Re: [CNN] Stolen Laptops and lame 'solution'

> How is the buyer responsible even indirectly?
> 
> Someone puts an add in the paper NEC Laptop $1,500. I go and check it out
> and buy it. Should it be my respocibility to call NEC over in Japan and
> 
> If anyone is responcible for the theft other than the theif is the person
> who was so carless with their equipment.
> 
Legally Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) and the courts willl find you 
responsible for being in possession  of stolen property.  If you 
purchased the unit from a storefront or a person selling the unit 
from their home you could deflect responsibility to those parties.  
I would suspect most stolen units are fdisk-ed,  re-formatted, and 
moved a minimum of a state or province and then sold through brokers 
who operate through a pager or cell phone.  The units are sold 
probably more in the range of $600 to $700 CAN Dollars for 486 color 
units and abit  more for Pentium units.  The brokers may offer the 
unit through an auction.

At this point the buyer should start to suspect something is not 
right, the units are too cheap and all the proprietary drivers have 
been removed.  The reason given is that they are being disposed of by 
a large corporation and it is policy to erase all data.  No manuals 
or documentation are offered with the unit.  Normally when you 
purchase an unit from the original retail buyer manuals and 
documentation and extras would be included with the unit and the 
seller would probably be willing to show you the bill of sale.  Would 
you buy a car from a seller offering no documentation or proof of 
ownership.

It is tough to take the argument that stolen notebooks are the fault 
of the victim seriously.  Notebook thieves can be pretty 
enterprising.  They walk into offices dressed as maintainance people, 
buy pass keys from the real maintainance people and go through every 
office.  A friend had a notebook taken from a locked office in a 
supposedly secure area, no signs of break and entry so no insurance 
coverage and there were notebooks and computers taken from three 
locked offices in the middle of the day.  So in this case it was my 
friend's fault for doing business in a shared office environment 
where someone had sold a pass key to the thief??  

If there was no market for stolen notebooks thieves would not steal 
them as there would be no gain.  In my experience most people selling 
merchanise of doubtful origins are not sophisticated, ask lots of 
questions and their stories quickly fall apart.  I have walked away 
from many deals when the origin of the goods were not clearly 
explained and I would suggest you do the same.

Virtually

Raymond Mereniuk
Raymond@wcs.net

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In <199706120120.SAA05683@mat.wcs.net>, on 06/11/97 
   at 07:02 PM, "Raymond Mereniuk" <raymond@wcs.net> said:

>> How is the buyer responsible even indirectly?
>> 
>> Someone puts an add in the paper NEC Laptop $1,500. I go and check it out
>> and buy it. Should it be my respocibility to call NEC over in Japan and
>> 
>> If anyone is responcible for the theft other than the theif is the person
>> who was so carless with their equipment.
>> 
>Legally Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA) and the courts willl find you 
>responsible for being in possession  of stolen property.  If you 
>purchased the unit from a storefront or a person selling the unit  from
>their home you could deflect responsibility to those parties.   I would
>suspect most stolen units are fdisk-ed,  re-formatted, and  moved a
>minimum of a state or province and then sold through brokers  who operate
>through a pager or cell phone.  The units are sold  probably more in the
>range of $600 to $700 CAN Dollars for 486 color  units and abit  more for
>Pentium units.  The brokers may offer the  unit through an auction.

They will be sold at whatever the market will bear for used equipment
regardless of how the equipment was obtained. Usally the person who steals
the equipment will not be the one selling it to the general public so any
discounts because the item is "hot" are usally gone before it get's to joe
sixpack.

>At this point the buyer should start to suspect something is not  right,
>the units are too cheap and all the proprietary drivers have  been
>removed.  The reason given is that they are being disposed of by  a large
>corporation and it is policy to erase all data.  No manuals  or
>documentation are offered with the unit.  Normally when you  purchase an
>unit from the original retail buyer manuals and  documentation and extras
>would be included with the unit and the  seller would probably be willing
>to show you the bill of sale.  Would  you buy a car from a seller
>offering no documentation or proof of  ownership.

There is no comparison between the two. For better or worse there are
state madated ownership papers for autos. I can see that you have not
spent much time in the used electronics market. Equipment may change hands
multiple time over a period of years before it finaly reaches your hands.
It is common for the seller not to have any documentation or recipts for
the equipment. To use your comparison you wouldn't expect the owners
manual & receipt from the dealship when you went to buy a '65 F100 would
you?

>It is tough to take the argument that stolen notebooks are the fault  of
>the victim seriously.  Notebook thieves can be pretty 
>enterprising.  They walk into offices dressed as maintainance people, 
>buy pass keys from the real maintainance people and go through every 
>office.  A friend had a notebook taken from a locked office in a 
>supposedly secure area, no signs of break and entry so no insurance 
>coverage and there were notebooks and computers taken from three  locked
>offices in the middle of the day.  So in this case it was my  friend's
>fault for doing business in a shared office environment  where someone
>had sold a pass key to the thief??

No it was his fault for leaving the security of his property to someone
else who obviously has some rather poor security policies. I have wore out
more than 1 credit cards getting into locked offices because the key was
not available. The you have those that think a locked door is secure when
there is a 3' drop ceiling that anyone can use to climb over the door
with. If that had been $5,000 cash rather than that laptop I bet your
friend would have thought twice of leaving it in that room. 

>If there was no market for stolen notebooks thieves would not steal  them
>as there would be no gain.  In my experience most people selling 
>merchanise of doubtful origins are not sophisticated, ask lots of 
>questions and their stories quickly fall apart.  I have walked away  from
>many deals when the origin of the goods were not clearly  explained and I
>would suggest you do the same.

Bah this is just bull. The purchaser of used equipment is not looking for
stolen equipment. The market is for inexpensive used equipment which
theifs take advantage of. This is an important difference to make. The
amount of stolen equipment in the used equipment market is quite small.
The end buyer should not be held responcible for the illegal activities of
the seller.

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
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On Wed, Jun 11, 1997 at 09:37:42PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
[...]
>The end buyer should not be held responcible for the illegal activities of
>the seller.

Regardless of responsibility, if the original owner can prove it is
stolen goods, the end buyer is out of luck -- clearly the original
owner should get their goods back.  And if the end buyer provably has
clear knowledge that it is stolen property, they are an accesssory to
the crime. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

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In <19970611223934.43941@bywater.songbird.com>, on 06/11/97 
   at 10:39 PM, Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com> said:

>On Wed, Jun 11, 1997 at 09:37:42PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>[...]
>>The end buyer should not be held responcible for the illegal activities of
>>the seller.

>Regardless of responsibility, if the original owner can prove it is
>stolen goods, the end buyer is out of luck -- clearly the original owner
>should get their goods back.  And if the end buyer provably has clear
>knowledge that it is stolen property, they are an accesssory to the
>crime. 

I have no problem with the original owner getting his property back though
a reasonable statue of limitations should be set (7 yrs?).

Well "clear knowledge" is a rather tough one to prove and brings you into
gray areas of "well he *should* have known it was stolen" type of logic.
IMHO any criminal prosecution should be based on additional evidence other
than just possesion of the property and the word of an admitted felon (ie
the thief).

- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail.
OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html                        
- ---------------------------------------------------------------

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