Comments on: Thieves Using Mysterious Gadgets to Find Laptops Hidden in Cars

By: mthigh

mthigh — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:50:08 +0000

I am not a techie type but the lithium theory sounds very interesting

By: Randall

Randall — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:50:13 +0000

This happened to a collegue of mine in London only last week. Loads of other cars were in the car-park… none of them were broken into. His laptop was DEFINATELY off!! The laptop was not bluetooth-equipped.

I don’t think it’s related to lithium… perhaps the wi-fi antenna in the laptop’s lid is always a certain length, and can be made to react to a specific radio frequency?? Or maybe the magnets in the hard-disk can react to VERY sensitive magnetic equipment (but surely the car’s chassis would block most RF/Magnetic signals due to it’s metallic construction, like a faraday cage?)

Steve

By: wally

wally — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 18:12:15 +0000

i’d never leave my laptop in the car. NEVER.

By: steven

steven — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:00:30 +0000

My best guess to this ingenious act would be the thieves had somehow manage to utilize a type of device capable of tracking a signal being transmitted from the notebook. Normally, if the user had only just close the lid of the notebook and if the function is being set to ‘do nothing’ the thives could just capture that signal and just locate the position of the notebook whereabouts.

By: Chong

Chong — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:59:52 +0000

[Comment ID #6789 Will Be Quoted Here]
It seems like the Malaysian and Canadian Police are at the forefront of fighting hight tech criminals.

By: Louis

Louis — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:46:50 +0000

I was told by a police officer in Montreal, Quebec that thieves use Lithium detectors to detect batteries in variour electronics. My father’s laptop was hidden in his van with tinted windows, yet it was busted into and the laptop was stolen.