Another stolen camera as been tracked down with CameraTrace. A Canon EOS REBEL T2i valued at $1,500 was stolen February 2011 from Mr. Lee in New York. He used CameraTrace and found several wedding photos posted online taken with his camera after it was stolen. We confirmed that the make, model and serial number matched his camera which were taken towards the end of February, the same month the camera was stolen. Mr. Lee however did not file a police report at the time of the theft “So I just went to the NYPD, and they said they wont help me. After three months it’s considered ‘lost property’, and even though I know and they know it was stolen and I know where it is, they wont do anything. I should have filed a police report! Now I am kicking myself.” We are still trying to work with the NYPD regarding this case and hopefully will get their assistance.

One of the photos found that was taken by the stolen camera

People usually don’t file police reports as they assume they will never see their device again, which was generally true, with a recovery rate of around 3% on average. Burglary is one of the hardest crimes to solve due to the lack of evidence. However, with new technology such as GadgetTrak these odds are increasingly in the victims favor. Before police can act on any evidence that GadgetTrak provides a police report must be filed this is true for all device types. If you have a device stole file a police report!

A Sprint retailer in Coos Bay, Oregon had a problem with theft of their demo units in the past and installed GadgetTrak on all of their demo devices. It did not take long to find see it in action. An HTC Evo phone was cut from its cradle and taken out of the store. Usually that would be the end of the story, as recovering stolen phones is almost impossible to track down without GadgetTrak, as the carriers will not assist and identify if the phone is activated again.

Not only does GadgetTrak provide location information for the phone, but also backs up all data loaded on the phone such as photos and contacts. Many times location is not enough for police to act, particularly as services such as Find My Phone from Apple have been known to be inaccurate, leading police to not trust just location data alone. The thief synched the phone with his contacts and working with the police were able to identify the suspects identity. We were able to identify the suspects parents, tattoo artist, dentist amongst others. The data provided to law enforcement allowed them to quickly identify a suspect they knew very well. This is the second recovery we have had for the Sprint chain and given the amount of thieves that target these stores as more expensive phones are released, it won’t be the last.

GadgetTrak customer Nathan, who attends the University of Colorado in Boulder, lives with several friends in a house. The group went to a concert and came back late one night to discover their house was broken into and several items were missing, including four laptops. Luckily, Nathan had installed GadgetTrak on his MacBook Pro and quickly logged in and activated tracking for his device. Within hours he was receiving tracking reports with photos of a suspect and location information which put the laptop in Longmont, Colorado, about a half hour drive from where the device was stolen.

The Longmont police acted quickly. Using the information provided by GadgetTrak, they were able to identify the suspect and went in with a search warrant this morning. Nathan’s laptop was recovered, the others (which did not have GadgetTrak installed on them) are still missing, however. The police were able to get additional information from the suspect that may lead to the recovery of the other stolen property. The investigation is ongoing.

GadgetTrak customer Jessie had just purchased a brand new MacBook Pro just a few weeks ago at The Mac Store. The sales representatives recommended GadgetTrak and her father insisted that she buy and install it. It was a good thing she did, because just last week the new Mac was stolen out of her car. She logged and activated tracking for the device immediately and filed a police report through GadgetTrak, shortly thereafter the device started sending photos of the thieft and other information back to her. She passed the photos on to the police and they knew who the thief was, as he has a bit of a record. The police went and recovered the laptop and Jessie now has it back in her possession, we received a great email from her thanking us:

Professional photographer recovers stolen Nikon D3 camera using GadgetTrak Camera Serial Search. The stolen camera was tracked down through images posted on Flickr after the device was stolen that were scanned and indexed by GadgetTrak. Police acted on evidence provided and recovered the camera a year after it was stolen.

Professional photographer John Heller experienced the unthinkable while on assignment for Getty Images. His prized possession, a Nikon D3 camera was stolen from him at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. It seemed the camera with lenses valued at over $9,000 was gone forever; gone that is, until just a few months ago when he did a search for his camera on GadgetTrak’s Camera Serial Search. Heller entered the serial number of his stolen camera and found an exact match with several images that were recently posted to Flickr.

Photo from Facebook profile of the stolen camera’s new owner after theft

With the help of police, Heller was able to track the images to another professional photographer through Facebook, who had unknowingly purchased the stolen camera from an individual and even had the receipt to prove it. The camera was returned to Heller and the police are currently investigating the individual whom it was purchased from, the investigation is still ongoing.

This is the first time stolen property has been recovered by tracking the serial number embedded in images. We have also learned that thanks to this recovery, the LAPD is now recommending our tool to detectives and officers in the field.

GadgetTrak’s Camera Serial Search tool is a free service that we developed that scans images posted online and extracts their embedded serial numbers into a searchable database. It allows people to enter the serial number of a camera and see all of the photos that we have discovered that were taken by that camera. To date we have indexed more than 10 million camera serial numbers, making it the largest database of its kind. We have currently indexed all of the photos on professional photo sites like 500px.com as well as all images posted to Flickr from 2006 to the present, with plans to search additional sites in the works.

If you are a reporter and would like more information regarding this recovery, or any of our recoveries, contact us directly at 503-799-8610

Coverage

TechCrunch - Embedded Serial Number Helps Photographer Find His Stolen Camera
Gizmodo - How This Pro Photographer Recovered $9k Worth of Stolen Gear
BoingBoing - Photographer gets $9K worth of stolen camera gear back with GadgetTrak
Washington Post - Embedded Serial Number Helps Photographer Find His Stolen Camera
Popular Photography Magazine - Website Helps Recover a Nikon D3 Using EXIF Data
Tecca - $9,000 in stolen camera equipment recovered through Flickr search

GadgetTrak Mobile Security was installed on demo phones at a Sprint store and is now leading authorities to suspected thieves. The software has provided location data as well as photos of the suspects captured by the stolen phones.

The thieves were able to remove the phones from their secure cradles, the store was able to capture surveilance videos of the thieves in the act.

After the theft the store activated GadgetTrak which provided location of the thieves as they moved to Vancouver, Washington. In addition we were able to access images captured by the phone of the suspects.

In one of the images we were also able to see a temporary permit on the back window and were able to read the numbers.

We tracked one of the phones to an apartment complex in Vancouver, Washington.

An investigative reporter went to the location with the data we provided and found the car thanks to the trip permit in the image.

The police are still investigating the incident, but thanks to GadgetTrak they have quite a bit of evidence in the case and it is only a matter of time before the suspects are identified and brought in for questioning.

Para ler a versão em português, clique aqui.

In June a potentially dangerous carjacking turned into a great recovery story thanks to GadgetTrak. Augusto Eto, a veterinary student in Curitiba, Brazil was driving with his friend in his car when two men with guns approached them and told them to get out. The two men then took the car with everything inside including Augusto’s MacBook Pro which happened to contain the only copy of his final project for his degree. He thought his laptop and school work were gone forever along with his friend’s car, but remembered he had GadgetTrak installed, he went home and activated tracking and notified the police.

Three days later Augusto started receiving tracking notifications along with photos of the new owner. With the information GadgetTrak collected Augusto and the police were able to find the new owner’s Facebook profile, address, work information and other evidence. The police recovered the laptop for Augusto, the person who was in possession of it claimed to have bought it from someone he did not know. The investigation is ongoing and will hopefully lead to the recovery of Augusto’s friend’s car and bring the criminals who robbed them at gunpoint to justice.

Augusto now has his MacBook back and has graduated with his degree and is practicing veterinary medicine. We are glad to see another happy ending and that nobody was hurt during the incident.

====

Português

Em junho, um roubo de carro potencialmente perigoso transformou-se em uma grande história de recuperação, graças à GadgetTrak. Augusto Eto, um estudante de veterinária, em Curitiba, no Brasil, estava dirigindo o carro com seu amigo quando dois homens armados se aproximaram dizendo a eles para sair do carro. Então, os dois homens pegaram o carro, com tudo dentro, inclusive o MacBook de Augusto, que continha a única cópia de seu projeto final para o diploma em veterinária. Ele pensou que seu laptop e os trabalhos para a universidade tinham ido embora para sempre, junto com o carro de seu amigo, mas lembrou que tinha instalado o GadgetTrak . Foi para casa, ativou o rastreamento e avisou a polícia.

Três dias depois, Augusto começou a receber notificações do rastreamento, junto com as fotos do novo proprietário. Com as informações recolhidas pelo GadgetTrak, Augusto e os policiais conseguiram encontrar o perfil do novo proprietário no Facebook, endereço, informações de trabalho e outras provas. A polícia recuperou o laptop de Augusto. A pessoa que estava em sua posse alegou ter comprado de um desconhecido, mas a investigação continua e esperamos que conduza à recuperação do carro do amigo de Augusto, e que faça justiça aos criminosos que roubaram à mão armada.

Agora, Augusto tem de novo o seu MacBook, apresentou o seu trabalho de graduação e está exercendo medicina veterinária.

In October 2010, somebody smashed the front window of Nancy Wiebelhaus’s home in Portland, Oregon, and ran off with three laptops: two MacBooks and a MacBook Pro.

One of the MacBooks was running GadgetTrak. “I bought it because the same thing happened a couple of years ago when we had three laptops stolen. These kinds of property crimes are really, really common in my neighborhood,” says Wiebelhaus, an eighth-grade language arts teacher.

Once activated, GadgetTrak begins tracking location and network information whenever the stolen laptop connects to the Internet. It also captures photos of the person using the device, and sends them to the computer’s owner.

“Over the course of a week or two, I got three videos of people who had my laptop,” says Wiebelhaus. GadgetTrak also sent her an IP address that the suspects were using to go online.

She forwarded the information to Portland Police Department, which subpoenaed the Internet service provider. The ISP identified the customer who had been assigned that particular IP address.

The detective on the case immediately recognized the name of the customer. The suspect was already in jail, having been arrested recently on another crime.

The defendant, Tracy Miller, 48, ended up pleading “no contest” to the burglary. He was sentence to an additional 31 months in prison.

“The software helped in catching the person who broke into my house,” says Wiebelhaus.

Miller reportedly told police that he had traded one of the MacBooks to his dealer for drugs. The whereabouts of the other two laptops is unknown.

( Content from Jeff Bertolucci, PCWorld )

When St. Mary’s College student Michael Kuzmack lost his laptop last semester just before finals, he was crushed. But then he remembered he had software on it - called GadgetTrak - that enabled him to catch the crook. When the thief finally turned it on, the laptop’s camera immediately took a photo of the suspect.

“I was really angry, but then I was thankful that I had indeed installed GadgetTrak … and I got all this information and the chances of recovering the laptop were really good.”

The software also pinpointed his exact address in Richmond. And transmitted the information to Michael’s email. Moraga police were able to zero in, make an arrest, and recover his laptop.

“We’re able to find a GPS coordinate of where the particular person is, get a search warrant, and we’re able to retrieve that laptop, so we’ve had really great successes with some of these products,” says Mary Kusmiss of the Berkeley police department.

We have successfully recovered yet another stolen laptop in our hometown of Portland, Oregon. The laptop was stolen from a residence on New Year’s Eve during a burglary in SE Portland. The owner had installed GadgetTrak on the device and activated tracking, shortly thereafter the software sent a photo of the person in possession of the stolen device, as well as location and network information that helped lead to the recovery and return to its rightful owner.

We have had a number of successful recoveries in our home state and working with the Portland Police has been a critical factor to our success, the responsiveness and increasing knowledge of our software has played a huge factor in these successful recoveries. Thanks to our software and great detective work by the Portland Police we have not only recovered devices for our customers, but also unveiled a whole slew of other crimes, from larger theft rings, identify theft and drugs. The feedback we have received from law enforcement and our customers in these recoveries has also played a significant role in the development of more advanced solutions to recover devices and protect data.

Over the past few months Portland area schools have been victimized by a number burglaries targeting computer equipment. One of the schools had enough and installed GadgetTrak software on a number of laptops. Within a week the school was broken into again, but this time they stole the wrong laptops. The software was activated and started sending photos of who was using the stolen computer and location, with this information the police were able to work with GadgetTrak to identify the location of the device. The police recovered the laptop and identified key suspects for at least four of the school burglaries that have occured over the past few months.

Another laptop has been recovered thanks to GadgetTrak. A Mac was stolen from our customer Kari Hardre during a home burglary along with jewelry, the GadgetTrak software activated and sent location, network data and images of the thief back.

“They kicked the front door in, so I would invest that $50. It’s an investment well worth it,” said Kari Hardre.

A customer who installed GadgetTrak software on his MacBook had it returned to him yesterday. The MacBook went on long journey from Portland to Missouri after the customer’s laptop was stolen from his residence during a burglary.  After a few weeks the laptop connected to the Internet and sent its location and photos of the person using the system in Missouri. Over the course of a few days several photos and locations were captured, as well as the name of the person using the system and other data, all provided to law enforcement.

The laptop exchanged hands a few times with a full audit trail left thanks to  GadgetTrak’s software, which has had a number of successful recoveries over the past few months including one in Brooklyn, New York and another in Oakland, California all of which unveiled larger crimes and theft rings. If you are part of the press and would like more information regarding this recovery including the contact details of the police detectives who worked on the case feel free to contact us directly at 503-799-8610.

The headquarters of a prominent start-up in San Francisco was broken into, seven laptops were stolen from the premises. All of these laptops had security cables attached, however they were quickly and easily cut  and the laptops taken. On one of these laptops an employee had installed GadgetTrak’s laptop security software.  The device owner activated tracking for the device and contacted GadgetTrak. Within a few hours the device was connected to the Internet, the location of the thief as well as a photo of him was taken and emailed to the device owner as well as the Flickr account they had setup.

Using the data GadgetTrak ‘s software provided, the police arrived at the location in Oakland within a few hours and were able to identify who the perpetrator was as well as where he was staying.  Two of the laptops had been sold before the thief had arrived at the location the photo was captured. Using the photo the police were able to identify the person and get additional information regarding the burglary.

“The problem with traditional theft recovery applications has been that it relies only on the IP address, which requires the police to get a subpoena and it can be a long process taking days, weeks and even months. With GadgetTrak’s software we had the location and a photo of the thief immediately, this allowed us to move quickly and within a few hours we were at the location and had the indentity of the suspect” said Detective Marc Hinch of the Oakland Police Department “Having the ability to work directly with the device owner who had access to the data, as well as 24/7 access to GadgetTrak’s recovery team for technical assistance was also a huge help.”

GadgetTrak has recovered a stolen iMac in New York that had GadgetTrak installed. The system was stolen two weeks ago and then connected to the Internet two days ago, the device was recovered this morning.  GadgetTrak’s MacTrak software captured a photo of who was using the system as well as pinpointed the location within a few meters, all of the data was uploaded automatically to the device owner’s Flickr account and email. The NYPD followed up and recovered the system, along with two other stolen laptops from different cases.

The device was tracked using GadgetTrak’s Wi-Fi positioning to a tattoo parlor in Brooklyn, where the iMac and the other laptops were found in a back office.

We received an email from our customer with a photo of him and his recovered iMac, as well as this great testimonial:

” After a previous burglary of my home, I installed GadgetTrak on my iMac desktop, a computer I cherished for its power and sleek appearance.  Sure enough, six months later, I was robbed again.  However, with the help of GadgetTrak and the NYPD, I got my computer back!  Like insurance, this software was something I debated on getting.  When I did, I hoped I would never have to use it and was only buying peace of mind, yet it has proven its value fifty times over.  The police were able to recover two other stolen computers as well.  Words cannot express my gratitude for this genius software. ” - A

GadgetTrak has recovered another stolen mobile phone for one of its customers, this time in Edmond Oklahoma. GadgetTrak Mobile Security was installed on an AT&T Tilt that was given to one of the customer’s children who attends the local high school. The phone was stolen from the student a few weeks ago.

GadgetTrak’s recovery team worked with the device owner as well as the Edmond Police department to track the device down.  The device was returned to its rightful owner this morning.

If you are a reporter and would like more information regarding the story including police report number and contact details for the Edmond police department and detective who assisted the GadgetTrak recovery team please contact 503-799-8610.

View Larger Map

Read more GadgetTrak recovery stories.

“I currently have possession of the flash drive again! We had a visual ID of the individual from the security camera, and the person’s name.  When I first purchased GadgetTrak, I just thought it was cool, I never thought that I would actually have to use it.  Thanks for all of your guidance and assistance in helping me recover my flash drive!”

Sohail - Dallas, Texas

Last week GadgetTrak customer Sohail had his 32GB Corsair Flash Voyager  stolen. He manages technology for a business, and had some sensitive information was on the device, luckily he had GadgetTrak USB installed on it and promptly activated tracking. Within a day he began receiving tracking notifications, the device was connected to the thief’s home computer and accessed multiple times over the next few days.

In addition to tracking data collected from the thief’s residence, additional connections were made from a computer lab at nearby university, over the next few days additional connections were made in other labs, one of which required an ID card to access where a security camera was also present.  The police assigned a detective to the case and the GadgetTrak USB tracking data and other evidence revealed the identity of  the individual who had Sohail’s flash drive, he was confronted by the police and the device was immediately returned.

A customer in Anchorage,  Alaska had his phone stolen, luckily he had installed GadgetTrak Mobile Security on the device.  Today he has his stolen phone back and the mobile thief is behind bars. Here is is his story:

I own an AT&T Tilt. Recently it was stolen, 3 days later the thief was in jail and I had my phone back. I was working out at the Alaska Club and some one broke into my locker and stole everything I had in there, my wallet, car keys, cell phone, and a birthday present that I had bought for my 2 year old son.

Prior to all of this I had purchased GadgetTrak,  and had it installed to my AT&T Tilt cell phone. I had set up the software and everything so that it would alert my wife as well as my more “private” email account when ever it was turned on.

I gave the information to the Anchorage Police Department that I was getting from the phone (via SMS) to my email account, as well as the GPS positioning of the phone, and the APD was able to locate and collect my phone from the thief as well as arrest him. We are now awaiting our court date to finalize the charges. Sadly the APD was not able to recover the birthday present that I had bought for my son, but at least they were able to put another THIEF behind bars where they belong.

According to the thief he had no idea that the phone was being tracked. The APD has linked him to several other thefts from other Alaska Club locations.

The ONLY reason I am endorsing this product is that it worked, I got my phone back, and the person that stole it was arrested.

- Phil (Anchorage, Alaska)

GadgetTrak has recovered another iPod for a subscriber this month with another pending. Mario Xavier in Oregon lost his iPod and had it recovered using the GadgetTrak service last week. Mario was quite surprised when we called him and told him we knew the whereabouts of his iPod. Within 24 hours Mario had his iPod back in his hands and we received an email from him a few days ago “I just wanted to let you all know how glad I am regarding your service. I just got my iPod back and it’s all due to GadgetTrak. Thanks again!”.

We also have another iPod recovery still in progress, connection data was sent to us after an iPod was stolen in a middle school, a police report has been filed with the GadgetTrak data collected. We were able to provide detailed information regarding the whereabouts of the device and who had it, the school administrators and police are investigating further.

Since GadgetTrak launched its patent-pending system for recovering portable electronics last March, we have been happy to report several recoveries for our subscribers. The recoveries that we are able to report on the site are published with the permission of our subscribers, there have been quite a few others in the past few months and not just iPods.

Over the past year we have also made vast improvements to our  GadgetTrak USB software including the ability to get around common firewalls and additional measures to avoid detection on multiple operating systems.  We have also greatly improved our technology to protect our subscribers privacy, such as strong encryption of data sent between the host system and our server.  GadgetTrak now has two patents filed for our theft recovery solutions with more innovative solutions on the way.  GadgetTrak USB is also now being bundled with Seagate/Maxtor external hard drives, providing additional protection for their consumers.

….

With Christmas fast approaching, a lot of people will be getting gadgets for Christmas. Many of these gadgets will be stolen. The recovery rate for GadgetTrak subscribers has been above 90% over the past few months. People ask how did you do it? I will run through two recent iPod recoveries.

Newmarket, Ontario Stolen iPod Recovery

In Nemarket, Ontario an iPod was stolen from one of our subscribers Geoff, who had installed the GadgetTrak USB software on a friends iPod, as he had an extra license. His friends iPod was stolen a few months later.

Geoff logged in and flagged the device as stolen as well as notified us directly. Reviewing the case, the iPod in question was stolen in a high school so we assumed that the thief was a fellow student in the school. After a short amount of time a connection was made with forensic data. With the information provided by the GadgetTrak agent software we were able to work with the school administrators to identify the student who had stolen the iPod, the iPod was recovered from the student and it matched the serial number of the iPod registered with us. The iPod was given back to the owner.

“Great news! We recovered the stolen ipod. The thief was confronted with the evidence, and sure enough, the serial numbers matched. We printed out the GadgetTrak report, and that was just about all the evidence they needed. Just wanted to thank you again for your great service! Apparently the principal, school administrators, advisers, and students are all looking into GadgetTrak after hearing our success story. “- Geoff

Dublin, Ohio Stolen iPod Nano Recovery

Another more recent recovery was in in Dublin, Ohio. A GadgetTrak subscriber Michele, had installed GadgetTrak USB on her step-daughters iPod Nano. On October 18th the iPod was stolen by a fellow student at her high school. The GadgetTrak sticker had been peeled off and the serial number of the iPod was even filed off, however the GadgetTrak USB software gave the thief away.

After talking with the Dublin, Ohio police department we learned that not only was our subscriber’s iPod Nano recovered , but also a large cache of other stolen property. Our subscriber was very pleased with our software and service:

“My stepdaughter got her iPod back today, she said the kid that took it plugged it in and that GadgetTrak saw it and worked with the school. That was AWESOME! You have one very happy teenage girl!” - Michele