they only have to log onto one simple-to-use website to search for its owner. They just enter the serial number or description of your laptop, iPod, DVD player or other valuable, and the item's description and the email address that you entered when you first registered is there for them to contact you!

Your valuable item won't be sitting in some far away evidence room, because the police now know who the owner is, and they have an easy way to get in touch with you. It's as simple as that! Your property is returned and there's no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace it.

And best of all, JustStolen.net is FREE to use; free for consumers, college students and business owners, and free for all law enforcement personnel. There is never any charge to use our service.

What are some of the other benefits of how JustStolen.net gets your valuables back to you? · There's no need to spend your hard earned money to replace lost or stolen valuables · There's no need to fill out time-consuming insurance claim forms · No insurance claim means lower premiums · Your irreplaceable items (data in your laptop, photographs in your digital camera) have a better chance of being returned to you · You, the victim of a crime, can now assist the police in a successful prosecution of the thief · Police won't waste precious time trying to find the owner of recovered merchandise, freeing up time for crime fighting · Your member information can be accessed by you from any internet- accessible computer across the globe · Police only have to search one powerful database for owner information when they recover lost or stolen goods

[Lew Hodgett]

Have been told theft of construction equipment, back hoes, BobCats, front end loaders, etc has become a major problem.

If there is a crane and an air compressor on the job site, expect the compressor to be hanging about 20-30 ft off the ground from the crane at the end of the day.

I've been hit more than once, definitely the druggies in the hood.

Lew

[Swingman]

A local builder a couple of years back had an entire load of custom trusses stolen from a residential construction site.

I mean, you have to have a house with basically the same design for these trusses to be of any use, and you almost certainly need a crane, or a big crew, to get them on a truck large enough to haul them away ... somebody wanted those trusses awful bad, or had no idea what they were stealing.

You want say no one is that stupid, but all you got to do is look around to realize that ain't the case.

[Bill in Detroit]

When we build a Kingdom Hall we have volunteer guards on it 24/7 ... and still the thieves come. When we built our current KH the temporary picnic table and porta-potty were stolen in a 2 hour DAYLIGHT gap between when they arrived and when the guard trailer showed up.

About 4 years ago, while working guard duty on another site, a fella in a NICE pickup truck showed up and began to help himself to 2x10's. My partner walked around to his door and I grabbed the back end of one of the beams. When he turned to see what the catch was, I politely asked if he needed any help.

By the time he got to the cab (0.17 seconds later ... not bad for a guy in his 50's, actually), my partner had the door open for him.

The dimwit had the name of his construction company on the side of his truck.

I suspect that this offer is just a fishing trip for thieves and I'm not biting.

Bill