This blog is really supposed to be about entrepreneurship – I swear! But this is a pretty pressing matter.

On Tuesday, February 23, 2010, my car was broken into near Fenway Park while I was at an event at the Cask ‘n’ Flagon. I was parked on Brookline Avenue, near the corner of Yawkey Way, facing toward Kenmore Square, and the thieves smashed the rear passenger vent glass. They stole a laptop and a netbook among other things, all of which I reported to the police that evening.

Since I work away from home a lot and don’t like to maintain two sets of files, I use a remote login tool called TeamViewer that lets me log into my desktop from the road and control the computer. It also works in reverse. Using this tool, I have been able to log into my laptop multiple times – while the thieves (or someone else) were using it – and monitor their activity.

My first step was to take over the controls and direct a web browser to WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, to discover their IP address. An IP address, according to Wikipedia, is “a numerical label that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network…”. In other words, it identifies the machine to the network.

I then took the address that I found and plugged it in at this site, which told me that the IP address is assigned to a computer on the Verizon FIOS network, based in Stoughton, MA. I called the Stoughton police, but they told me that I had to go through the Boston Police Department, because that’s where I filed the report. And Boston… well, they told me the detectives would get back to me soon.

That was Wednesday. Friday, someone logged on again to use the machine – specifically, to check out some fantastic videos of the WWE. Yeah, my “thieves” were into wrestling, Googling things like, “World’s strongest dog,” and watching Scooby Doo on YouTube. This time, I was better-prepared; I quickly switched on the webcam on the laptop, and recorded the machine’s user… who is apparently a small child. See the video that I took here. Eventually, he shut down the computer – I guess my taking over the mouse was too much for him.

Today’s been fun, though. First, I came home this evening to find that someone was logged into the laptop – and using Facebook. Fortunately, I was able to control the computer and click on “My Profile,” and see who was using the computer – it turned out to be an 18 year old who went to West Roxbury School (I’m not going to share her info here, just in case that could get me into trouble). But that was a great find – a solid link to exactly who was using the computer.

Immediately after, the same kid from before started watching videos. How do I know it was him? Well, for one, he was watching more wrestling vids. For another, he actually opened the webcam himself and started mugging for the camera. But it gets better: his mother and brother appeared on-camera – and when the brother saw that he was being filmed, he fled the room!

So I checked my Facebook culprit’s friends, and sure enough – she has a friend with the same last name, who is about 20 years old, and goes to college at Wentworth – which is in Boston, the same city in which my laptop was stolen. Intriguing.

Right now, the BPD detectives have told me they can’t do anything until they get a subpoena – which won’t happen until at least Monday.

UPDATE: Sunday AM – The detective assigned to my case is actually off until Tuesday, but I’ve spoken with Detective O’Sullivan both Saturday and Sunday, and he’s been very helpful. In particular, he gave me the name of a detective who is on duty Monday morning who may be able to help with the subpoena – although he wasn’t optimistic about getting it through court on a Monday.

Thanks for reading, and any tips/ideas/thoughts are more than appreciated!
– Josh

PS – If you’re wondering why I’m so adamant about getting this laptop back, it’s because I’m an entrepreneur. I’m trying to start a business, and every dollar is crucial – especially sunk dollars into personal and business electronics. If you’d like to help but don’t know anything about tracking computers, feel free to take this survey on your restaurant habits – it will take 3 minutes and be immensely helpful. Thank you!

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