Stolen laptop recovered with Back To My Mac
By Joshua Fruhlinger 
posted May 11th 2008 10:53AM
posted May 11th 2008 10:53AM
Here's a little story for you: An Apple Store employee had a party in her apartment. A couple weeks later her place was cleared out to the tune of about $5,000 worth of electronics, including her new Mac. Days later, a friend sees that she's online and alerts the Mac's rightful owner. Since she was running Leopard with Back to My Mac, owner-girl logged in remotely and activated Photo Booth via the screen-share function. And what do you know, it turned out that the thieves were some "friends" who were at the party a few weeks back. She took the photos to the cops and -- voila -- busted! The thieves, Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Ian Frias, 20, both of the Bronx, have been charged with second-degree burglary and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. Go go crafty nerdy girl![Via TUAW]
Haha, that's awesome. How does this work exactly?
I'm assuming it allows you to snapshot from the camera remotely and upload it somewhere.
If so, great feature.
Great story, too. I will be sharing this with others. Perhaps my wife's Macbook is about to get a .mac subscription.
the computer automatically signs into .mac and if you go to the website you get a web page that allows you to controll the computer and access the files
LogMeIn.com does this for free - and works on PC and MAC. I use it at work to fix/troubleshoot/update remote computers (about 24 PCs at four locations). It works great.
uh.... 2 questions:
- She works at an Apple store, realizes how to use a remote desktop but she didn't set a password? (unless they stole the computer in a running state and didn't reboot it since)
- why didn't they reformat the computer immediately?
I guess the bible should now be edited to read "The geek(s) shall inherit the Earth."
@stefan: Why didn't they wipe the machine? They burgled their "friend's" apartment. These are not rocket scientists. They even managed to get caught by PhotoBooth which displays a 3 second countdown before snapping a pic. So I would go further and assume they are dumb as bricks.
My God! That's brilliant!
Will she marry me?
Most likely not.
$99.95+ yearly subscription to .mac!?
*cough* VNC *cough*
they wouldnt have known the IP address you fool .mac is the only way this is possible
*nerd* farth *nerd*
you don't need .Mac
All you need to do is know your user name & password. If you have screen sharing turned on you just have to send a request to the computer & bam! your in. If the thieves were using the computer @ the time, they were probably like WTF! Anyways yeah this is just OS X' built in *cough* VNC *cough*
.Mac isn't the only way this would have been possible, there are other solutions. However .Mac is probably the most elegant.
@Chrisvanren... (quote from the Back to My Mac page)
"*Requirements for using Back to My Mac
* A .Mac subscription (Basic Membership or .Mac Family Pack required)
http://www.apple.com/dotmac/backtomymac.html
@Tom Oliveri...
Nope, perfectly possible. If I were to set up VNC on a laptop I would set it up with a domain and dyndns (I always use afraid.org) so I wouldn't have to remember an IP. When the laptop was connected to a different network the dyndns client would update the IP associated with the domain and thus I would be able to access the laptop via VNC through the domain.
God, just because I said something remotely intelligent. You can't honestly say you would pay that subscription?
They are mac fans, intelligent? :P
dyndns, or easier logmein, free of charge , you login to their website and voila.
The .Mac method is probably the easiest. Not everyone know how to set this stuff up and to the regular consumer, not this girl in particular, but lots of people, this is the easiest way. you just log into .Mac with your computer and it's set up.
For what it's worth; nobody I know has ever bought .mac for more than $69. It's widely available in retail channels for $69. No one should buy it directly from apple. Same goes for applecare.
And for $69 it's well worth it IMO. It does a lot more than just what's being discussed here.
@ MATT, I use vnc and had to do just what you said when someone stole a lappy from me a bunch of years ago. But I trumped you and logged in with my PSP(tight vnc). Then started my cam and got the perp the same way as This Uber Nerdy Girl. Caught red handed and with an ugly mug shot to boot. .Mac, great idea. VNC/tightvnc great app also. You could always just put your own spyware key logger ip and domain tracking software on your pc. but I doubt many laypeeps out there would know how to do it the right way. Kudos for the average person taking a virtual Bite out of Crime.
Hamachi + VNC = Free, does this exact same thing and more, cross-platform
@ Mike Cerm
Website Hosting
IMAP Mail
10Gb Storage
Web Gallery
Sync (Contacts, Calenders backup)
Seamless Integration with iLife + iWork products
Does Hamachi + VNC do all this as well?
@Matt
Mac OS X has a built in VNC server than can be used without .Mac.
@matt: that assumes that they either didnt have a router or that if vnc supports upnp, they have it enabled in their router.
@Stuff:
That doesn't matter. We aren't talking about that stuff.
Nice failure at logic.
@Jesse: There were complaints about the price of .Mac and comparing it to VNC. .Mac is more than just remote access to your Mac, thus comparing .Mac to VNC is not accurate, thus his comment is valid. Way to fail reading comprehension.
There are free or low cost ways to to what .Mac does, but for a lot of people $70 a year is perfectly reasonable and .Mac makes it really easy.
@Stuff
Google alone does a lot of that for free:
Website Hosting (googlepages)
IMAP Mail (GMail)
Web Gallery (Picasa)
G-Drive never materialized though, right?
I suppose you could run your own server, maybe even use Hamachi. But you need to install that, and AFAIK you can't without admin privileges. And they charge you $40 if you want to run it as a service or have a network with more than 16 clients.
Anyone know of something like Hamachi, also with a free option, that I can run from a USB drive anywhere? Port forwarding like SSH would be fine, but with UDP encapsulation and NAT traversal.
Not only was she tech savvy, but I bet she was likely smoking hot too.
No woman gets cops to do their job fast, regardless of the evidence presented, unless she is smoking hot.
Raheen, she likely had some form of security/cam software installed that uploaded her webcam to a website.... maybe she was a stripper lol
Dugg up for the cop joke
hate to be the 'this was posted elsewhere x days ago' guy but...
this was posted on giz like a week ago
I saw this on Digg early yesterday morning.
if you hate to do it, then dont
Who cares? Not everybody reads 14 different gadget sites. Also, i would hardly say that this is earth breaking news . Good for giz, or whatever it was you said.
good for you douchebag
shut yer fackin face.
wrong. it didn't even happen until last tuesday.
You were beat up a lot in school, weren't you?
Who fuckin CARES where/when you saw this!!?
no one has questioned if this is real or a fake?
how would this be fake?
I questioned it. And I came to the conclusion that it's real.
The NYTimes did an article on it. So I'll wager it's real. They had pics of the perps.
I'm sure the cops did initially.
NYT Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/nyregion/10laptop.html
Mike, thanks for the link. BTW, is it just me or wow, that NYT article is so poorly written? Had it not been on the official site, I never would've believed it was NYT writing.
----------
See, this goes to show that webcams are quite useful. Most people just say webcams are only good for pr0n exchange, those goes to show that hey, they're good for security, too.
Moral of the story: DON'T STEAL A LAPTOP FROM A COMPUTER SAVVY PERSON....dumbasses.
pwned.
lawl!
The correct term is "HEADSHOT!"
"Pwned" is not a word. Wake the fuck up.
It's a better word than your name, "Tarvus".
Ah man steve, i laughed so hard when I saw your comment. Props to you.
Tarvus, coming to Engadget to say "pwned" isn't a word is like walking into a bar and saying bikers suck donkey balls. You just don't do that kind of thing, man.
@Steve
I'm changing my IP address and deleting my cookies so I can vote your comment up twice. lol.
PAWN'ed!!!!!!!
Oh they didnt have the time to pawn it...
Steve Jones needs to have my babies
Ooo... snap!
Wait... What....? A Mac had something useful built in? No... Can't be...
:P
Macs have many useful features!
- Paperweight
- um..Paperweight?
actually the original imacs make very useful boat anchors
Or aquariums.
Sure, Macs have some useful features. They also over-charge for the "privilege" of never having to use 3rd party software, and this is a perfect example that.
@Mike Cerm
Yeah it doesnt quite compare to paying for some 3rd party anti-virus software for windows
This is why i've got a commandline alias that can send an email with a isight capture as attachment, than I don't have to use screensharing. :-)
a cron job checks an xml on my server a few times each day, when the computer doesn't find the xml or finds itself "stolen" in the xml it runs the alias and sends an email to an email address that's not in mail.app so the "thieves" can't delete the mails.
:-)
What a user-friendly solution! Frankly I'm surprised Apple had to find a way to improve on that method.
Thats very clever. I think I'll set the same thing up on my macbook. How do you write a command line script that sends email without using mail.app? How do you control iSight from command line?
Here's a part of the manual:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080126190204997&query=isight
I just would have bombarded the screen with goatse until they gave it back...
2girls 1 cup
She really shared her screen!
too bad you couldn't cause the battery to explode remotely...
LMAO! Say w3rd! Hope they put that in the next "Back To My Mac" update.
At least, fortunately, they are not doing that spontaneously anymore, (nor are Dells etc.) Imagine a laptop as a terrorist weapon!
I second that. Or at least explode some luminescent dye all over their thieving faces.
That's what friends are for. To rob you blind. Those lousy pricks.
LOL no. Airport Security is tough enough already. Do we really need Cavity checks for laptops?????
Now if I can only get Back to My Mac to work as it's advertised to do.
Edmon Shahikian, that sounds like an Armenian name. He brings shame to Armenians by getting into trouble like this.
Ted, that sounds like a racist asshole name. He brings shame to all those other racist assholes out there by trying to hide his racism with a not-so-clever remark. Next time, save the keystrokes and just type "I hate brown people"
what a surprise - muslims are robbing white people
You must be insane. MY last name is Armenian, Nalbantian!
Names ending in 'ian' or 'yan' are very often Armenian names. (http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Famous_Armenians)
That's why I made the comment - people will see that he has an Armenian name and I was expressing worry that this would give bad press to people of Armenian heritage.
Anyway, Armenians are Christians (the first Christian nation in the world) not Muslims. How dare you try to defend Armenia by making such assumptions about Armenians being "brown" and "muslim"? You insult both Muslims and Armenians. You just show you know absolutely NOTHING about Armenia!
I can't believe how quickly you guys jumped to the conclusion that I was making a racist comment!!!! Absolutely outrageous! >:(
If you have any decency you'll apologise for making such obnoxious comments to me :@
Oh great, Brandon has his profile set to private (so that I can't get his attention by replying to one of his comments) so he'll probably go off smugly admiring his own glorious crusade against 'racism' and never look at the possible replies to his comment, never realising what a douche he's just been and how utterly wrong he was.
Firstly, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't know that "-ian" is an Armenian suffix (usually...it's often Turkish as well, but it could just be Turks of Armenian descent). So don't worry about the shame of your people. Second, if they did know that, they also likely know that Armenians are Caucasian, and Christian (and they may even know a little something about the Armenian Genocide of 1914). And anyone with half a brain knows that ethnicity doesn't predispose to criminal activity, poverty does (my people, Jews, were big-time gangsters in the early 20th century, but as they succeeded in society that went away). I'll wager these fellows who lived in the South Bronx weren't exactly rolling in dough.
Indeed, most of the Turks with names ending in 'ian' are of Armenian descent (there are many Armenians in Turkey, since they are Armenia's neighbours and former rulers... such as Hrant Dink, the murdered journalist). And it's true that most would not know that this guy's name might be Armenian.
I also agree (or in fact, I recognize) totally that economic factors are the main driving force behind crime. I don't understand how race was ever read into my comment. I think the first two repliers to my comment had a knee-jerk impulse to assume racism, without thinking twice about where I was coming from. I was more saying something you might say if you're scolding a family member... (e.g. "you're bringing shame to this household!")... Since Armenians are one big family in some ways (like Jews too maybe, I don't know), saying "he brings shame to Armenians" is a way of criticizing the man who would steal all this stuff from some lady who had given him her hospitality.
Those saying VNC must remember that most computers are connected through a router to get online and that ports must be forwarded for a VNC connection from the internet to get to the computer (unless the VNC server on the laptop and router supports uPnP).
This is why I do not have friends.
the thieves are idiots for not installing a fresh OS.
The thieves are idiots for stealing.
If the thieves don't have username and password they can't reinstall a fresh OS
Uhm, yes they can.
These thieves don't sound like professionals but rather like stupid opportunists. They saw all the gadgets during a party and maybe how easy it would be to take it, and did it. I doubt a professional would a) hold on to his stolen property and not sell it right away and b) would not reinstall new OS right away which is the easiest thing to do even without a screen name and password.
I like the idea of being able to remotely turn on the camera and capture the thieve, BUT if you can do that, can't a hacker technically do the same by just braking into your computer? Can't someone just start watching you!?!?!?!?!
sorry, i meant reinstall a fresh OS cuz mac osx blows. =P
ok ok, enopugh already. But are the NY Times a bunch of IDIOTS
read this paragraph the middle part.
"Mr. Jackson said that Ms. Duplaga did not wish to be interviewed.
On Friday, no one answered the door at the beige colonial-style house on Ridgeview Avenue where she rents an apartment diagonally opposite a church.
The neighborhood is on the edge of the city’s downtown; in recent years, many of the prewar homes have been renovated."
Way to go NY Times, now Everybody knows where she lives. Dumbasses.
And everyone knows she has a laptop in her possession :)
woohoo! im gonna go steal me a laptop!!!
er wait
a piece of tape over the camera ought to make you safe.
Loool !! are the iphone 3G pictures on votegeek.sup.fr real?
xexe, how faulty u are.
For mac users , money is not the problem. If u give 2,5k$ for a macbook, 100$ per year for that kind of elegance are nothing.
If u lack them, go buy a dell, use vnc, and every site u like. We just subscribe, and enjoy.
For anybody who doesn't understand, this is not like remote desktop, the way it works is you pair your computers with your .Mac account, so basically, you could have a Mac at work, a Mac at home, and a Mac in Hong Kong, but they all show up as if they are on your Local Network. Obviously when the thiefs connected to the net .Mac checked in and updated the IP showing on one of the other computers that the computer was on. Her friend saw this, told her, and she activated a screen share function directly in the finder, launched PhotoBooth and snapped a picture. For Windows users this kind of thing appears to seem out of this world. I use it all the time on my multiple Macs.
Funny, the difference in reporting styles from engadget. If its a story about a PC or Microsoft product, we get smartass commentary, veiled insults... they had to draw straws to see what unlucky bastard had to do the write-up... and then only with a gun to their heads.
But, man oh man, if its an Apple product... euphoria. Someone was down on their knees, sucking some sausage for the privilege to do this write-up.
wow. this is easily the best usage of a mac product ive seen, outside of the will it blend series.
What if the computer does not come online? i mean not connected to the internet. will .Mac work without the connection.
yes, it uses magic instead to make a remote connection to a machine miles away.