"Wow. Okay. So I've confirmed with both the hacker and Apple how this happened. Was via a phone call to Apple tech support."
There should be enough of a trail to track down the hacker and have him charged, right? The call to Apple would be logged by at least the telephone company, wouldn't it?
You subpoena the phone company for that kind of information when terrorism is involved. This is more like having your bicycle stolen. There is not going to be a CSI team, fingerprinting, detectives, interrogations or high-speed car chases.
Apple's call center probably has the CLID of the caller logged, but equally probably that person called from a prepaid cell phone.
There is not going to be a CSI team, fingerprinting, detectives, interrogations or high-speed car chases.
Sure, probably not from the police. But I will put down the rest of my year's salary that Apple will be investigating like all hell how this happened and taking all kinds of steps to make sure this never happens again. Whether or not it actually will is a different story.
In my country police put out unlocked "bait bikes", walk away, and then arrest anyone who takes it. Then they show the footage on the news. Sometimes the plain clothes police officer hasn't even left the camera frame and someone is already on the bike riding off. If they'll spend resources doing that (which I think is good) then they should spend resources catching someone that maliciously destroyed a year's worth of laptop data. If he was a developer and his code was on that laptop, at $150 per hour, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 52 weeks the financial cost is much more than a bike. Sure the victim should have a backup, but an eggshell skull is no defense.
There should be enough of a trail to track down the hacker and have him charged, right? The call to Apple would be logged by at least the telephone company, wouldn't it?