Looter traced by spy software, Facebook ID

James Delahunty
16 Aug 2011 9:04

Logging into Facebook on stolen Macbook Pro is a bad idea!
Information security professional Greg Martin, who formerly worked for NASA and the FBI, had his Macbook Pro stolen in West Kensington last week. He had been staying at his girlfriend's house due to troubling occurrences near his home.

Martin had previously installed open source tracking software on the Macbook Pro (http://preyproject.com) and flagged the laptop as missing within Prey.
"Almost two weary days had gone by and I'm at dinner on a business trip in Luxembourg and I received an email which nearly knocked me out of my chair with excitement," Martin wrote on his blog. He then went back to his Hotel room and changed the frequency of reports from the stolen device to every five minutes.

"After two hours hours of watching him surf religious revelation videos, shopping for Mercedes A class on autotrader he finally popped onto facebook," Martin wrote. He went on to gather a treasure trove of information available to him, including the suspect's name, school, address, IP address, ISP, wireless ssid and Facebook profile. He took the information, along with snapshots from the webcam, to the Metropolitan Police.

Upon receiving the information, Met Police raided the home of 18 year old Soheil Khalilfar (pictured), and charged him with handling stolen goods. He will appear in court this Friday.