Last.FM protects thieves.
July 14, 2010 7:03 PM   Subscribe

(How) can I force Last.FM to be helpful in the case of the stolen laptop?

A few months ago, my house was broken into and (among other things) a macbook was stolen. The macbook in question had a plugin for itunes to send details to Last.FM. The thief (or receiver) of the macbook is now logging their music tastes to my Last.FM account. I would like to know the IP addresses from which they are doing this, to supply to the police. How can I compell Last.FM to give me this information, given that they have declined to do so after a polite email?
posted by pompomtom to Law & Government (9 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Subpoena.
posted by Rendus at 7:06 PM on July 14, 2010


The police should issue a subpoena to last.fm. Have you advised them that you know this is happening?
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:08 PM on July 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


Good luck and it's certainly worth a try but even if you have the IP address it may not be much help. Here's a similar situation on Slashdot yesterday by someone who already has the IP address.

Is there any other applications that the thief might use that could reveal the IP address? The guy on Slashdot saw that his Gmail account was being accessed. Gmail reports the IP addresses at the bottom of the screen.
posted by tetranz at 7:26 PM on July 14, 2010 [1 favorite]


If the police won't do it, hire a lawyer.
posted by twblalock at 7:33 PM on July 14, 2010


You will only get private user information in conjunction with a valid court order or search warrant.
posted by Edubya at 8:00 PM on July 14, 2010


The total monetary value of the items stolen, your jurisdiction, and the local police, determind which route to take.

If you're talking a $10k theft, the police are more likely to do something than if this was a 3 year old $700 new notebook.

Seconding ask police if they will contact last.fm. If they won't, then you can ask a lawyer what to do. Obviously time is of the essence, but also, you need to consider that there's no guarantee you will get your stuff back and this will cost time and money to pursue.
posted by zippy at 8:47 PM on July 14, 2010


out of curiosity, was your approach to Last.FM

a) "can you tell me what ip address the pompomtom account has been connecting from? I have an excelent reason for wanting to know." or,

b) "I am pompomtom contacting you through normal support channels. I would like to know what ip addresses I have connected from in the last month, thanks."

and was their "no" response framed as a "we don't provide information about our members to 3rd parties"? if so, there *might* be value in reframing the request as being for info about your own account rather than being about finding a stolen laptop.
posted by russm at 2:15 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Last.FM protects thieves.

Now, that's just ridiculous. A properly run company will not release such information without a subpoena. This is because the same techniques you might use to find a thief using your laptop are, well, the techniques a crazy ex-husband might use to find his ex-wife, and so forth.

It may seem an affront to have to prove that you are you, but that's the way the world works.
posted by dhartung at 10:49 PM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: It may seem an affront to have to prove that you are you, but that's the way the world works.

Yes, thank you for not answering the question.

I can see now how important it is to ensure that secret account information not be sent to the email address to which they'd happily, indeed automatically, send my password. I expect many traumatised ex-wives are sheltered by such an arrangement. Thanks so much.
posted by pompomtom at 10:04 PM on July 18, 2010


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