Did you know that our technology management platform, Waident Watch, can help find a stolen laptop? This platform is a very powerful and feature rich tool that helps us manage our clients’ technology. It is not made to be the lojack of laptops, but in a recent case with a client we got creative and leveraged the platform to help us find his stolen device. We do whatever it takes to help our clients and in this case we turned detective.
Here is the story…last week a client of ours called and said that his laptop was stolen from his house and there was a rash of break-ins in his neighborhood. He went out and bought a new laptop and we configured it for him right away so he could get back to work.Starsky (AKA Mark) told the Waident gang that a client laptop was stolen. Huggy Bear (AKA John) mentioned that most likely the perpetrator would just end up plugging the laptop in to the Internet (rather than doing the computer geek smart thing of rebuilding the machine from scratch) and our Waident Watch Waigent could help find it. At that point the client, Hutch (AKA Barry) got involved in the investigation to help find the laptop, or at least secure the data if there was anything sensitive on it. Starsky shouted “let’s do it, do it!” and he pre-programmed the Waigent to block Word, Excel, Outlook and other programs from working to help keep the person behind the caper from accessing any data easily.
Sure enough just a couple of days after the laptop was liberated from Hutch’s domicile, our Waigent automatically notified us that the laptop was connected to the Internet and Starsky and Hutch leapt in to action. Within minutes they had the IP address of the machine, which then allowed them to get the general location, which turned out to be about 5 miles down the road. Later Starsky cracked the case wide open and found that the user had logged in to Facebook allowing him to access the culprits name, picture, and accomplices. He then turned on the webcam of the laptop and could see the perpetrators kitchen (grabbing a snapshot image). Hutch tracked the user down, got the address and contacted the fuzz.
It turns out that the person who had the laptop did have a police record and was apprehended. The police are now linking him with the rash of robberies in the neighborhood. Looks like Starsky and Hutch did it again and solved another major crime.
