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So I was at the receiving end of a burglary last year. The wife woke me up because she heard something. And in some sort of half-sleep/half-awake state, I stormed down and charged at the two guys that were riffling through our possessions.

Thank god I live in Europe so burglars aren't armed or anything. They ran away to the front door and tried to escape. I ran after them and when they were opening the front door, attacked them. At some point during the pushing and shoving, I woke up and thought -- what the fuck do I actually care?

So I said "okay guys, let's stop here. I haven't actually seen your faces and I'm not looking" (I started staring at the floor) "and I don't really care, just take that stuff and go". They took off and I called the cops. They took fingerprints and stuff but never caught them.

They took an iPad, a MacBook and some money. I remote-locked the iPad, and realized I had Prey running on the MacBook. I switched the MacBook to "lost mode" but one year later, it appears they formatted the drive before connecting to the internet. The files on the MacBook weren't encrypted, the iPad was.

Lessons learned:
- I got most of the value back through the insurance
- Install Prey or some other remote locking software stuff
- Don't go and fight burglars, it's not worth it

How do I prepapre for the theft? I have Prey installed https://www.preyproject.com/ , and leave the machine unlocked and unencrypted. When it was stolen, the police arrested the thief within 90 minutes of him switching the machine on. (This works, of course, becase thieves are not smart.)

For really confidential stuff, we have other secure machines and procedures. The notebooks are for daily work.

Does that make Prey https://www.preyproject.com/ illegal? It has the ability to take pictures with the camera, upload files, take screenshots, and geolocate. Wireshark, similarly, can be used for significant malicious intent. As can lock picks.

Mere possession of tools should not constitute illegality. Intent to use such tools, at a minimum, should be required. Most countries agree with regards to lock picking laws--computer programs should be no different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Liability should be placed on those who installed his software without permission on a computer they didn't own. The author should not be liable, unless the author himself installed the software without permission on a computer he did not own (or wrote an algorithm that performed such actions).

Prey is great. It is more effective than "Find My Mac" and runs on may platforms, including most Linuces. :-) Android, MacOS and iOS - besides teh usual vanilla from Redmond.

http://preyproject.com/

From the FAQ:

Can Prey be removed by a thief?

Not unless he has your administrative password.

And what if he formats the computer?

That's a different story. We encourage you to add a BIOS password and disable booting from removable devices on your PC, so that the thief will be forced to boot into the previous installation and thus, not be able to format your hard disk easily.

If you have a Mac, there's a firmware password utility on your Tiger/Leopard Mac OS installation DVD (look for it in in Applications/Utilities). On OSX Lion you'll find the utility by booting from the recovery partition.

Apologies if this sounds like I'm some sort of shill, but I'm not. Just a happy customer:

http://preyproject.com/

* Free and open source
* Completely passive
* If the laptop is reported missing (and has net access to know this), Prey will report its geo-location via Google Maps, take passive captures of the user with the laptop's webcam, take screenshots of their activity, and if necessary completely lock down the computer (though you'd normally do this manually and as a last resort - once locked, the thief will probably ditch it very quickly). Does other things as well.
* Works on Win/OSX/Linux/iOS/Android

* Allows you to run it in two ways:
1. Make an account on the website, install the software and link it to your account, so that should your laptop go missing you can report its absence via the site and it'll do its thing once the laptop goes online elsewhere. Free accounts all you to link up to 3 devices, pro accounts allow more in addition to more features, but you'll easily be fine with a free account.
2. If you want to be completely independent, you can run Prey stand-alone. No account needed - it works by monitoring for the existence of a URL when online, and if said URL reports a 404 error, it triggers and sends reports via email. Hence, you set up some free hosting with a dummy file, point Prey to the full URL of said file, then if laptop goes walkies, remove the file from the host to trigger Prey. No reliance on accounts or anything. Bit much for a regular user but easy enough for advanced users and not dependent on a company for the software to keep working.

That might be the first thing you would do. Thieves often aren't techies. They'll just boot it up and see if they can get it to work, and then pawn it or sell it to someone else.

If you want to be able to track your machine after it is stolen, just make sure it is easy enough for anyone to get to a web browser (easy-to-find guest account with restricted permissions, but can still connect to the local wifi?). Then run some software like Prey. If you have sensitive data, encrypt it but make sure the machine is still bootable.

A plethora of solutions already do this, without the overhead of reinventing the wheel. Check out http://preyproject.com/

http://preyproject.com/download

http://preyproject.com/

In regards to Prey, the big difference is people CHOOSE to install it, knowing the risks and concerns. Making a kill switch mandatory is just stupid. Prey is even available for smartphones: http://preyproject.com/blog/tag/mobile .

"I'm sure that with everything we've learned recently regarding the Government and phones, there's no way this could -possibly- be abused!"

I agree with the sarcasm. Kill switches are a horrible idea. And completely unnecessary.

For example, have a look at The Prey Project. This is a good example of a secure means by which an OWNER can track, and even get screenshots and camera shots from, a stolen device.

Why "kill" a device when you stand a good chance of getting it back? Killing it does nobody any good, and has lots of quite horrible abuse potential.

With that said - check out Prey if you haven't heard of it already: http://preyproject.com/

Pretty handy stuff for handling a situation where your gear gets stolen.

http://preyproject.com/

I have Prey running my my phone for this reason. You can also install it on your laptop. There are quite a few interesting stories about people recovering their gear by using the utility. It's totally worth checking out.

If anyone else knows about other similar tools, I'd love to hear about those too.

http://preyproject.com/

Mike

This type of service could be particularly useful if packaged along with some anti-theft software. For example, services like Prey already take pictures using their application on the device, but if combined with the ability to create a 3D model of the environment this could be even more useful in tracking down your hardware's location.

http://preyproject.com

From the site:

Prey lets you keep track of your laptop, phone and tablet whenever stolen or missing -- easily and all in one place. It's lightweight, open source software that gives you full and remote control, 24/7.

Of course you should take as many steps as possible to ensure you DON'T need to do damage control, but if you, Prey or something like it could be invaluable.

On their how it works page it is described as being Silent but deadly. Therefore I can only assume it stinks.

Of course you should take as many steps as possible to ensure you DON'T need to do damage control, but if you, Prey or something like it could be invaluable.

On their how it works page it is described as being Silent but deadly. Therefore I can only assume it stinks.

Of course you should take as many steps as possible to ensure you DON'T need to do damage control, but if you, Prey or something like it could be invaluable.

My experience is mostly with the cameras. I've got a home "peek in" setup using cheap trendnet cameras. They've got some nice upside. The mjpeg image stream is easy to break out and put into a quick HTML page, they're cheap, they're reasonably reliable. The downsides are they're activex heavy for things like motion capture, and they're only 640 x 480. The overall trend with netcams seems to be cheap = 640 x 480, if you want megapixel, you're going to have to overpay.

In my setups, i completely ignore the prepackaged multi-camera monitoring software. It's crap from trendnet, and it's crap from most anyone else. I've tried Zoneminder, but it didn't like my cameras or the low horsepower box i gave it to run on. YMMV. For me, I say break out the java / whatever applet with a little HTML copy and paste and roll your own look-in. For monitoring I do scheduled records and motion triggered FTP uploads. Any NAS you buy will have an FTP server, and you can put the NAS wherever you want. One nice thing with the netcams is that you can usually turn the status LED on or off manually. Some of my cameras are off, but the ones covering entry points I make sure to leave on and blinking. I figure your eyes are drawn to light and motion. Someone sees the light, then sees camera and decides "mmmmmaybe the house next door is a better option....."

For the "real" security system, just buy one. It's easier to explain to your homeowners insurance, and you really have to balance out the whole "your time and effort vs. paying for a service" metric. You can roll your own, but the over the counter solutions and monitoring with a name brand can trump the solution you put together. There's nothing that says you *have* to buy their camera system, or put *their* monitors on all of your doors.

For your stuff (computer related anyway), PREY is the bomb. Easy to install, configure, runs on any desktop or most any handheld OS, and it's FOSS.

But at the end of the day, your stuff's still gone. Sorry. Your security system, at best, might help catch the assholes before they hit someone else. The MO, In our neighborhood anyway, seems to be that a couple guys come in from out of town. They stay with friends for a month or so, and stake out neighborhoods. They hit a few houses in a couple different neighborhoods over a couple weeks then *poof*. Back from whence they came, ready to fence stuff a couple hundred miles away that's already fallen off the local cops radar.

http://preyproject.com/
"Prey lets you keep track of your laptop, phone and tablet whenever stolen or missing -- easily and all in one place. It's lightweight, open source software that gives you full and remote control, 24/7. "

Oh and the code is open, so if you want to add a more complicated "bricking" capability you could.
https://github.com/prey

As parent says, Prey project is a must in any laptop. Since nobody posted it here's the link [preyproject.com].

That's http://preyproject.com/ !

The Prey Project is a free solution that probably does everything your commercial solution does, and more, except for the "working directly with police departments", which, in most parts of the US today, I would not trust anyway.

So, for your NEXT laptop, try this:

http://www.preyproject.com/

It's an open source tracker (with the obvious caveats that come with tracking software), but the nice thing is, you can point it to a server you control, rather theirs if you so choose. My MBP was stolen from my car (wife didn't know my bag was in the back, parked the car at a hotel lot. One busted window later....), and a very similar one (missing the extended power cord that I still had no less) showed up on craigslist a couple days later with a weak story behind why it was being sold. I told the cops, but local cops wouldn't go out of jurisdiction without better proof, the local (to seller) cops wouldn't show without better proof, and the state cops weren't going to get involved over the value. They said if I could prove it was mine (by buying it back) they could prosecute.

Sadly, a $1500 laptop, even though you may consider it "your life" just doesn't make the police drop everything. Your best bet is to be able to overwhelm the police with evidence, and prey will help you do that. In the end, the lesson is that your data comes first (back it up early, often, and everywhere), your safety comes second (if you want to get it back face to face, bring a weapon and be prepared to use it. and I don't mean show it off like a hollywood badass. I mean take another human beings life in exchange for the laptop you already planned on getting rid of in three years, or get shot yourself), and your hardware comes third. Anyone that's committed themselves to stealing isn't going anywhere in life anyway. Odds are they're not going to live to a ripe old age where they can regale their grandkids with tales of snatching bags. Live and learn, even if it enables the assholes of the world.

OK, assuming there is cause and pupils were informed of the possible violation of their privacy by the kit they carried home, the question is then why so many images were taken - all you need is a face shot and a location for evidence - even Prey doesn't collect more than one image per report.

The next question is why that data was not erased when it became clear what sort of images were collected - its not the sort of data a school should have, not to mention the fact that this sort of stuff requires police involvement to preserve the chain of evidence.

I have two more: Permissions denied from the busybox dev and prey for when I lose my phone.

Does anyone know of any drawbacks to installing Prey?

It looks like you have to pay for a subscription if you want access to the good features.

http://preyproject.com/plans#pro-account-features

Anyone have luck with IP tracking software designed to do this like: http://www.laptoplocator.net/ and http://preyproject.com/

it is called Prey and it is designed to help recover your stolen laptop. http://preyproject.com/ good luck in your search. on other price of advice full drive encryption http://www.truecrypt.org/ and bios boot password make it as hard as possible for them to profit from the theft. I even go so far as to remove the OS license sticker on the bottom(saving it at home in a file for my future reload needs). that is just my $0.02. once again good luck.

Maybe I'm paranoid. Or maybe I just really want to reign hell down on whom ever steals my laptop.

First, most thieves are dumb, they're not going to wipe it. They're going to sell it as fast as possible to get cash.

All of this is free and open source and should work on Mac and Linux, not sure how to create services in Windows.

1) Prey Project. An OSS theft recovery tool. Uses google geo location, web camera if it comes installed.
2) AutoSSH. I have an autossh run as a service that creates a link between my home router and my laptop. ssh -R 2222:127.0.0.1:22 home.example.com. So no matter where I leave my laptop, if it can get out to the internet, I can ssh into it from my home router.
3) OpenVPN. AutoSSH * 10. No matter where my laptop is, it IS no my home network. Leave it at a friend's house.
4) Keylogger. . I have a launchd (cron) set up to sftp me the log every day and then restart the log.

So now I know: 1) Where my laptop is and possibly have a photo of who is using it. 2 & 3) Can access my laptop and play fun tricks 4) Know exactly what said person is up to and when they login to gmail, facebook, etc. I have their passwords.

Sadly my laptop hasn't been stolen yet.

They've enabled locations in HTML5. I was playing around with "Dive into HTML 5" and for fun clicked on the "Locate me". It was dead on. Even though I was going through a Proxy server (so I know they didn't find me through IP). Scroll to the bottom, it's "A complete live example"

Prey Project using it as the geo locator for theft recovery. I've had Orbicule's Undercover for a while, and they use Skyhook. Prey Project is 100% open source (all bash scripts more or less) and digging through they're using Google's location APIs to locate devices.

So basically Google now has a 'sky hook' type service that anyone can use for free. Not just that. Every single smart phone that doesn't have GPS built in, now has a 'near location' enabled. Meaning that google can provide location based results even without a GPS.

GPLv3 tracking software Demand opensource! Demand that these school districts spy on their students only using free as in speech software.

I've seen both commercial and open source webcam enabled anti-theft software advertised for personal use: Prey

I don't know the software well enough to know how it is designed and marketed for business/institutional use. How many of these programs can capture full or stop-motion video.

This strikes me as a minefield for both the developer and his clients.

I use Prey from http://preyproject.com/ to track my computers in case they are stolen.

Does anyone know of a better product?

I'd like to put a similiar product on my iPhone. Any suggestions?