However, the process of determining whether an item has ever been stolen can be laborious and complicated.
Police who believe a car to be stolen can ask an OnStar operator to disable its accelerator, while leaving the steering and brakes in working order.
Stolen instruments can turn up on eBay, at flea markets or be sold privately.
If it is stolen it can then be traced back to its original owner.
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It means that a stolen identity can be used with impunity in cyberspace.
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At www.leakedin.org, which was formed to help people whose information was stolen, you can type in various passwords to see if they were compromised.
If the phone's been lost or stolen, users can remotely lock the phone, forward calls and texts to another phone, send a message to the phone to arrange its return or even remotely wipe all personal data from it.
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In order to prosecute, the police can also try to prove a merchant has knowingly handled stolen metal - but that can be difficult.
It means if the dealer is in possession of stolen goods then he can be prosecuted.
But a digital signature can be stolen or used by somebody other than its owner.
Even small copper parts stolen from outside homes can leave customers without phones.
"If you travel, you know your gear can be stolen, " Mr. Isbell said.
The ease with which small bits of money can be stolen from lots of people makes mobile malware more dangerous.
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Hackers create computer viruses just to wreak havoc on unsuspecting people, and those same types of people can post stolen information anywhere.
They want to erase stolen devices so they can quickly sell them.
PINs and passwords can be stolen, accounts hijacked and money lost.
If a user's device is lost, damaged or stolen, the data can be locked and wiped clean remotely, helping to protect the company's important proprietary information.
If devices associated with the Apple ID are stolen, the owner can execute a remote wipe to prevent their data from falling into the wrong hands.
He writes actual letters, physical objects that can be stolen by someone who does not know how to hack a computer, a novel concept in 2013.
Betting that a new threat will come along, or that market share can be stolen from competitors as demand softens, is no substitute for a real strategy.
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"The unfortunate reality is that everyone loses things, and our devices can get stolen, " Robert Siciliano, an identity-theft specialist at McAfee, wrote in a blog post about the findings.
Whether it is a bank, insurance company, manufacturing firm or any company in any sector, damaging information can be stolen and leaked to the general public and published for immediate access.
"I strongly appeal to anyone who may have bought, been offered, or has knowledge of the whereabouts of these stolen items so we can reunite them with the owner, " said Mr Machin.
That means, Grossman says, that if a user can be tricked into typing just a single letter and tab, all of his or her details can be stolen by a hidden form on the site.
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To make matters worse, technology has concentrated this information in data files that can be stolen in a click: emailed to a personal account by a disloyal employee or copied to a disc in seconds.
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Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute has previously pointed out that a downside to creating an easy access key for the feds, is that an easy access key then exists and can be stolen by hackers.
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Mobile banking is safer than storing wealth in the form of cattle (which can become diseased and die), gold (which can be stolen), in neighbourhood savings schemes (which may be fraudulent) or by stuffing banknotes into a mattress.
"The difference with biometrics and the reason it presents a substantial threat is that if your passport is stolen, the government can reissue you a new passport number and you can move on with your life, " he tells CNN.
If you are an entity with assets that can potentially be diverted, stolen, converted to personal use, or employees that can be corrupted, then you should consider the initiation of a confidential reporting system that provides a method for honest employees to report waste, fraud, and abuse.
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