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Someone broke in to my home in New York and stole My MacBook Pro and iPhone 5 this weekend. They left other things like my android phone and iPad. It seems they were specifically targeting the Mac.
One of the neighbors had a security camera so we know what the perps look like. We used Find my phone to learn where the it was. (At a home several blocks away)
Anyway to my question, we never saw the perps before, so I was wondering how they knew we had the Mac.
Is it possible that they simply drove by my house and used some kind of device to detect the machine on my network? Does anything like that exist, and if so, is there a way to block this so nobody would be able to see what I am doing on my personal private network?
They likely didn't know you had a Mac. As for the reason they left stuff simply they we're spooked – Ramhound – 2013-09-23T19:14:44.267
1They knew you had a mac because it was sitting there on your desk. As for detecting it, just drive by with a smart phone and look for wifi networks, if there's a wifi there will be a wifi enabled device, possibly a computer. – terdon – 2013-09-23T19:16:49.593
or hack/enter your network and nmap away your OS. but this would be too much "tinfoil hat" – Lorenzo Von Matterhorn – 2013-09-23T19:21:40.077
you don't have an apple brand wifi AP do you? if not, and your wifi is not public, no they could not tell, unless they looked in the window. – Frank Thomas – 2013-09-23T19:22:30.453
Sorry to hear about that, that's very unfortunate. To echo what others say, it's highly unlikely - but theoretically possible even though it would be a decent amount of work. Most robberies are opportunistic. So they may have either seen it through a window or simply an easy way in was exposed (cracked door or window, for example) and they were easy things to grab. – nerdwaller – 2013-09-23T19:24:41.050
@FrankThomas That's incorrect. HeavyD's answer below is correct. Wi-Fi MAC addresses (including client devices MAC addresses) are never encrypted; the first half of the MAC address (the OUI) gives away the manufacturer; and for a high-volume manufacturer like Apple that burns through more than one OUI a year, it could even tell you how recent the device is. Narrowing it down to a particular model is trickier, but not outside the realm of possibility. – Spiff – 2013-09-23T21:01:40.353
@nerdwaller Packet sniffing really isn't that much work. I guess if you've never done it before, it's hard to get set up and running the first time, but once you've done it a couple times, it's very easy to see exactly which brands of equipment are on a given Wi-Fi network, even encrypted networks for which you don't have the key. – Spiff – 2013-09-23T21:04:26.510
@Spiff - You're right, I was too focused on the opportunity of it, it didn't seem like it was likely to me in this case. Wirehsark is pretty dang impressive, and targeting apple stuff wouldn't be surprising since the resale values are surprisingly high. – nerdwaller – 2013-09-23T21:35:22.293
In the future, I always use a tool that will remotely tell me the device's current WAN IP address. Give that information to the police and they can subpoena the ISP, and possibly nab the person at the address the service is registered to. – Moses – 2013-09-24T00:41:23.850
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4oB28ksiIo
– Moses – 2013-09-24T00:45:38.713