The hunt has started. The week before spring break, one of BSM’s MacBooks was discovered missing–no one has turned it in and so as a last resort, BSM filed a police report.
Because the lost laptop was a newer version of the MacBook, BSM knows that there is only one laptop cart it could have been taken from and the administration has been working to find out where the laptop could be and has promised minimal consequences to whoever has taken it. “We want to fix two things. First, we want the computer back. Second, we don’t want to mess up a kid’s life,” said Mr. Steve Pholen head of technology.
BSM has the ability to see when the laptop is at school or is connected to the Internet. “We have a management system where laptops talk to our server,” said Mr. Pholen, “[The missing laptop] has now communicated outside of BSM once.”
Fortunately, from the time it was linked to another Internet server, BSM was able to identify the laptop’s IP address, which has been coupled with the other information BSM could provide and basically sums up what the police are now basing their search off of. “We gave the IP address to the police and filed a report,” said Ms. Mary Andersen, the assistant principal.
Because the laptop has been missing for such an extensive amount of time, the administration feels that this case is most likely the result of theft. “We have talked to all the classes [that it could have been taken from]. The student can turn it in, no questions asked,” said Ms. Andersen.
However, based on the fact that BSM has not been able to reclaim the MacBook, the administration has come up with possible scenarios of what might have happened. “It is hard to know, but it either means it has been dumped, just not connected to the internet, or the hard-drive could be switched,” said Mr. Pohlen.
BSM finally took the legal step of issuing a subpoena so Qwest will be able to track where the IP address came from when the laptop communicated from outside BSM. Because the computer with all of the software and programs is worth over $1,000, this case qualifies as a felony.
The administration knows that it was in a residential address and not a business. “If it is not a BSM student, there better be a good explanation on why they have it,” said Ms. Andersen.
