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

I go to Simon Fraser University

[Zork the Almighty]

... and if I hear one of these going off during a test, I'll find the engineers and beat them up!

Re:I go to Simon Fraser University

[nial-in-a-box]

How true though. Honestly, do we need another car alarm type of device? I live in a very high density urban setting, and we are plagued with car alarms constantly. As my uncle once put it, they are the most ignored (yet annoying) sound in America. The police only care about them because of the noise. I am willing to wager my life on at least 99% of the actual, real-world car alarm soundings are false alarms of one sort or another. And I'm not just talking about worthless (except for car finding for the inept) panic buttons. We're trying to deal with air pollution, we're looking at light pollution, now let's save our ears with less noise pollution. Please!

Damn laptop alarms

[Anonymous Coward]

Like car alarms, I'm sure that laptop alarms will prove to be an important tool in the war on theft... not. This is going to be annoying as hell.

Re:Damn laptop alarms

[nodwick]

The creators say exactly the same thing:

The beauty of the electronic beast, according to Mitchell, is it allows the laptop owner to be mobile, which is, after all, the whole idea of laptops. There are few false alarms because of the deactivating device and the distance required between the laptop and its owner (about 15 feet) before the gizmo works.

"There are lots of systems out there that have just a thing that detects motion, so it blasts a siren just like the car alarms that no one listens to these days," said Mitchell.

What they don't say is how their device solves the problem. As far as I can tell, when it goes off, it still makes the same annoying sounds.

I disagree that loud laptop alarms won't be effective because they're unnoticed -- after all, the places they'd be used would most likely be study areas or libraries, which are typically very quiet. A 105 decibel alarm in such an area would certainly get people's attention. The problem is that it'd be terribly obnoxious as well. Personally, I think if someone did use one of these somewhere like a library, it'd work great scaring off the would-be thief but not so great against the subsequent mob coming to bash it into silence with textbooks and binders ...

Re:Damn laptop alarms

[nial-in-a-box]

Projections and claims of low false alarms are most assuredly false themselves. Pretty much everything any product developer/manufacturer says is an exaggeration. We all know this.

Re:Damn laptop alarms

[daveo0331]

I disagree that loud laptop alarms won't be effective because they're unnoticed -- after all, the places they'd be used would most likely be study areas or libraries, which are typically very quiet

Unfortunately, a lot of laptop theft happens in really noisy places like airports and train stations. If one of these goes off in the terminal at O'Hare or LAX, it will get ignored. I agree it would be useful at the library though.

Re:Damn laptop alarms

[FlameboyC11]

I doubt in this time and age, a black box being carried by a rapidly walking person making a loud, alarm like noise would be disregarded in any sort of transportation terminal. Airports have been locked-down for less...

Re:Damn laptop alarms

[Odin's Raven]

Unfortunately, a lot of laptop theft happens in really noisy places like airports and train stations. If one of these goes off in the terminal at O'Hare or LAX, it will get ignored.

So have an "airport mode" for the system that changes the alarm from a generic siren to a prerecorded message. Something like, oh...

I AM A BOMB!
I AM A BOMB!
...AND BY THE WAY, THE PERSON CARRYING ME HAS BEEN FEELING VERY DEPRESSED LATELY...

What it doesn't do

[mgv]

Remote tracking

Its one thing to know that your laptop is being stolen, and another to be able to track it down.

Something with a GPS would be more useful.

Michael

Re:What it doesn't do

[The Snowman]

My boss had his work laptop stolen. Someone broke into his car while on a business trip, left the CDs, DVDs, etc. and took the computer. Despite calling to various pawn shops and computer shops, it has not turned up. It probably never will.

You are correct: an alarm is useless. If you are in a mall or store and your car alarm goes off, will you notice? Doubtful. But if your car had GPS, the police could track it down and recover it. Same with laptops.

Of course, we do not need Big Brother looking out for us, so any such system needs to have privacy measures built in, to include requiring consent of the owner (with some form of ID and proof of ownership) or a warrant from a judge to back it up.

Re:What it doesn't do

[rampant mac]

"Remote tracking"

That reminds me of a story... Some guy tracked down a stolen iMac using Applescript and Timbucktu.

It's actually an interesting read to see how this guy traced an iMac stolen from his sister's home.

Re:What it doesn't do

[nial-in-a-box]

Well a GPS is nice, but a GPS is not a homing device in and of itself. GPS devices recieve, they do not transmit. The only reason that services like OnStar work is by integrating a [analog] cell phone into the system somehow. If this was external, it would be simply to sever it from the laptop. If this device was internalized, laptops would have to increase noticeably in size and weight. Though this would be cool, it would involve monthly/yearly fees as well as weight and power tradeoffs. Most laptop users wouldn't want those tradeoffs. I know I wouldn't. If can simply not be lazy and put the damned thing in standby and bring it with you when it needs to be out of eyesight, it will never have the chance of being stolen. Cool, huh?

Re:What it doesn't do

[nodwick]

Yeah, that was my first thought too. What's stopping them from adding that? One word: cost.

Your typical motion sensor lock runs for $50 list, probably less on the street. Add an entry-level GPS receiver, retailing for around $120. Toss in extra money to support a transceiver that broadcasts the notebook's position (remember, the GPS unit by itself just lets the notebook know where it is; you have to have some way for it to send that location to you), tamper-proofing/camoflage (how good's your GPS receiver if the thief just snaps off your antenna?), monthly charges for monitoring and a call center, and you're probably looking at $400 or more plus subscription. That might be peanuts for a car of $20,000+, but on your $1000 laptop, that's a significant chunk of change.

Re:What it doesn't do

[jhunsake]

your car alarm goes off, will you notice?

No, and no one else will either. Alarms going off has become so prevalent in our society that most people ignore them. When was the last time you saw someone concerned about a car alarm going off? I live in a college town and everyone ignores fire alarms because they are falsely triggered (ie intentionally pulled) all the time. I think the only alarms people pay attention to anymore are the ones we use to wake up. And that's only because they're so damn annoying.

Re:What it doesn't do

[cerberusss]

Someone broke into his car while on a business trip, left the CDs, DVDs, etc. and took the computer

I'm working at a consulting company, i.e. programmer-for-hire. This is a MAJOR problem. Thieves are on the lookout for your laptop and they are not easily scared. We've had several stories: people going for a cup of coffee - laptop gone. People coming home, unloading groceries, coming back for the laptop - gone.

We've even had people who walked to their car, opened the passenger's side and put their laptop in. Then walked to the other side of the car and go and sit behind the wheel, just to see a hand grabbing their laptop. Thugs actually waited on the carpark waiting for people to get into their cars!!! You have to be extremely paranoid nowadays.

Re:What it doesn't do

[Vexinator]

I think you are overlooking something important:

The loss of the laptop hardware is often peanuts compared to the value of data residing on its hard disk.

Filesystem encryption is a "good thing"...

suggested alarm sound

[netfall]

DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER!! Now if only the robot would come and kick the crap out of the guy taking the laptop... that would be great.

Stolen Laptop Alarms

[indianseason]

Is this where I can look at stolen laptop alarms? Mine was stolen last week on the subway...

RE: Stolen Laptop Alarms

[BReflection]

The obvious question here being, who on earth would want to steal a laptop alarm, and what about the laptop?

Targus Defcon

[nial-in-a-box]

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

Re:Targus Defcon

[nial-in-a-box]

Ok, so I read the article a little more closely, and yes, their idea is good, but it's also pretty costly for what it does. Basically, a little common sense is all you need. No security system is failproof. Everyone knows that even though it's unlikely, your home could get broken into this very night. Still, you'll leave your laptop unsecured on a desk or in a bag or wherever seems fit. However, if you're in a library or a coffee shop or wherever you wouldn't normally leave your laptop unoccupied, would you really want to get up and go to the bathroom assuming it is protected by a $95 hack? I wouldn't, and I consider myself trusting. But I sure as hell am not going to trust my PowerBook to any security device other than my watchful eye. Oh, and could there ever be insurance if it failed to operate? If the product came with a big disclaimer, that should raise red flags right away.

Re:Targus Defcon

[The Snowman]

Everyone knows that even though it's unlikely, your home could get broken into this very night.

Not just unlikely, but improbable. Somebody broke into my mother in law's fenced-in yard. It has a brand new steel fence with a gate. So someone walked up and opened the man-sized gate, no big deal. He stole a flatbed trailer. How they got the trailer into the yard, I do not know, and how this guy got the thing out, I do not know. Obviously he did not drive a truck through the fence. The only thing I can think of is four of five guys turned it sideways and walked through the gate or passed it over the top of the fence.

My point is, thieves strike at the worst times in the most improbable ways. You never see it coming because you do not expect it to come. Always be prepared: keep your shit locked up, and make sure you have insurance. If a laptop is stolen from your house, most home insurance policies should cover the loss. Even with depreciation you should get enough to help cover the cost of a new laptop.

Next step: detonator

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't find the guy who walked off with your laptop, press button 'B' and collect his ashes.

How is it going to work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Beep beep beep, you laptop is being stolen.

Beep beep beep, you will never see it again.

Beep beep beep, haha.

My personal way

[Bobdoer]

I just keep a laptop that isn't worth stealing.

Why do people steal laptops?

[ObviousGuy]

I wonder what possesses people to steal others' laptops. Is there a deep insatiable need to steal inherent in the theives that brings them to that point? Are they doing it for kicks? Are used laptops really selling for so much at pawn shops and computer shows?

If we could understand the motivations of the theives, perhaps we could do away with these band-aid measures and find a way to keep laptops safe without having to resort to alarms, locks, and any number of other gizmos that only make owning a laptop a pain in the ass.

Re:Why do people steal laptops?

[kfg]

I have a sneaking suspicion it's because they want to take your stuff. Without, like, paying for it.

Now that you know their motivation perhaps you can do away with band-aid measures to prevent it, and then apply it to diamonds, money and TV sets so we can get rid of all of our alarms, locks and stuff.

Should be easy. It's surprising that nobody's done it already, innit?

KFG

Re:Why do people steal laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find this hard to believe.

I've dealt with stolen computer equipment. Both with tracking down our own lost equipment and I knew a guy who dealt in stolen laptops.

What happens to stolen computer equipment? Ebay. That's where a lot of it ends up.

Some of it also is sold in person, but never by the person who stole it. The particular guy I knew had a loose network of people with whom he'd trade laptops so the laptops he sold came from the other coast of the US.

In all cases, these guys are usually pretty dumb. The won't even format the machines but that's not because they care about the data, it's because they can't deal with basic driver/software issues. If the machine has a BIOS password on it, it ends up in the dumpster. Software-based "phone home" theft prevention systems are likely quite successful - one of our own machines was tracked down that way, but the software that called home was meant for our own usage auditing, not for tracking stolen equipment.

I really find it hard to believe that someone would try to steal a laptop for the data on it. First of all, you need to know whose machine you're taking and that means trailing someone around for days until the machine is left unattended. This is very unlikely - thieves don't operate like this. If you just grabbed a random laptop and happened to find some MSFT financial reports on it, how exactly would you sell that? Do you call up IBM's corporate espionage hotline from a payphone? I mean, come on, be realistic.

The only way a thief could possibly care about the data on a laptop is if a stolen machine coincidentally happened to lead to some hot investment tip, like an upcoming takeover (or something else that the thief could capitalize on without threat of discovery), but the people that steal laptops don't have accounts with Merryl Lynch, but rather accounts with their drug dealer. If the thief actually had some computer/engineering/financial know-how, he would have a better-paying safer job, but these people don't know how to operate Excel.

It can be tempting to fantasize about a stolen laptop underground with international spies and mob bosses, but these thieves aren't exactly long-term planners. They happen upon an unattended machine and figure it will get them their fix for the week.

Easy Money

[photonX]

Good. Maybe I can adapt one to go off when my wife picks up my wallet.

Funny story

[jargoone]

I went to a university that installed PCs in each dorm room. This was 6-8 years ago, so maybe it's more common now, but at the time it was pretty revolutionary and cool. Anyway, a friend-of-a-friend brought his own PC to school and decided he didn't want the university's PC cluttering up his room. So he unhooked it and took it to another friend's place, off campus (not with the intention to steal, just relocate for the year). This other friend had DSL. 15 minutes after putting it on the DSL connection, tne university police department was at the door.

In theory, I know why this could happen, and actually thought it was pretty funny because it was a stupid thing to do. But obviously, there was some sort of "call home" software. Anyone know for sure?

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.

Re:Funny story

[The Snowman]

DSL 6-8 years ago?

1996-1998. This is about when I started college the first time, and I distinctly remember DSL beginning to roll in out select areas. It was not nearly as common as it is today, but it existed. So did cable modems. 1996 may be a stretch, but definitely not 1998.

Either way, I am skeptical about a company being able to pinpoint a DSL IP address to a physical address in a few minutes, and call the campus police. At that time this was unheard of. A static IP on a controlled network, yes; a dynamic IP on someone else's network? Doubtful.

Illuminating...

[morganjharvey]

This finally explains why this thinkpad won't stop its incessant beeping.

Forget the alarms -- my personal anti-theft device

[Txiasaeia]

Is a huge freaking drawing on the top of the laptop. I used to have an old AST with a mushroom cloud and "DO IT!" written on it. You have *no* idea how easy it is to track down something like that. It's possible for a thief to sand down the paint and repaint the whole thing, but I figure it's just easier to get one where such work isn't required.

If a notebook alarm goes off, the computer's already gone, but a custom paint job is easy to track down, given police involvement and photographs. It works for me!

Let's just face the facts

[iswm]

If people would just pay more attention to their possesions and surroundings there wouldn't be a real big problem with this in the first place. Having an alarm will just give people an even more false sense of security, when inevetably, just like cars, the alarms will do little to stop theives.

GPS? Not yet, maybe just a matter of time

[dtio]

See LAPTOP SECURITY: PAST, PRESENT by Andrew Mueller (google's pdf cache) which is a bit outdated but still very interesting:

In the end it comes down to the intelligence of the thief, the amount of computer experience they have, and the reason the laptop is stolen in the first place. The two reasons would be data recovery, the other to just sell the hardware. (I suppose a third would be to use it themselves).

The future of this technology I believe will be a BIOS based service. Something hard- coded in the BIOS that will be used to track the laptop. The car industry uses a GPS satellite to track some of its more expensive automobiles and perhaps that is where the laptop industry will go.

[..]

Systems hard coded with small GPS tracking units will creep into the corporate world, and users will be able to track where their laptops are if they?ve been stolen, and recovery will be more and more common.

A SERIOUS, EASY WAY TO DEFEAT...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

I've seen this done easily with motion detectors like this one all the time.

1) Slip Zip-Lock under and around alarm.

2) Poor some water into bag, just enough to cover alarm.

3) Enjoy laptop.

You would be surprised just how easyily a lot of electonics are defeated with water. Nice idea, but it needs to be made water proof/resistant.

Re:Forget the alarms -- my personal anti-theft dev

[photonX]

Yes, I call that 'uglification'. It's a good trick to keep the staplers, tape dispensers, footstools, etc., from running off at work.

I wonder if it might be enough to stick a prominent "Protected by Brink's Security" sticker on the lid. Maybe glue an old beeper case on, with a push button that flashes a red LED. After all, the threat of deterrence is almost as good as deterrence itself.

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.

Good idea for cars but...

[Zakabog]

...on a laptop it's really stupid. I have a lojack installed with something VERY similar to this. It's one of the best anti-theft devices I've ever had on any car. I have a little keychain that I keep with my keys and inside the car is a kind of transmitter. If the car is moving and the keychain is not present, lojack will call my cell phone, send me an e-mail (I receive e-mails on my phone) and call my house. I can add more contact methods (text messaging, more phone numbers, like work or something) but these are the easiest ways to contact me.

The good thing about this (and the bad thing about the laptop one) is if I'm using a car, it's going to be on and the keys are gonna be in it so the keychain is gonna be in the car. If I'm going to go to the bathroom, I'm going to park, turn off my car, take the keys out and go to the bathroom. Now if I'm using a laptop, and I want to go to the bathroom, I'm not going to carry the laptop with me (and if I was going to carry the laptop the device becomes completely pointless.)

This device is useless, if you're going to be 15 feet away from your laptop (ok my bedroom is 15 feet across, it's not very far) you should be able to see anyone going near it that's going to attempt to take it. And if they're going to snatch it up while you're that close this little alarm won't help since they're gonna run and not really care who hears the alarm (they could always just smash it off with their foot, I mean it just hangs off the side, it might crack the case of the laptop but who cares they just got a free laptop.)

Re:Good idea for cars but...

[Riggs E.]

...they could always just smash it off with their foot, I mean it just hangs off the side, it might crack the case of the laptop but who cares they just got a free laptop

I would think that trying to fence/resell a laptop with a broken case would be more difficult. At the very least, a thief would only get a couple hundred bucks for the risk.

---

Alarms, GPS, ???

[Riggs E.]

I've read more than a few of the posts degrading this particular technology. But let me ask those folks, how often do you leave your laptop and walk into the next room? I see this "invention" as a first-defense sort of thing. Sure, it would be made better by GPS tracking, blips on a PDA, and even a shiny new decoder ring. These things take time. Lest we not forget the ever-present business model, if this initial configuration takes off, GPS won't be far behind.

Every urban legend...

[Concerned Onlooker]

...starts of with a friend-of-a-friend....

I doubt it happened. Besides, when have you seen campus police move that fast unless it's to ticket your illegally parked car?

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.

Hard disk security

[tronicum]

A laptop is a interesting part to steal as a video projector, a car or a nice watch.

More importent than the fact that you alert yourself "your PC is stolen, wakeup" is that your data is safe and can not be read by the thief.

Hard disc encryption (at least your homedir with your ssh keys, pgp key and other sensitive data) is more importent than a buzzing alert that gets turned off like car alarms....

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

So don't use alarms. :>

[daTHoK]

Instead, use encrypted filesystem technology linked with the sensoring these guys have already envisioned. Said filesystem (whether it's stand-alone or hosted by FAT32/Ext3/etc) would remain encrypted, and access to it is granted only when the user's fob is within range.

This removes the annoyance of an audible alarm, and requires a thief steal both the laptop AND the fob, assuming he/she knew a fob was even being used.

As an added bonus, if the fob is turned off, it ain't detected by the laptop. So the filesystem is now unusable. Combined with keyboard-based logins, this system would provide quite a bit of convenience.

Pretty cool stuff. I love seeing engineering students come up with new tech.

poor mans alarm

[mixmasterjake]

i've taken the opposite approach to alarms. if i have to leave the room, i just crank slayer on my laptop at full volume. when i hear the music begin to fade away, i know my laptop is being being stolen.

i call it my "proactive audio alarm system." maybe i should file a patent?

Fingerprint recognition

[Elusive_Cure]

I'm currently doing my Bachelors in electronics in a UK University, where final year EE students participate on the development of a fingerprint recognition device for mobile devices sponsored by one of the biggest cell phone companies (Sony-Ericsson). It's been done before for notebook computers (i believe siemens or Acer had a similar device), and we are working on the implementation of such device for mobile phones that are the most common things beeing stolen in the UK. The basic principle of this system is to match the pattern of the fingerprint of a person with the current stored fingerprint "image" of the owner on the phone. As soon as the microprocessor detects a false fingerprint image fed to the device, the phone locks up and idealy sends a sms to the service provider that the phone is beeing stolen. I, personally have worked on the FPGA implementation of the microcontroller, done with Verilog on Xilinx software and i'm confident that in the following years we will see lots of similar devices beeing manufactured for high-priced/valued products such as notebooks, phones, pdas etc.

Actually, if you read the article

[The Tyro]

You'll find that it gives you a five-second window to deactivate before the alarm starts blaring...

Should cut down on the noise pollution "oops, accidently tripped my alarm" incidents.

Besides, it's not like a car alarm that goes off when somebody walks too close to it (or brushes up against your door in the parking lot, or taps your car with a shopping cart, etc). Somebody actually has to pick this up and move it before it sounds the alarm. Personally, if somebody is moving my laptop in my absence, you can bet I'm going to assume the worst and correct their behavior...

Sign me up for one of these babies.

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.