Friday night, Steph and I were hanging out with good friends in downtown SF... ironically enough, watching blockbuster car heist movie Fast Five. Around midnight, we headed back to our car and found that our car had been burglarized... both of our laptops were gone, along with a number of other random things the thief must have thought were valuable or resalable. No sign of forced entry. The police mentioned that Honda Accords were often burglarized since thieves sometimes use a 'master key' that unlocks all doors for a particular car-- they case the area and strike.
Two homeless guys witnessed the whole thing, but the thief was nonchalant enough that they just walked right up and looked like they owned the car. We got a physical description: 5'10" caucasian/latino man in a baseball cap going from the club at 111 Minna to another down the street. It happened just 45 minutes before we got back to our cars.
Both Steph and I were shaken a bit. Neither of us had ever really been the victim of a crime of this magnitude before. The worst was that Steph lost a hard drive that contained years and years of her past writings, photos and memories. The rest may well be covered (*crosses fingers*) by my renter's insurance policy, but TBD.
We headed to the police station immediately to report it and file a police report at South Station. The officer was helpful and polite, but didn't hold out much hope for us.
I *did* install Prey, an open source spy tool for exactly for tracking down laptop thieves. I flipped it into "Missing" mode and hoped the thief would slip up. By the morning, we had a few reports from the software. Steph and I sprung into action. But it looks like we're dealing with pros here -- or at least not complete amateurs. Unlike Joshua Kaufman's successful recovery of his laptop from a thief in Oakland, the thief was smart enough to block the webcam...
That was all we saw. We did, however, track him/her to this specific location in San Francisco, just blocks from Civic Center BART in the Tenderloin. The address was 280 Golden Gate-- at least on the map, it looked like it was a deli of some sort... but we arrived to see the deli closed and boarded up. Above the deli was a seedy San Francisco SRO motel, and the track went cold. The cops shrugged their shoulders but were sympathetic. Not enough info to track down the thief. They advised us to just keep watching the software to see if we could catch the thief in the open.
Unfortunately, the suspect must have wiped the machine, or just hasn't used it since. The homeless guys who witnessed it told us that the laptops and various things were probably all sold by the next morning, each for about $100-200. "Anything for a crank fiend to get a fix," they said.
I've pretty much given up any chance at recovering our stolen stuff at this point. We've been trying to look at the bright side -- we've learned some lessons, we're alive, we're safe, and tomorrow is a new day.
A few straightforward lessons that I hope you can benefit from:
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THE CLOUD
Use Dropbox, Backblaze, and make sure everything is backed up to cloud. Your data isn't safe unless its in the cloud. It's 2011 -- you have no excuse. -
TIME MACHINE
Invest in Apple Time Machine or other backup tools -- for anything larger than what you can place in the cloud. -
FIGHT BACK
Install Prey or Hidden, no matter what. It might just let you get your stuff back and get justice. Maybe. -
YOUR CAR ISN'T SECURE
Never ever store anything of value in your car AND trunk. Assume your car has no locks and is accessible to thieves. I had always assumed it was perfectly fine to throw valuables in the trunk. I know better now. -
PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Thieves may steal your identity if they've got all the info stored on your computer. If you're a victim, sign up for free fraud alerts. You could probably skip LifeLock and the like; according to Consumer Reports, the Fair Credit Reporting Act states we get the benefits of these services for free. -
GET INSURANCE
Boy was I ever relieved to know I had renter's insurance. I picked it up last year through GEICO, which resells Assurant Renter's insurance. I'll let you know later with a strong recommendation if the claim goes through smoothly.
Stay safe, friends! An ounce of prevention here is worth... well, in the case of data, once it's gone, there is no cure.