What you lost when your laptop was stolen: 1. Privacy 2. Data 3. Hardware I'd say those are in ranked order. 1. Your privacy in relation to the data on tha

What you lost when your laptop was stolen: 1. Privacy 2. Data 3. Hardware I'd say those are in ranked order. 1. Your privacy in relation to the data on that laptop is gone. 2. He's offering to return the core data back to you. If your laptop is anything like mine, the value is in the data. You have a means to get it back, so get it back! 3. The hardware is fairly unimportant comparatively. With that out of the way, the returning of your data to you will create an interesting dance between you and the purchaser of stolen goods. If you just want the data clean and then to move on with your life, just do as the thief says, get your data and go buy another laptop. If you want to turn up the volume on this, start thinking up methods of doing the data exchange that'll expose the thief's location. Here are my ideas, none the less: 1. The thief knows what time machine is and got your email out of your data. Based on this it seems a self installing lowjack.dmg on a keychain drive is unlikely to work. If discovered, you just lost all that data. You lose the moral high ground just by trying it. 2. Were you pulling any kind of network/voip log files into time machine regularly? Perhaps on start up your time machine would have pulled identifying information from the laptops new location. 3. Reddit style email header trace. That's really taking the gloves off. If/when you are able to get the data, I have a suggestion and a story... In college my girlfriend (now my wife) was a DC intern and had her cell phone stolen. Its been a while since it happened and some of this is likely embellished from re-telling. Back to the story...her reaction to this was to wait a day, call the cell phone and ask the person who answered if she could speak to the lady of the house. She got handed over to the thief's mother, who agreed to meet her in the park to return the cell phone. Telling no one about this, the next day she solo's into the park, gets her cell phone, has a heart to heart with the thief about stealing and returns to work. This path of actions is, of course, insane (and awesome). The moral of the story though is IF you get the contact information, don't both with the thief because they've already said strait up that "Berating me for my actions is useless." Instead, give that thief something to answer for next Thanksgiving. Shame is often felt by proximity, so call in the mommy air strike. Good luck. Be safe.