OT: Watch out for your stuff. Keep your information safe and backed up.

[velotrack]

Car broken into today while having dinner after a long day of work. Laptop, bag, and other work-related things stolen, and all these items were in an enclosed hatchback with a cover over it. Came in through the side window of the Prius, then opened the screen to see what was behind it. Took the good stuff. Bummed, as every time I lock my car, I make a full sweep to make sure nothing of value is exposed. :(

Anyways, in the aftermath following, lots of passwords changed, IT at work disabled access to laptop, and the code to my garage has been reset. Police report filed but they won't get my stuff back. I also won't get back a few weeks of work (code) on the laptop that I didn't just save locally. But ultimately I am home safe, sad, but OK.

... so if you're casually browsing the forum right now, or later, and have a minute..

Please back up your stuff. If your laptop is lost and there are recent family photos, links, notes, work -- you'll be happy that you uploaded it to the cloud or somewhere secure.

Depending on where you live, take your stuff with you. I should have done this in Oakland, even though the stuff wasn't in sight, it didn't stop someone from opening the car and taking a look. Sort of like the "if you can't replace it, don't race it", but with personal belongings.

Stay safe, y'all.

[Cicli]

Bummer,

Seems to be a thing out there yesterday. Chad Kanus, NASCAR tuner had his laptop stolen from a car in the bay area yesterday.

Your message is right, secure your stuff.

[Peter P.]

Sorry to hear that. My car was broken into many years ago and the car stereo ripped out of the dash, so I can empathize.

Any idea what prompted the thugs to break a window to enter the car when everything was out of sight? My car is totally empty (except an eyeglass cleaning cloth!) and the rear cover always up so it looks like there's nothing of value. I would expect thieves would not bother because they don't want to make any noise breaking a window when there's no payback.

I agree about backing up files. I'm amazed at the number of people that store everything on their phones or computers and don't back up stuff. My sister's phone was stolen and she lost all her photos. Of course, when I asked her if she backed them up, I got a blank stare...

[sand fungus]

While in the Netherlands we had a group of colleague’s car broken into and all laptops bags taken (including passports) from an enclosed trunk. The police that responded said that it was very common and that the thieves were using Bluetooth sniffers that located a Bluetooth signal from a laptop that was not shut down or one of the phones that was in the trunk.

I don't know how realistic that is but they said it was happening quite often and that the thieves were very good at picking out only the cars with electronics in the trunk. My colleagues had placed all of their stuff in the trunk before they left the office heading to dinner so the thieves would not have known the laptops were there.

Could be a possibility.

[Bruce K]

Sorry to hear this

Good advice

As an aside, Chad Knaus is one of the top crew chiefs in NASCAR. Not sure calling him a tuner is appropriate. Knaus has multiple championships with JJ.

BK

[velotrack]

Thanks all - appreciate the words. I am primarily glad everyone I was with was OK. Things can be replaced.


Any idea what prompted the thugs to break a window to enter the car when everything was out of sight?

The police that responded said that it was very common and that the thieves were using Bluetooth sniffers that located a Bluetooth signal from a laptop that was not shut down or one of the phones that was in the trunk.

I did in fact have a laptop with Bluetooth enabled that was on sleep mode in the trunk. I cannot know for sure that it's the case, but yes, that is a possibility. Someone messaged me on Facebook this morning saying they had found my work ID badge, and that car break-ins are common on that street. His own car was broken into twice in a month, then he promptly sold it.

I would guess my best advice is to take anything of major importance with you, and look for well-lit parking lots/public areas to park the car.

[hobbanero]

I assume my laptop will be broken/lost/stolen at some point and plan accordingly. In my case, I have a 3 tier backup system.

1. Cloud-based services. Primary work files are kept on Dropbox, so they are always backed up. Email is via gmail...again, always backed up. And everythig is available via the cloud if I need to access it.

2. RAID array. My pictures and music live on a RAID array, so a drive failure will not hose me. Connected to a desktop, in this case.

3. Local backup. 3rd tier is a big external backup drive. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup all data every month or so and create a disk image of my desktop.

Even better would be to do #3 to a cloud service like AWS where storage is cheap, so the backup is offsite. In my case, that is a pretty large backup, though Carbon Copy Cloner lets you do an incremental update to keep the data transport down. I do have a device called a SpaceMonkey, which is sort of like Dropbox but you provide the hardware, which provides 1TB of cloud-backed storage, and I drop my music, photos and movies on to that periodically.

In short...everything important can be replaced. Some things quickly (eg. Dropbox), some less so. But I can buy a new laptop and be up and running for most things in less than an hour.

[fogrider]

Glad you're ok, yes, stuff can be replaced. I hate to say it, but this is a regular thing in Oakland. Go down the street and you can see piles of broken glass. keep your eyes open and be safe. if you take your stuff with you, be aware of your environment.

Thanks all - appreciate the words. I am primarily glad everyone I was with was OK. Things can be replaced.





I did in fact have a laptop with Bluetooth enabled that was on sleep mode in the trunk. I cannot know for sure that it's the case, but yes, that is a possibility. Someone messaged me on Facebook this morning saying they had found my work ID badge, and that car break-ins are common on that street. His own car was broken into twice in a month, then he promptly sold it.

I would guess my best advice is to take anything of major importance with you, and look for well-lit parking lots/public areas to park the car.

[FlashUNC]

Sorry you got hit with the Town Tax. Them's the breaks sometimes.

[toytech]

That sucks, I recently lost about a grand worth of car stereo in front of my house, plus another grand or so in damage to my dash. Stock alarm in 04 silverado is useless btw lol.