technical question about static ip addresses

i sold a laptop a few months ago. upon shipping the laptop, the buyer claimed to never have recieved it. i launched an investigation with the usps and they concluded that the laptop is lost, so i must file a claim to recover the insured amount.

long story short, i suspect the laptop was stolen internally by the usps because someone smart put together that the declared item was worth more than i could insure it for.

i used this computer on my home network and id like to know how to go about identifying its ip or other hardware specific info that will allow me to pass enough info onto local law enforcement in order to track it down.

if i can determine where it is, i might be able to recover it. it is an hp envy 17, but computrace/lojack was not installed on it.

 

Short answer: You can't unless you have Anti-Theft software like Computrace installed on the laptop.

IP addresses is related to the internet service/router/network and has nothing to do with the laptop itself.

Tracking a MAC address (hardware level) is useless because the MAC address information cannot be passed through a router or ISP.

 

thanks for the response. now, are serial numbers and mac addresses logged by the manufacturer ? if law enforcement gets involved, are they able to find a specific mac address even though it is not being logged by an IP ?

 

You would have to find the laptop before law enforcement could verify a serial number.

Unless you have something accessible online, that will uniquely identify it, it's gone. If you had a VPN or a dynamic DNS system installed, maybe but even then it's difficult. You won't catch it with the mac address alone.

Always over-insure, it's cheap.

 

Let it go, it wont be traceable.

 

Yea, take the loss man...You really can't do much of anything. You win some you lose some. Just look @ my Sig.

 

thanks guys. at this point i will no longer be using USPS. it is obviously an internal theft because i declared the value of the laptop and model, which is more than double the max insurance they offered me.

short of trying to sue the USPS in federal court, maybe the congressman and senator can help me, so i wrote them about it.