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Mac Theft Recovery Software Tracks Thieves

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ironc-actions dept.

Dubpal writes "Apple Macintosh users can now fit their machines with theft protection software that reports back on what a thief is doing with their computer, should it ever be stolen. The software, named "Undercover" allows users to report their Macs as stolen, causing the software to report back with IPs, screenshots and even a picture of the thief and his surroundings. In addition to this, Undercover begins faking hardware faults, displaying messages and even reading them aloud, alerting anyone around that the Mac's been stolen."

2 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Utter Bullshit. by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the Undercover FAQ:
    Can I uninstall Undercover?

    Yes, you can. If you haven't registered Undercover yet, you can uninstall Undercover by clicking the Uninstall button in the setup assistant that's part of the installation process. If you are a registered Undercover user, please contact us and we will send you uninstall instructions. During uninstall you will need the Administrator password, to prevent thieves from uninstalling Undercover.

    Can Undercover be uninstalled by a thief?

    For a thief, uninstalling Undercover is impossible. You can only uninstall Undercover if you know the Administrator password for the given mac.
    Errrrr, impossible? What a stupid thing to say. Admin password recovery is trivial under os x. And a serious thief would reinstall os x before reselling.

    In other words, this piece of software is useful only to:
    1) Stupid people (who are reassured by a false sense of security)

    2) People who want to spy on someone.
    Oh, and anyone tempted to quote the following from the faq at me:
    What if someone does a clean install of OS X on my machine?

    You can prevent this by installing a firmware password. You can find the firmware password utility on your Mac OS X Tiger DVD (in /Applications/Utilities/ on the disc).
    1) Bypassing the firmware is also trivial on Apple machines - all you have to do is add some Ram, and boot :-/

    2) Noone has a firmware bios password.

    Oh, and last thing - again from the FAQ
    Is it possible for Undercover to work behind a firewall?

    Yes, Undercover has the ability to autodetect any proxy or firewall settings used to connect to the Internet. Undercover collects and autodetects the necessary settings to access the Internet even if your firewall requires a password.[emph mine]
    Bullshit. If they could do that, they would be selling that, not their little toy spyware app.
    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
  2. Audio Message by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "This computer has been stolen...and is looking at horse porn..."

    -tgpo
    http://www.tgpo.info/