Re: Police arrest man in bank PC theft

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: Times Enemy <times () krr org>

greetings.

It's a rather dull story, but there is one paragraph which is rather
interesting, for those paranoid freaks in the crowd.  Namely:

"Investigators traced the computer to Krastof when he logged onto his
America Online account at home through one of the stolen computers, White
said. That enabled authorities to connect the computer's Internet Protocol
address, a number that identifies a computer on the Internet, to Krastof's
home address through his AOL account, White said."

Think about that please, for a moment.  The only non-paranoid thoughts i
can have is the computer had some sort of software on it which pulled an
E.T. call home manuever, or acted as a beacon.  Perhaps a vpn application
fired up on startup, or maybe the e-mail client auto-started and tried
logging in.  Other than a few variations of this though, all i can think
of is AOL has some sort of method for identifying each software
installation.  It could be as simple as a cookie, sure, but even that is
perhaps ... icky.

Let me just tell ya, yeah yeah, it's wrong, but if ya steal a computer,
don't connect it to a public network until it's been santized, and even
then...!

*sigh*

Schmuck deserved to get caught.


ciao
.te


> http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-5112193.html
>
> November 27, 2003
> By Reuters
>
> Police have arrested a California man in connection with a burglary in
> which a computer with sensitive information about Wells Fargo
> customers was stolen, officials said Wednesday.
>
> Edward Jonathan Krastof, 38, was arrested at his home late on Tuesday
> in Concord, Calif., the same town where the computer was stolen
> earlier this month, said Concord Police Sergeant Steve White.
>
> Krastof, who works at Home Depot, confessed to stealing the computer,
> as well as another computer and a laptop, after breaking into the
> office of an analyst for Wells Fargo, White said.
>
> Police recovered the equipment at Krastof's home, along with equipment
> used for scanning identity cards and checks, he said.
>
> "He is a low-level ID theft kind of guy," White said of Krastof.

[...]




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