Stolen laptop: follow-up?

[Chris Brooks]

Yep, it happened. I was up teaching a class and some low-life went into my office, unplugged my (own) Dell laptop, and took it.

The campus police took down the info, but what else should I do? Should I call Dell with the Service tag number?

Our IT guy mentioned something about a "Mac address"? and doing a "ping request"? Can anyone enlighten me about what these are?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

[Will Holtz]

Dell does have a database for tracking stolen computers. You can actually submit your info through their website.

MAC address is a unique identifer number that is assocated with the networking hardware on the computer (ethernet port or wireless). 'Ping' is a command for seeing if a computer with a certain MAC or IP address is currently connected to the network. Not all network routers support pinging with MAC addresses, so this option might only be effective withing your campus network.

You should be able to get your MAC address from Dell. Then I'd go back to your tech guy and ask him to try to ping it.

[Ray Minich]

Inside the Network Interface Card is a chip with a unique identifying number on it. That is the MAC address. The NIC in your laptop will have this number and it should appear nowhere else in the world so the books say. The MAC address is the base level piece if information that lets your NIC appear uniquely on the internet. It's what correlates to the IP address you use when on the net. If your laptop is on the net somewhere, it may be locatable using the MAC address.

[Chris Brooks]

Thanks, Will and Ray. I'll follow up on your suggestions.

Chris