Help Solve a Crime (Mystery of Shared Music)

[John_Randolph]

Dear List Sleuths,

I have a mystery that needs to be solved, but I may have accidentally erased key evidence. Any thoughts you might have are welcome!

Here's the deal: my wife and I were gone on vacation. The neighbor's kids (lets call them T and G) were dogsitting. We return, and notice that our i-pod, digital camera, and jewelry are missing.

I then turned on my computer, and plugged in my new i-pod. My I-tunes popped up, and it shows a folder named "G's Music' under Shared.

Not yet having noticed the theft, I think G must have used my computer to share some music, and go ahead and sync it with my new i-pod (aware that this will erase the contents of the old i-tunes). The 'G's Music' folder subsequently disappears.

Now it turns out that there's all this stuff missing, and we are trying to figure out who might have been on my computer when. Unfortunately, without being able to access the G's music file (now gone) I can't remember what was on it, or even prove that I saw it.

What happened? I don't understand 'shared files' well enough to say. Was it:

1) That my computer was somehow mysteriously accessing G's files through a wireless connection? (We're neighbors).

2) That the files were indeed on my computer, but I erased them when I plugged in my i-pod?

And, most importantly, is there any folder where these files (or at least their names) are still lurking, that I could somehow recover now?

Any thoughts you might have on this would be welcome. If we can figure out the playlist, then we can prove or disprove it came from G or his friends, and help figure out just who was partying and stealing stuff in my house while we were gone.

THANKS!

[hayne]

I then turned on my computer, and plugged in my new i-pod. My I-tunes popped up, and it shows a folder named "G's Music' under Shared.
This is standard iTunes music-sharing. See, for example: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/beginners-guide-to-sharing-itunes-music/
iTunes automatically finds other computers on your local network and checks if they are running iTunes and have music to share.

So what that means is that G's machine must have been on the same local network as your Mac at that time. You should check if your Mac is using your wireless network or if you might be accidentally using your neighbour's network. And you should put a password on your wireless network so others (e.g. 'G') can't use your network.

Now it turns out that there's all this stuff missing, and we are trying to figure out who might have been on my computer when.
Perhaps the log files on your Mac will contain useful info - you can easily access them (especially system.log & console.log) via the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities)

[CAlvarez]

You could look in your Airport connection icon and see if the neighbor's network is there, and if you can hop on it. Then you should see their shared music and could do some investigating. This may or may not be illegal, tread lightly.

When you report the theft to insurance and the police, I imagine they will pay the neighbors a visit, no?

[styrafome]

When shared music like "G's music" is connected, you can do a Select All and copy all the info to a program like Excel. But you have to be connected to do that. That's where CAlvarez's suggestions comes in. If you can connect to their network, and G's Music comes back, then you can grab the list.

Before you do this, open iTunes and go into the Preferences and turn off your own iTunes sharing (but leave on the pref to look for other shared music). That way your library won't pop up on their machine when you visit their network.

The Console.log will contain a record of wireless networks you connected to and the times it happened. However, the log gets rotated, so you may need to go into the log folder and uncompress some of the older archived logs from the dates when you were gone.

[ThreeDee]

Always a good idea to have a login password...