said by hitachi369 :

That can be even more risky since they can track what letters came from where. Look at subscrips for the same people subscribing to all the mags used. BAMN they have your home address or where ever you snagged the mags from. Much easier than just having a serial # from a printer that you never registered.

said by Cheese :

And I suppose you think they use different fonts, and everything for each customer? I highly doubt it. And anyone can buy the same magazine off the shelf.

said by hitachi369 :

Most criminals are stupid (they are criminals)...

said by hitachi369 :

They subpoena the 3 magazines for there subscription base and find out whom locally has the same 3 magazine subscriptions and fits the given profile.

said by hitachi369 :

No but each will most likely have a different back page, or a different type of paper. From there they can find out that you say used

Good Housekeeping
Playboy
TV Guide

From there they have a tangible lead on how to track you. Most criminals are stupid (they are criminals) and prolly used stuff laying around the house instead of going to 3 different stores to get 3 different mags. They subpoena the 3 magazines for there subscription base and find out whom locally has the same 3 magazine subscriptions and fits the given profile.

said by Thaler :

That's retarded. True, it's probably more likely they'd have those subscriptions, but there's still a chance out there that they might've picked them off the newstands.

Until you can identify a particular magazine (not distribution line, I mean the magazine print #), looking things up this way wouldn't be all that reliable.