[ISN] 'Well-dressed' men return stolen laptop

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Mon Aug 11 2003 - 00:22:28 PDT

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    Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private>
    
    http://www.itechnology.co.za/index.php?click_id=13&art_id=vn20030808134251881C145622&set_id=1
    
    [See http://lists.insecure.org/isn/2003/Aug/0003.html for the first 
    part of this saga, I'm suprised he got it back!  - WK]
    
    
    By Liz Clarke
    August 08 2003 
    
    There was a shared feeling of hopelessness when American Professor Jim 
    Mullins, from Washington University in Seattle, told me the story of 
    how he had been mugged by seven youngsters on his to the International 
    Conference Centre. He was close to tears. I have to admit, so was I.
    
    I felt hopeless, wondering how this professor, who holds key questions 
    to the global Aids pandemic, must be viewing this country. Here he was 
    about to address three thousand delegates at the Aids Conference on 
    the mysteries of this sinister and overwhelming disease affecting 
    millions, when it was grabbed from him.
    
    He, too, felt equally hopeless knowing that the equipment and data 
    taken from him by knife-wielding children represented years of 
    research on this dreadful virus, some of which was cutting edge 
    knowledge, still waiting to be analysed and stored. The possibility 
    was that within hours, much of that information, could have been lost 
    - the laptop sold, the data on disc chucked into the nearest dustbin.
    
    "I am praying for a miracle," he said quietly at the ICC where he had 
    valiantly tried to reconstruct his research presentation for delegates 
    attending the four-day conference.
    
    I told him that there was a remote chance that if we appealed for the 
    return of his goods through the Daily News, we might locate it. Little 
    did I realise that the next 72 hours were to be among the oddest in my 
    life as a journalist.
    
    Within hours of the story being used, I was contacted by two 
    "businessmen" who said they thought they had located the lost 
    equipment. They said they had contacted the police and the US Embassy, 
    without any joy. 
    
    Understandably they were nervous to just hand over the goods, knowing 
    that there was a possibility that the police would think they had 
    something to do with it.
    
    "We came across this stuff and realised that it had something to do 
    with Aids. All we are trying to do is give it back to the right 
    person."
    
    I don't know the names of the people who brought the equipment back, 
    but they were well dressed and polite. 
    
    Suffice to say that Mullins's computer and data arev now on the way 
    back to the States.
    
    "We are really sorry about what had happened to the professor," they 
    said. "We would like him to know that. Crimes like this give our city 
    a bad name." 
    
    You can say that again. As I say it's been an odd 72 hours.
    
    
     
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