Berkeley Recovers Stolen Laptop PC contained personal information on thousands of grad students. Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Friday, September 16, 2005 Campus police at the University of California, Berkeley have recovered a stolen laptop that contained personal information on more than 98,000 of the school's graduate students. The laptop's hard drive had been wiped clean of information and then sold on an Internet auction site, making it impossible to determine whether the sensitive information it had contained was ever accessed, the University said in a statement. Potential Victims Told Advertisement The laptop was stolen on March 11, after being left unattended in the school's Graduate Division. As a result, U.C. Berkeley officials began sending letters and e-mail notification to the 98,369 graduate students and applicants whose names and personal information had been stored on the computer. Many of the laptop's files contained sensitive information like birthdates, addresses, and Social Security numbers, in addition to names. California law requires that such efforts be made to contact those affected in data theft cases. In late April, Berkeley retained PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit the way the school handles sensitive material, and is now evaluating how to implement the audit's recommendations, said Janet Gilmore, spokesperson for U.C. Berkeley. Even before this theft, the California State University system had been working to encrypt data on its laptops and portable devices, a policy that was spurred by similar data thefts. Last September, one of the state universities lost a laptop hard drive containing sensitive information on 23,000 students and employees. Tracking the Laptop About a month after the theft, an unidentified woman sold the laptop to a San Francisco man, who then sold it on eBay to an unsuspecting South Carolina resident, Gilmore said. That San Francisco man, Shuki Alburati, was arrested on June 8 and charged with possession of stolen property, Gilmore said. That case is pending, she said. By the time it was recovered, the computer's hard drive had been wiped clean and outfitted with a new operating system, making it virtually impossible to determine whether the sensitive information had ever been accessed, Gilmore said. Gilmore would not say how the police managed to track the laptop to South Carolina.
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UC Berkeley

San Francisco police have recovered a laptop stolen on March 11 from the University of California, Berkeley. The laptop was left unattended in the Graduate Division and contained personal information on 98,369 graduate students and applicants going as far back as 1976. This information included names, birth dates, addresses, and Social Security numbers.

The Silicon Valley forensic lab which analyzed the laptop said it had been reformatted, making it very difficult to determine if the data had been accessed. "There's nothing in the Police Department investigation that points to any type of identity theft or credit card theft" said university spokeswoman Janet Gilmore.

The laptop was stolen by an unknown woman, who sold it to Shuki Alburati, who sold the laptop to an unsuspecting South Carolina man.  Shuki Alburati was arrested on June 8 for receiving stolen property; he has been charged with one misdemeanor count. 

He claims he didn't know the laptop, a new IBM X40 worth $2,429, was stolen. He purchased the laptop from the woman, who said it wasn't stolen, for $300 or $340. A few days later, on April 19, he placed the laptop on eBay. The winning bidder was a man in South Carolina  who bought the laptop for $1,195.50. Police have said this man is not a suspect. Police were alerted by IBM after the man called IBM for tech support.

Shuki Alburati has pleaded not guilty. He claimed "It's unfair, I didn't know it was stolen." His trial is scheduled for Sept. 30 before Superior Court Judge Michael Gaffey in Oakland. The woman who stole the laptop has not yet been found.