Tracking stolen ipod and laptop possible?

June 13, 2008 6:43 PM

Our house has been robbed. Some of the things they took were an 867mhz G4 laptop and a 80gb iPod classic. Is there any way to trace or find out if and when those devices attempt to get online again? And for future reference, is there anything we could do with such electronic devices so that they attempt to phone home or some such if stolen?
posted by nomadicink to computers & internet (13 comments total)

Lojack.
posted by Roman Graves at 6:48 PM on June 13, 2008

Yougetitiback.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:49 PM on June 13, 2008

If you had a chat client or automated mail synchronization installed on the laptop, it might be possible to request the IP address information from the service.
posted by Orb2069 at 7:29 PM on June 13, 2008

Gadgettrak has versions for Windows, Macs and USB devices (including iPods). Notification by email and twitter with video, ISP and wireless access points. Works fine on each in my (limited) testing.
posted by pingudownunder at 7:52 PM on June 13, 2008

I'm pretty sure you can report the serial numbers (if you know them) to apple, and if the robbers attempt to take them in for tech support, apple will hold them. I hope you get your shit back, I feel your pain. Keep tabs on craigslist and ebay for the stuff.
posted by Mach5 at 9:07 PM on June 13, 2008

To your second question, there is Undercover for Macs.
posted by blueberry at 12:18 AM on June 14, 2008

Check out some of the local pawn shops when you have some time over the next few days and see if you can find any items that look like yours (the iPod in particular as that's an item thieves hope to make a quick buck of off and which pawn shop owners would happily buy from them). This was one of the handiest pieces of advice the police gave me in the wake of me being robbed.

The trick though is not letting the pawn shop owner know you think an item they have was stolen from you. If you see an item you think is yours, quietly call the police without the owner seeing you do that and ask them to make a trip to the shop. Once there, then you can make the owner aware of the items history. With the police there he'll feel more compelled to tell you who sold it to him.
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:36 AM on June 14, 2008

Thank you for your responses.

Does anyone remember the name of the application that, if you have web camera, will scan your books and serial#s and store them?

Can you report your lost Apple products to Apple and they'll alert you if they've been used?
posted by nomadicink at 6:58 AM on June 14, 2008

For mac that application is Delicious Library
posted by majikstreet at 8:44 AM on June 14, 2008

Ok, another question.

Whoever stole the laptop tried to login to my wife's email account via webmail. They failed, but the webmail program does track the IP of failed logins, so we have an IP address.

Now what? I goggled the IP address but got nothing. Is there any other way of tracing a particular IP address?
posted by nomadicink at 12:10 PM on June 14, 2008

Former Apple employee speaking... Apple will not take reports of stolen equipment, or get involved in such matters in any way. Too much liability.
posted by BryanPayne at 2:46 PM on June 14, 2008

If you've got an IP, you can go to here and find out which provider/company it's registered to, then take that information to the police. They can contact the folk in question, and request more info, like a physical location.
posted by Orb2069 at 10:12 PM on June 14, 2008

...Be sure to click the [Who is] button and print that out as well. Best of luck!
posted by Orb2069 at 10:13 PM on June 14, 2008