Retrieving Stolen Laptop / Obtaining MAC Address on stolen Laptop

Hey,

A few weeks ago, my HP DV5000 Laptop was stolen, along with various other devices, cell phone, mp3 player, calculators, bag, etc. I was told that the computer could be tracked on my university's wireless network if I had the MAC address. I want to know, is there a way to obtain a MAC address without actually having the machine? I have the serial number and contacted HP to see if I could get it through them. Some Iranian lady searched her "resources" and told me what a MAC address was. While she was telling me, I did a quick google search, looked in Wikipedia, and what she was telling me was VERBATIM what I was looking at... some intelligent tech support huh? ANYWAY, sorry for the long post, but what are my options? Without the MAC address, and not having Lo Jack installed on the laptop, is there any other way to track down the machine? Basically, I've given up all hope on seeing any of my lost items, but maybe there are a few more things I can try.

Thanks!!!

 

Realistically, you're SOL. Stolen laptops are neigh impossible to recover, and there's no way surefire way of tracking them. Unless the MAC is written somewhere in the documentation that came with the computer (very unlikely) the only location you can find it are on the computer itself.

 

Yea, I understand. I figured that was the case. Thanks for the info though.

L8R

 

Do you have a wireless router or AP of your own that you connect to? Its internal webserver should have a record of the MAC address. It remembers that so it can assign you the same IP address every time you connect. Look for a table of assigned IP addresses or something similar.

 

Yes, I have a linksys g router I used all the time with that laptop here at home. How do I find the record you're talking about? The router is directly connected to our office pc then links wirelessly to my laptop at home. Is there something in the linksys software that lists the MAC addresses? Would I access it by typing the router IPs number in the browser where you change router settings and such?

 

Yup. http://192.168.1.1 usually. I don't have a Linksys router with stock firmware handy (I use DD-WRT on a WRT54GL, not a good option for plain WRT54G's though) so I don't know the precise page but you should be able to find it.

 

i just recently got my macbook stolen from my home too, including the bag along with all the data

 

brainstretch - I'll check it out when I can and definately post what I come up with, if I have trouble finding it, I'll be shooting some more questions back at you. Thanks for the lead though!

wobble987 - I feel your pain, BIG TIME. My laptop was p-word protected, but still they can reformat from the boot and use it like a new machine. Also, I had about 75% backed up on an external drive that was here at home, so I didn't loss a considerable amount of data, and nothing too personal was on there. Still, my loss was $2230 with everything included. Luckily homeowner insurance helped cover some of it, so I was able to buy some things again, including a new laptop.

 

Does your university require registration on the network? At ours, we require all students staff and faculty to log onto the network once every ~6 months. In the process, we match a hardware address with a username, and that information is available when needed.

 

Relativity17 - I know registration is required now, but last semester, w/ my old laptop, all they did was install the wireless profile with a pass word, then I logged in with my school email and password so I could log on wirelessly to the network for internet. I don't live in a dorm so I didn't have to set it up for hardwiring ethernet. With the laptop I have now, I just took it in the other day and had them set it up wirelessly for me as well. So they stepped me through setting up a new network, then when it asked for network password they typed that in. After that, IE showed a page where I had to enter my school email address and pass code and then I was good to go.

The page where I enter my email and password, I guess, would be a way of registering the laptop onto the network. Since I've done it with my new laptop, would that bump out the old laptop's info in the system? Like, canceling it out sort of thing?

 

I can only speak for my school's method of doing registrations online, but we don't care about a single user registering multiple machines on the network - but a record is retained for each one, in case there is virtual foulplay.

I'm betting that if you went through a username/password system before you could use wireless at your school, they at least matched your username to the MAC address of the wireless card. They need some way of identifying your machine as authorized on the network, and they also need a way to assign IP addresses to authorized machines. The simplest thing to do is to grab the MAC address, which every wireless router needs to obtain anyway. Call up your school's networking people and ask for their assistance.

 

Make sure you change all of your passwords of all the sites you visit. Getting by the login script is easy and will have access to all passwords saved on the NB. Start checking all the pawn shops in your area.

On dd-wrt I do not remember seeing a log. But if you used mac filtering it will be in there too. dd-wrt is good about clearing the dhcp connections when they expire. I'm usin it as a AP through the lan port so my main routers is logging everything for me.