The Undead laptop.

The bond of a laptop and its owner and the pursuit of getting it back.

5 min readFeb 5, 2014

How this all started

Last year around November/December my laptop got stolen, I was kinda hopeful at the time since I installed Prey. Weeks pass and still nothing, not even a blank report. Nothing.

I actually forgot about the laptop during Christmas, when I got no response from my laptop, I fully thought that it must have been formatted (Its like sharing underwear! you don’t use another dudes OS). Luckily my main account was locked and some of my things where encrypted, but I followed prey’s advice of creating a extra guest account just in case ☺.

*Laptop is a low-mid range laptop that I purchased for on the go programming.

*This happened in South Africa.

4 Feb 2014.

Sitting down In front of my iMac reading my mail and some HN I get a email out of nowhere from Prey, At first I thought it must be some promotional email. I feel my heart almost skip a beat from excitement as I glance at the subject “[Prey] New report from Steven-skylp!”.

Gotcha!

Then I start looking at the information…

Location

https://maps.google.com/?q=-26.204103,28.047305

That laptop made its way from Cape Town after a house burglary all the way back to Johannesburg. And the best part is that I don’t work too far away!

Picture

Screenshot

Did you see what I see?

lets take a closer look:

what idiot logs into a social media account on a stolen laptop? ANSWER: A special one ☺

Do you see it now? That’s a unusual name. This might make it really easy on me (what idiot logs into a social media account on a stolen laptop?). But as you will see latter there’s more than one using this computer.

So I started with the usual. Google first.

Well you don’t say! I too use facebook and linkedin and Google+!

OK, it’s one step further in the right direction.

So via Facebook we can see where she (assuming it is a ‘she’) works, and that she lived in Cape Town. Funny thing is that’s where it got stolen.

So we know that she has or is pretending to work for Enactus SA as a member of Parlament (wtf?).

Contacting Family

A few people that I work with have tried to befriend her and her family on facebook.

Me? I just send Facebook messages to her and family. No reply so far.

Next step is to send messages to all her available contacts.

Generic message used:

Hi [name],

I am looking for Sinazo's contact details, do you perhaps have her cell number? I think I miss placed her number cant seem to get hold of her?

Thanks!

Contacting Enactus SA

So next is to contact Enactus (http://enactusza.org/) on +27(011)-484-1098. But sadly no ones knows or has ever heard about her? Reception tells me and every one that has so far phoned that she does not work there. I am not a social engineer so I left this one as is. I also left a mail just in case.

To: adminsa@enactus.org (On website near bottom)

Subject: Sinazo Gaxa

Body:

Hi,

We are in search of Sinazo Gaxa is she still a member or employee of Enactus?

Is it possible to get any contact info to reach Sinazo?

Will investigate further. For now I will wait.

Next on the list is SA Hardware. Way too generic I almost don’t think it exists. So does look unlikely that I will phone the right place. I will get back to this one.

Ah! Walter Sisulu University? not getting much from the telephone calls, lets try email.

Lets email them:

To: nsolilo@wsu.ac.za (fount that on the website)

Subject: Sinazo Gaxa

Body:

Hi,

I am in search of Sinazo Makhanda Gaxa, I believe that she did attend WSU around 2010. Who should I speak to to get any information regarding Sinazo?

Who know maybe someone will return a mail? If not I will send this to every account I can find *@wsu.ac.za till I get a answer. Any answer.

A few hours ago I received another report!

Sadly no location services available.

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