Posted by jeremylindsey on May 5, 2020, 1:16 am, in reply to "Re: IP Checking"
The IP address is assigned wherever they are. So a laptop isn't going to have the same ip address whereas it's connected to house A with 123.456.123.456, it get stolen and someone connects it to their wifi it could have an ip address of 567.890.567.890, and you have no way of knowing what that new ip address.
IP addresses above are examples. Actual IP addresses only go up to 255.255.255.255
If you had the serial number, filing a report with your local PD and hope that if they try to pawn it off they check the serial number and discover it is stolen or if the thieves are caught and they find a whole bunch of loot and the laptop is with it. Otherwise, You're pretty much out of luck.
There is a somewhat alternative roundabout method however. If you had certain services like drop box, gmail, etc that logs your ip address, and those are accessed or loaded when the computer starts, you might be able to get an ip address, but not a physical address. But if the thief is tech savvy, they can just do a factory reset. There is also something microsoft introduced in 2015 called Find My Device. But it comes turned off by default and you have to specifically enable it. If you do manage to get an ip address of the last place the laptop was used, chances are too, police don't give 2 shits and aren't going to bother getting a warrant to the ISP to find out who that ip address was assigned to at a certain day and time.
on May 5, 2020, 1:16 am, in reply to "