Stolen Laptop Alarms

torok writes "Three Engineering students from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada have developed a laptop alarm complete with remote pager that detects if your laptop is being moved and sounds an alarm. The article is a bit sketchy on details, but it sounds like a cool idea."

Comments

Targus Defcon

[nial-in-a-box]

Perhaps not exactly the same, but it's already been done for $50.

Old invention!!

[sysbot]

The idea and actual implementation of the device was done over 5 years ago by some students for the Duracell competition. I don't recall what is it's callled exactly but you can google for it.

Re:Funny story

[hotwheel]

http://www.absolute.com - These guys have a bios based application called Computrace Plus. It performs the functions you described above.

A comp is plugged into any sort of web network after being reported stolen and it notifies the 'mothership'.

They even offer a data erase option that can wipe the drive of sensitive data if the computer has been stolen.

Theft Protection Methods for Linux Laptops?

[wehe]

Almost all available theft protection methods for laptops seem not to be working with Linux. So I have setup a survey of theft protection methods, which work for Linux laptops and notebooks. I hope to extend the survey to protection methods for Linux PDAs and mobile (cellular) Linux phones, too.

Doesn't Fellowes already make one of these?

[Aryeh Goretsky]

Hello,

I saw a similar device for sale as Best Buy from Fellowes called a Mobile Proximity Alarm. From looking at their web site it doesn't seem to have a motion detector, but sets of an alarm if the sensor is moved more than fifteen feet from the base. It cost about $30.00USD.

Obviously, it's hard to compare this against something which only exists in prototype form, but has anyone used one of these? If so, how well did it work?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

i tested the prototype for these guys

[Robbat2]

As an SFU student and somebody that works on the SFU Surrey campus in research, I had the oppertunity to play with the actual prototype that these students put out.

I had my laptop secured with it, to test it out for a day.

Two things with it that I'd like to see rectified:
1. It seemed overly sensative to motions around it, a heavy truck went by outside (~6m away) and it went off.
2. if you use it, you do NOT have any way to cable-tie your laptop to a desk or whatever. yes it could be mutually exclusive, but I think these would be a lot more acceptance of this if you could use it in addition to another device to physically secure your laptop.