It hurts when you are the victim of a theft of personal property such as your phone or laptop being stolen. The number of apps, documents, pictures, music etc basically we store our entire lives on these devices. Not forgetting to mention the money that was spent in purchasing these devices. So is there a way or are there ways of recovering stolen smart devices?
Here a re-post from lifehacker on how to recover your devices using your IP address.
Track Your Device's IP Address with Gmail or Dropbox If your laptop or smartphone was stolen, you can use a service like Gmail or Dropbox to find the IP address of your thief. When you log into those services from any computer, it logs the IP address used, and displays your last used IP in your account. In Gmail, it's in the bottom right-hand corner under "Details," and in Dropbox, it's in Settings > Security under the details of each individual computer.
If the thief used your computer, the last logged IP address may be theirs instead of yours. Again, though, if they're smart, they didn't use your computer and this trick won't work. Use Dropbox to Locate Your Lost or Stolen Computer If you've put off installing anti-theft software like Prey for so long that your laptop gets…
Read more Of course, knowing their IP only gets you so far. You'd still have to file a police report, send a subpoena to that IP addresse's internet provider, and find out where they're located, which could take a long time (one reader told us it took him a month to go through the process). We've had readers email us with success stories using this method, but they are few and far between. Whatever you do, don't try to track the thief down yourself and get your gear back. That could lead to all sorts of trouble.
Track Your Android Phone with Plan B
If you have an Android phone running 2.3 or lower, previously mentioned Plan B is a pretty cool option. You can install it remotely from the Google Play web interface, after which it will start tracking your phone. However, if your thief has turned off the device, turned off internet connectivity, or wiped your phone, you're completely out of luck, and have no way of tracking it. Plan B Locates Your Lost or Stolen Android Phone, Even If You Didn't Install It Beforehand Android: If you ever lose your phone and don't have a contingency plan in place, you can…
Read more Sadly, there is no equivalent for the iPhone, since you can't remotely install apps on iOS. Whatever You Do, There Are No Guarantees In the end, there's a good chance you'll never see your stuff again, even if you did install tracking software beforehand (though there are quite a few success stories out there). If the above tricks don't work, you can file a police report and give them your serial number, but there's not much you can do beyond that.
How I Got My Stolen Laptop Back Within 24 Hours Using Prey Last weekend, my briefcase was stolen out of our vehicle while it was parked outside of a Bed & … Read more We can't stress this enough: the best way to avoid this situation is to take precautions ahead of time: install software like Prey, LoJack for Laptops, or Find My iPhone. Keep your gear with you at all times. Make sure your doors are locked. The best way to keep your laptop in your hands is to prevent it from falling into others' in the first place. After someone steals it, you're riding on luck.
Sincerely,
Lifehacker
Source: Lifehacker
