An anonymous reader writes to say that an Iowa City police officer is developing a new concept to help police find more stolen property. The Gazette has a short report that officer David Schwindt, inspired by a forensics class, is working on L8NT , a specialized wireless dongle to help police officers locate stolen electronics (any of them with wireless capabilities and a MAC address, at least) by scanning for MAC addresses associated with stolen goods. The idea is to have police scan as they drive for these MAC entries, and match them against a database. The article notes a few shortcomings in this concept, but does not point out an even bigger one: MAC addresses are usually mutable , anyhow, in a way that's not as obvious as an obscured serial number, and thieves could refine their business model by automating the change.