A friend in Sydney had his laptop stolen last week. I am in Thailand. Last few days "he" is popping up on MSN. Is there any way of tracking location?

Technically yes because he has an IP. But this is where the story might end.

One more idea - you could try to send him a message. Hi (name of your friend). I have the money now. Please give me the data of the bank so that I can transfer the USD 80000. Perhaps he is greedy enough and plays the game. That he is not a good person we know already. But if he is stupid enough it would help to get him.

If he has remote access enabled, can turn on the camera.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/195408/page/1

"A friend in Sydney had his laptop stolen last week. I am in Thailand. Last few days "he" is popping up on MSN. Is there any way of tracking location? "

Do you mean MSN Messenger?

That can be accessed from any computer so are you sure it's really the thief and not actually your friend instead?

Also, how would the thief get the MSN password?

Also, how would the thief get the MSN password?

MSN has auto login

Guess that's the possible. Didn't set that on mine for security.

I don't believe YOU can get the IP from MSN. What you can do is entice the thief somehow to click on a weblink (to a page that you set-upspecifically for this purpose with analytics). If they click the link. just look at the analytics / logs to see what IP he came from. However, now you know what ISP they are using....so what?

Best thing is have your friend simply go to the police, and the police can get a court order for Microsoft to reveal the IP of the thief. Then the police could get a court order to the ISP to reveal further information about the account being used.

Hi.

If the OP is using a router that has a logging function he can just strike up a chat with the target and see in his router's log where that connection went (IP address). Then use a service like www.ip-adress.com (only one "d" is correct) to know where that IP is located and even get a Google-Map image of the location.

Done that myself and worked great

Even if there is no router or it has no logging function i believe even Windows has possibilities to determine what connections were made, if not at least a software firewall such as Zone-Alarm should have them.

Kind regards.....

Thanh

Also, how would the thief get the MSN password?

MSN has auto login

If auto login is enabled the user might be not even aware that the program is running and screaming his presence all over the web!

But then who can tell it IS the thief?

The remote access hint is mega - cool!

Post the user his pic taken with the laptops camera on MSN and tell him to get his act together - otherwise.....

some msn users have their password set as automatically signed in.

"A friend in Sydney had his laptop stolen last week. I am in Thailand. Last few days "he" is popping up on MSN. Is there any way of tracking location? "

Do you mean MSN Messenger?

That can be accessed from any computer so are you sure it's really the thief and not actually your friend instead?

Also, how would the thief get the MSN password?

some msn users have their password set as automatically signed in.

that was posted by farma 5 posts earlier

There is a script/plugin for MSN Plus that will allow you to detect the IP of a remote MSN user.

A few years ago there was something in the settings/options of hotmail whereby you could get a lot of info in the message "headings" including the IP .. .. then you could plug this IP address into a "visual" (with map) trace route and see where it's originating. But not too specific. I traced someone to Nonthaburi for instance. This is also possible now with some other off-line email clients ... i.e. if he/she sends a message to your (other than MSN) email address.

Another way of getting some clues is to simply put the email address into google (or other) search and see what turns up that may be recent (since the laptop was stolen).

But unless the police are involved ... you probably can't pinpoint anything.

Yes ... tricking the thief sometimes works ... sex or money can be good bait.

Try this out. May be this works.

Register with readnotify.com (Free).

Send a mail to your friend's MSN email.

While it shows 'Email' in the messanger if the theif opens that mail, you will get a mail from readnotify from which ip that guy is opening the mail.

Even if he send the mail to someone else or open it somewhere else, everything you will get reported.

He didnt knew this as the mail shows exactly same from your inbox except a small change in the mail source header which normally no one cares!

if you have their ip address you can find their exchange

put ip address in here

http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/

Thanks all for your help. The laptop has been recovered. A friend started chatting on MSN when it came up. The user (a malaysian student) started to tell about this laptop that he had just purchased from a Pizza delivery guy in Sydney. The student revealed all. Consequently a visit to local police in Sydney and unit receovered.... along with an arrest.

The owner is a Thai student in Sydney... and all his course notes (commercial pilot) were on it. Still all intact,