Berkeley professor spooks laptop thief

Kye-U · Apr 21, 2005

UNIVERSITY of Berkley professor, Jasper Rine, has a really good way of dealing with students who nick his lap-top - he scares the shite out of them in front of their mates.

Rine, who is a professor of Genetics and Development, ended his lecture by telling his class that someone nicked his laptop.

He told them that the kid was probably after an exam paper so that he could cheat in a forthcoming test.

However, what the student didn’t know was that Rine works for all sorts of nasty government agencies, who are dead keen to throw the book at the tea-leaf.

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Read more here: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22686

Another article: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/20/berkeley_laptop_thie.html

Yet another article (with Transcript): http://blastradius.blogspot.com/2005/04/world-of-pain.html

Transcript said:

"Thanks Gary. I have a message for one person in this audience - I'm sorry the rest of you have to sit through this. As you know, my computer was stolen in my last lecture. The thief apparently wanted to betray everybody's trust, and was after the exam.

The thief was smart not to plug the computer into the campus network, but the thief was not smart enough to do three things: he was not smart enough to immediately remove Windows. I installed the same version of Windows on another computer - within fifteen minutes the people in Redmond Washington were very interested to know why it was that the same version of Windows was being signalled to them from two different computers.

The thief also did not inactivate either the wireless card or the transponder that's in that computer. Within about an hour, there was a signal from various places on campus that's allowed us to track exactly where that computer went every time that it was turned on.

I'm not particularly concerned about the computer. But the thief, who thought he was only stealing an exam, is presently - we think - is probably still in possession of three kinds of data, any one of which can send this man, this young boy, actually, to federal prison. Not a good place for a young boy to be.

You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I'm a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet, the NIH investigates these things through the FBI, they have been notified about this problem.

You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company, the largest one in the country, which I consult for. The Federal Trade Communication is very interested in this. Federal Marshals are the people who handle that.

You are in possession of proprietary data from a pre-public company planning an IPO. The Securities and Exchange Commission is very interested in this and I don't even know what branch of law enforcement they use.

Your academic career is about to come to an end. You are facing very serious charges, with a probability of very serious time. At this point, there's very little that anybody can do for you. One thing that you can do for yourself is to somehow prove that the integrity of the data which you possess has not been corrupted or copied.

Ironically, I am the only person on the planet that can come to your aid, because I am the only person that can tell whether the data that was on that computer are still on that computer. You will have to find a way of hoping that if you've copied anything that you can prove you only have one copy of whatever was made.

I am tied up all this afternoon; I am out of town all of next week. You have until 11:55 to return the computer, and whatever copies you've made, to my office, because I'm the only hope you've got of staying out of deeper trouble than you or any student I've ever known has ever been in.

I apologise to the rest of you for having to bring up this distasteful matter, but I will point out that we have a partial image of this person, we have two eyewitnesses, with the transponder data we're going to get this person."
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Audio clip of Lecture here: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/20/berkeley_laptop_thie.html

Notok · Apr 21, 2005

Wow, lol, yeah.. I bet that's a mistake that won't happen again anytime soon..

solarpowered candle · Apr 21, 2005

well he could probably retire for life with that kind of information that the professor just provided him with without having to sit an exam or go online

Paranoid2000 · Apr 26, 2005

Update:

Redfaced professor made up scary story

Kye-U · Apr 26, 2005

Well that sucks.

Despite all the exaggeration, and threats, the thief has ignored Rine and has kept his laptop.
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Good for him, he deserves it.

BlueZannetti · Apr 26, 2005

Kye-U said:

Good for him, he deserves it.
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Well, not really. Don't forget, the laptop was stolen. Regardless of the lame nature of the prof's attempt to recover the laptop, it's ridiculous to even jokingly imply the thief deserves to keep his ill-gotten goods. The thief deserves to be expelled at the least, assuming that he/she is a student.

Blue

Longboard · Apr 27, 2005

Agree, that theft is theft and property crime is not victimless.

This apparently well known and respected teacher has made a massive goose of himself all over the web.

What's the bet the Laptop is wide-open Windows box.
No encryption?? No password protection??
Super sensitive data being carried around and left with easy access for a thief?

Bet his employers are pissed off.
Reminder to us all to be careful.
Reminder to the Prof's employers not to let their sensitive data wander around in somebodies "back pocket"; might fall out !!

A friend of mine says that one of the most dangerous tools around at the moment are flash drives. 2 or 3 minutes alone with somebody's data base and bye-bye.

How paranoid is too paranoid?

Regards

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