# Find a Lost or Stolen Laptop



## shark2234 (Dec 2, 2002)

This is more of a curious question if anything... If for any reason i lost my laptop (which would be very traumatizing) and i could not find it i know if i have a network mac address on my network card and someone outside of a firewall try to connect to it with a possibly with some luck, lots of luck i could find where it has gone to maybe a network name or workgroup name or something of that nature. However this is the question does a modem have any kind of address so when someone dials from the specific modem it will have it's own address. If you can find this is this the same kind of address how you would find a regular network address. Also is there any program that you know of hopefully "free" that i can put on a computer that if anything happened to my computer i could find it easier..... However the main question i want to know is though does a modem get a address of any kind?

David Wenger


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## david_hadas (Dec 16, 2002)

No. Modem does not have a MAC address.

Don't worry, you cannot find the MAC address unless you are one in a million.

You could place on your laptop any number of programs that wil be used to he;lp you trace but only if the person stealing decides to be stupid enough to connect you lap to the network without formating it first.


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## shark2234 (Dec 2, 2002)

Yea i understand what you are saying however if i copy down my mac address even if they do reformat that mac address is going to stay the same on the network card it doesn't change that i know of when you reformat. However how hard is it to find if you did have the mac maybe referring to it wrong the hardware address of the network card to locate it.

David


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## david_hadas (Dec 16, 2002)

No way. 

looking for your MAC in the Internet is like looking for a niddle in a ..


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## $teve (Oct 9, 2001)

i used to have a program that would e-mail you with the phone number and location as soon as the stolen comp was connected to the net......cant remember what it was called,it was a few years ago,it conflicted with other stuff so i had to take it off but it was a good idea.


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## david_hadas (Dec 16, 2002)

Only if the person stealing you lap is:
1. Smart enough to find the On/Off key
2. Smart enough to connect your Lap to the Internet
3. Stupid enough not to format your laptop before connecting to the Internet or taking some other steps. 

I think most thefts are done by persons not qualifying to 1. 
Other thefts are done by those seeking for other benefits than the cost of the hardware and they normaly do not qualify to 3.


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## shark2234 (Dec 2, 2002)

A little confused with that however it don't matter if they reformat the harddrive or leave the harddrive the way it is not like if it's stolen on say a college campus it's still going to have the same hardware address if that matter anywhere the hardware address sin't going to go anywhere no matter what and secondaly the serial number isn't going to change either. so if you format or not format it's not going to matter either way.

Dave


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## david_hadas (Dec 16, 2002)

Right. 

Almost, most network cards drivers use the hardware MAC adderess and the MAC will stay the same. (few allows changing - never seen one on laptop though). 

buts still, a MAC address is impossible to track on the Internet unless it is "on campus"...


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