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Protect Your Computer From Theft
mirko writes "This story is about Personal Computer Security, it describes an efficient way not to have your computer stolen, even if you let it in front of your home for some weeks (Well in this case, it finally was stolen but its owner quickly found it back). You'll need some concrete and a shovel to have your investment secured, though..." Allright, this is just funny as hell. Enjoy.
Why, quite obviously you've seen the Windows CEMENT page, and you neglected to mention it. ;)
Somebody gave me an old PC-XT. I see this technique as a way to make it lighter.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
check out the rest of the good advice at pccarnage.net.
Maybe Taco can scrounge the net for source and compile his own?
Except that a grammar/spell checker is supposed to find misspelled words and improper phrasing, then suggest the correct spelling and/or phrasing, not the other way around. Can you imagine what a Taco-built spell/grammar checker would do to a sentence like this?
My dog has fleas.
The mind shrinks away from the possibilities.
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"My machine is a real boat anchor."
"Rock Solid Windows NT!!!"
"I've heard of firewalls, but that's ridiculous!"
"Dude, I c4n't haX0r th15 1337 b0xen - i've run ito a wall..."
.. and overheard in marketing: "OK, the Engineering Department has our new machine's specs set in concrete."
C'mon - everybody join in....
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Dude macs are seriously easy to upgrade. You don't even need a screwdriver to upgrade powermac g4 or cube. For the powermac just pull on the handle at the side, you can even open it up when the computer is running (not sure why you'd want to though). Turn off the cube, flip it over, push a button and handle pops out, pull out the 'core' and you can upgrade everything. Plus you feel like you're handling a nuclear reactor which is fun.
Not sure about the imac but it's still easy, and my iBook only took a screwdriver to upgrade. The PowerBook is a bit tough..
Now compare this to my PCs.. I have to unplug everything on my aptiva and pull the cover off the back, I have to rip off the faceplate on my athlon and then unscrew a side panel. On our dell you have to unscrew a thingy and then push HARD on two tabs and slide it forward. All very complicated stuff.
Plus on macs you don't have to screw around with IRQs, most of the hardware just works.
Enough ranting, I just don't like it when people get things that wrong.
After using Macs for years, I recently built a PC and searched long and hard for a relatively inexpensive case that was as easy to work with as my Powermac G4. If you're looking for color cases, check out colorcases.com. The case I ended up getting, though, was the AT900 case from pccase.com because it was nearly completely screwless. It is not ugly-looking but also not breathtaking like the G4's case. It has a great slideout motherboard tray and drives slide in pretty easily. They also have a black version but I didn't think that it would look good because of the white bezels on the drives. It was a really easy case to work with and it shipped quickly too.
I think the box would get torn apart on an early theft attempt, limiting the potential humor. Even better would be a box with several remote control options, such as electroshock antitheft (current running through case), a gyro to make the case bounce (thus scaring the wits out of whoever is carrying it) and maybe silly string from a front panel or something when someone bends down to look at it. A clever person with a couple extra dollars could have a lot of fun with this...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Sure, you can legally do this, but don't expect to ever see your webcam again...
Say no to software patents.
Security through obscenity: Fill the hard drive with pr0n and tip off the authorities when it is stolen
I was taking a swig of brew when I read the hornet line.
I'm now typing this on my emergency backup keyboard.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Macs are already hard enough to upgrade.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
...that "you're a criminal, you're stupid" touch. I'd like to see an extension of the original idea:
Take a nice Dell/Compaq/whoever box from a new PC. (For you computer guys/gals, I mean cardboard box, not the "computer" or "CPU" if I may use your lingo)
Get an old PC, do the concrete trick. Or, go one more and use lead or depleted uranium in lieu of concrete. Place computer in cardboard box and seal box (assuming you can lift the computer... a crane of some sort might be necessary).
Leave box on front porch with note from UPS. Video tape morons as they try to steal it. (You could even contact the police and participate in a massive sting operation). Post videos to website, and proceed to be slashdotted.
My neighborhood won't work for this, so I humbly beg an upstanding member of the community to push forth with these plans and then entertain us all with keen wit (and video evidence).
I don't know about your friend's insurance plan. But the insurance that I have does cover computers . And in the event that a computer is stolen it is replaced by a brand new machine regardless of how old the machine that was stolen.
So if I had a 386 get stolen it would be replaced by whatever computer I want :O) But up to a certain point of course. It will only cover up to like $4k or something. So a Sun enterprise 10k is out of the question.
When I discussed this with my insurance broker he said the reasoning was simply that it would be a big PITA to track down equipment that old.
"Ignorance is bliss" - Sypher in the Matrix
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Garett
A friend of mine acquired a siren/alarm thing that's used in either Finland or Sweden. This siren is used when families are very snowed in up in the hills in their cabins allowing them to be located. These sirens can be heard for five miles or so in the open. Let's just say he rigged a motion type device in his case so that when the case was tilted too far off balance the alarm would come on. Needless to say, this would cause any burgler to shit his pants and probably be deafened to the point of bleeding from his ears. It was a great proof of concept, but he liked to tinker with his box a lot and having accidently set it off a couple of times he removed it.
Seeing this computer in an episode of the Flintstones!
Security through obscurity: Get hundreds of empty cases and leave them on your lawn, camoflaging your one PC that actually works.
Security through insects: Fill it with hornets.
Security through insecurty: Install outlook. Label accordingly, and leave anywhere near the VA linux offices.
"This week, teams, you have ten hours to build a computer casing that can resist our trusty steamroller!"
I'm sure the NERDS would be up for that one!
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
is a good fifty-dollar, two-hundred-pound car radio.
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
Less funny than you think. Appropriately one of the first Beowulf clusters was called the Stone Soupercomputer. Not that they built it out of stone; it was named after the parable of the Stone Soup.
There's an article about it in this month's Scientific American.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
hidden background scripts that run at random times and "phone home", so you get the theif's IP address.
GPS type devices installed somewhere in the computer... connected to the United States' secret orbital bombing platform. You don't get your computer back, but you get revenge.
self-destruct mechanisms... if the computer password is typed incorrectly, the entire computer is designed to destroy its own key components.
Other suggestions?
But besides that, what I have done in my house to prevent some pre-puberty bastard from taking my pride and jow was this;
Picked up a few 486 and 386 computers from a swap meet, I believe I traded a couple 3Com NICs for them.
Placed my main machines inside a closet and ran extentions for the video, mouse, and keyboard to an omnicube to switch between them.
Set the ever so beautiful 3(4)86 boxes in the computer shelves of mine and my wifes desks with an extra one of the floor beside my desk and ran dummy cables to the outlets in the back.
And of course, locked the closet with the main systems in it.
I know this isn't real security, only obscurity, but it does serve it's purpose. I picked the idea up from a friend of mine in Sterling Hts. Michigan who had someone break into his house. They took his 386 and monitor but left his real machine which was locked in a hollowed out filing cabinet sitting next to his desk. Which insurance payed for a new monitor and computer. (wonder if that was legal). But never the less it worked. I on the other hand have two extra large based cooling fans in the closet on thermostats to keep the temp in the closet down. I am running 1 server and 2 workstations, plus a firewall, all hidden in that locked closet.
As of today no one has broken in, and I hope they never do. But while I am at work I have a little peace of mind in knowing I have done what I could to protect what is probably on of the 5 largest investments in my life.