Laptop Anti-Theft Devices

mathin writes: "The NYTimes has an interesting article about laptop theft 'alarms' and services to help track down your laptop if it's swiped." Laptops are a lot like bicycles: if you have a 50-pound laptop, it doesn't need a lock.

Comments

Reactive Loss Prevention

[Everach]

The majority of the companies I work with use capital insurance policies to cover the cost of replacing stolen equipment. With the proliferation of anti-theft devices, will insurance companies take the automobile route and provide discounts for using them? Or will they begin to require such devices to provide coverage at all?

Re:The Information can be worth more than the lapt

[Observer]

To make the obvious point, any company that issues laptops to its staff that may be used to store sensistive information but which don't use encryption as a matter of course needs its IT organisation's head examined.

I'm not saying that this is necessarily easy to achieve in a way that the average meeting-going PHB finds usable but which his 13yr daughter can't crack in 5 minutes, but reasonable levels of protection are feasible.

Of course, you have to rely on the PHB not writing down pass-phrases and leaving them plainly visible.

Slight problem

[Beliskner]

When you intend to leave your laptop unattended, if only for a moment, you can "arm" it in any of several ways: by clicking a button, by using a taskbar menu or, if the lid is closed, by tilting it to three particular angles in a specific sequence

Slight problem that makes this useless - you have to remember to arm it, ie. your laptop is switched on, and the battery has not run dry. If you've got to remember to pick it up and hold it upside down you might as well just put it into hibernate mode, it saves power, and let the BIOS password deal with the thief.

The *real* problem is that laptops are stolen when you turn your back for a second because you're thinking of something else (without thinking "I should engage the security device by going dancing with my laptop"). If you are going to walk away from the laptop then *take it with you* or use BIOS-protected APM.

Even if it does work, the thief will know the alarm is activated so he'll pull out his gun and shoot you while he runs away. Or he might shoot you *before* he takes the laptop. I think I'll take the insurance payout instead ;-)