Stolen laptop (image zooming)

DJ-99

So I'm sure some of you will remember my thread about having my laptop stolen (yeah I foolishly left it in my dorm, lesson learned). Basically there's some really sketchy stuff going on. I first contacted this craigslist person with a dell inspiron e1705 (same as mine), who gives me this story about how she just moved to manchester, uk from philly (coincidentally, the background of my computer said MANCHESTER in huge print).

Anyways we have some correspondence about buying it until I ask her for the serial number to verify the specs with Dell. Correspondence ends, craigslist listing is removed. 2 weeks later, the listing reappears. Again, I contact the person. This time, I get the same email, but this time from some guy named Walter. Later, he refers to himself as Warren (red flag). The email was verbatem the same as the one from the first lady, including typos and the story about going to Manchester. So basically I have this picture from him, and need to see if I can zoom in on the serial number. It's a low quality picture, though, and I'm not sure if it's going to be possible. Are there any good programs that would let me zoom in and correct the resolution or something? I've tried just regular zoom in photoshop and that doesn't work.

So, I'm not sure if this stolen computer is MINE, but I'm nearly positive it's at least stolen from somebody. Not really sure what to do. I'm going to print out the following emails and take them to the police station on Tuesday.

Oh, also, is there a good, free, reverse email finder? I need to find mary_collins_29@yahoo.com and walter_dykman33@yahoo.com

Hello

Attached you will find the pics with the laptop. I hope you will receive them this time and I hope you will like the laptop.
Like I said, I will cover the shipping fee.
I can send the laptop today and I will pay for the overnight delivery which will get you the laptop in 2 days
Things are very simple and I will help all I can to understand the procedure. Let's take this one step at the time.
The first step would be for you to send me your name and address and then I will take the next step by going to TNT with the laptop and making the delivery arrangements.
After that TNT will send you a confirmation that they have the laptop for you and they are ready to ship the laptop to you. TNT will also check the laptop and send you a full set of specifications for the laptop.
Also you will receive from TNT a set of instructions on how to complete your payment to them.
After you follow the instructions and complete your end TNT will deliver the laptop to you.
After you receive the laptop you will check it and see if it is in good condition and if the specs are as I described. If everything checks out okay you will then instruction TNT that you are keeping the laptop and that it is time for TNT to release the payment to me and the deal will be complete.
If you wish to proceed you need to take the first step and initiate the transaction by sending me your name and address and then I can make the delivery arrangements from my end.
Let me know if I can proceed

Warren

Hello

The laptop is still available. My name is Walter Dykman and I am now in Manchester, U.K.
The laptop is 8 months old and still has 16 months of warranty from the manufacturer.
I have attached some pics with the laptop to this e-mail so you can see the condition of the laptop.
Obviously we need a safe way to complete this deal that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after.
I have found a way for us to complete the deal safely and fast, and in this way you will receive the laptop in less than 3 days, if you move fast as well. The solution is provided by a worldwide delivery company called TNT. TNT is similar to Fedex, DHL or UPS and they will provide assistance in hadling the payment and delivery of the laptop.
With this procedure you will have the change to test the laptop before I receive my payment.
The procedure is explained on the TNT webpage and please click on the link below to the TNT website to see how we can complete the deal safely and fast directly from the website of the company.
www.tnt.co.uk/country/third_party_service.html
Like I said, I will pay for a 2 days delivery so you will receive the laptop right away.
Let me know what you think.
Walter

Hello

The laptop is still available. My name is Mary Collins and I am now in Manchester, U.K.
The laptop is 4 months old and still has 20 months of warranty from the manufacturer.
I have attached some pics with the laptop to this e-mail so you can see the condition of the laptop.
Obviously we need a safe way to complete this deal that will allow us to make sure we receive what we are after.
I have found a way for us to complete the deal safely and fast, and in this way you will receive the laptop in less than 3 days, if you move fast as well. The solution is provided by a worldwide delivery company called TNT. TNT is similar to Fedex, DHL or UPS and they will provide assistance in hadling the payment and delivery of the laptop.
With this procedure you will have the change to test the laptop before I receive my payment.
The procedure is explained on the TNT webpage and please click on the link below to the TNT website to see how we can complete the deal safely and fast directly from the website of the company.
www.tnt.co.uk/country/third_party_service.html
Like I said, I will pay for a 2 days delivery so you will receive the laptop right away.
Let me know what you think.
Mary

This is clearly some kind of scam, so if anybody wants to weigh in on it that'd be good too, but really what I need is to zoom in on the picture I have to try to see the serial number.

Thanks for any advice.

Obs

Give me the picture.

DJ-99

It's on the white thing towards the top left. Should be 7 digits.

embrik

Unfortunately, no amount of Photoshop wizardry is likely to bring out the number on that. FYI, however, the S/N is on that thin, vertical white sticker, not on the MS Product tag. The service tag and the express service code are both on there.

Grimm

I would take what you have to the police. Even if it isn't yours, its a good bet it was stolen from someone. And if police get involved and can track this guy down, who knows, maybe it will turn out to be your laptop.

Raere

Sorry dude, I tried every resizing and sharperning tool in the book, nothing even close to being readable. I feel for you, I wish it was magical like in the movies. Good luck.

Obs

Excellent. It has a barcode.

If we can get a proper imaging on the barcode we can extract the number from it.

Obs

The black lines are definate lines, it's the thin black ones that you have to look for. Basically you go examining the three images carefully pixel by pixel looking for gradient patterns. If a thin black line IS present, the space will look different from if it wasn't, and that is hwo you know.

At some point, you will have ot probably create some test barcodes and test them at this same resolution to see if any of them match the patterns here.

Then, when you have the sequence you have to find the formatting for the barcode and run it through different formats to see if they produce any information.

Obs

Now that above method could prove mildly difficult, but you do have an important piece of info, the original serial number.


It is possible that we can convert the serial number back into barcode format, then estimate the distance the laptop is from the camera (we can do this because we can determine the approximate size of the laptop itself from given information then use the shadows from the powersupply cable and the size of the image to determine the angle and distance), and take another picture of this barcode we make. If the barcode we made from your serial number matches the approximate pattern of the one in that picture we probably have a match, or atleast a warrant to continue further investigation with the above message.

meatflower

Just trying to help here, I scoured eBay for e1705's with good pictures of the bottom to see if I could find an example barcode to work off of. Might help in reconstructing the allegedly stolen one from CraigsList.

Here's what I found:



Hope it helps.

DJ-99

Oh, ok, so that's where the service code is. I guess there's a different 7 digit number on the top left. Well the number I know is the one on the thin vertical strip I guess, because it's the one I got from the Dell website. I'm going to the poice on Tuesday with all this information, so I'll see how that goes.

Thanks for all the help so far. It'd be great if I could help bust this guy, even if it's not my laptop.

Obs

Man what, the serial is glared out completely then

DJ-99

Yeah I know, I can't tell if that's just coincidence or if it was intended that way.

So, realistically, is there a way to find out where these emails are coming from?

If I could prove that they're coming from philadelphia as opposed to from England, that would help a lot

Kewop Decam

something tells me the person may know you and your e-mail address. Try getting a different address and maybe getting someone in another state to buy it.

I dunno, probably drastic seeing how it could also not be yours

Aldo

By now I would just go to the police, they're the ones getting paid to do this sort of work, you know?

Kewop Decam

Aldo wrote: »

By now I would just go to the police, they're the ones getting paid to do this sort of work, you know?

Police will take forever to look into this. They have bigger things to worry about.

My brother is a cop and the shrug their shoulders at a lot of things because the money and effort to fix some problems isn't worth it.

With that said, try the police anyway. But you have no real proof that it's stolen or even yours so, they probably won't pay it much attention.

TrippyDK

My only concern is that image is swiped from somewhere on the internet. Theres no guarantee that that picture is one of the actual laptop. It could just be another part of the scam

Aldo

Kewop Decam wrote: »

Aldo wrote: »

By now I would just go to the police, they're the ones getting paid to do this sort of work, you know?

Police will take forever to look into this. They have bigger things to worry about.

My brother is a cop and the shrug their shoulders at a lot of things because the money and effort to fix some problems isn't worth it.

With that said, try the police anyway. But you have no real proof that it's stolen or even yours so, they probably won't pay it much attention.

Tell 'em you suspect a laptop you saw on the internet is stolen, share the e-mails and link to the auction and continue your own research? Maybe I've seen too much movies, though.

meatflower

Get a new email, wait for them to put it up on craigslist again. Offer to buy it. Try to pick it up locally.

If they agree, get the cops to go with you along with proof of ownership.

Of course this solution is far too simple and they'd never agree to it.

Carnivore

meatflower wrote: »

Get a new email, wait for them to put it up on craigslist again. Offer to buy it. Try to pick it up locally.

If they agree, get the cops to go with you along with proof of ownership.

Of course this solution is far too simple and they'd never agree to it.

Do this.