Stolen PC Page
The Thief that got caught in (on) the Web.
There is a lot of talk about crime on the Web. Most of the time it is related to some
scamster selling a re-wrapped fraud. However, once in a while the Web actually prevents
crimes, as shown here.
On Wednesday, August 6th, my PC was finally hooked up to the 'big pipe'. A cable modem
was installed to connect to the Roadrunner
Internet service. Nice stuff. So I had to find ways to fill the newly found bandwidth.
What' better to do that than live video? I went out and bought a little camera and installed CamShot, a little Web-Camera server.
What do you get all the toys for? My initial thought was to use it for video conferencing
with my parents back home in Germany. However, what do you get all the toys REALLY for: To
show them off! So I did next day (Thursday, August 7th) at work. What a show off:
Somebody was actually in my apartment looking at my computer! I did save the image at work
and called the landlord. He did not know what apartments his people where working on. I
did see the guy leave without taking anything. So I stuck with the maintenance theory.
Nothing else happened. The first one way video conference went great (my mom liked the
vacuum cleaner I left in the room by accident).
Things got worse on Tuesday, August 12th. I get home and find my apartment broken
into. What a bummer! My computer was gone! I called police and the landlord. Luckily I had
a printout of the image from Thursday with me. My landlord recognizes the Ex maintenance
guy Alan Bartoli. He was fired two weeks ago and had no business being in the apartment
the day the picture was taken. Another tenant did see Alan in the building around the time
the computer was stolen. To make things worse: Al had a prior conviction for burglary and
was out on parole.
As police got to my place, they liked the image. Was the first time (for them at least) to
have a burglar caught by a PC camera over the Internet. They went to arrest Mr. Bartoli.
He got lost in different stories but has as far as I know not confessed to anything yet.
Police did not find any of the computer equipment at Al's place and assumed that he sold
it the same day.
Things got even better on Saturday, August 16th. A detective working on the case came by
to have a look at some stuff he had in his car. It was my computer! They found it behind
Alan Bartoli's brothers house. Everything was complete and did look ok besides a few
scratches.
Now frustration started. Police had to keep the stuff as evidence. I had to work extra to
recreate the most important data I lost knowing that it was all sitting 'downtown', well
guarded. On Tuesday, August 26th, I was able to talk to the DA and have him
release the equipment. I was in a scramble since work had piled up. I usually have my
computer do some ray tracing for work during the day while I am at work. I was missing the
extra processing power.
I did pick up the stuff the same afternoon, plugged it in and everything was working fine!
It was working all day today (Wednesday, August 27th) computing x-ray optics
designs like usual without any problem.
Last thing I heard: Alan Bartoli has plead guilty to attempted burglary. He is expected to
be sentenced to 5 years.
Planning to setup your own security WebCam? Drop me
a note if you need help.
Johannes.
