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SETI Finally Finds Something
QuatumCrypto writes "SETI@home is a distributed processing client from UC Berkeley that installs on the volunteers' home computers and harnesses their processing power in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. So far nothing noteworthy has comeout of this massive project... that is until today! One of the volunteers was able to track down his wife's stolen laptop using the IP address that SETI@home client reports back to the server. After getting back the laptop his wife said, 'I always knew that a geek would make a great husband.'"
why doesn't someone do a 'phone home' laptop insurance program that provides tracking information just like this? (privacy issues aside (until the first reply to this comment; see below)).
It could be nicely open sourced, and run via a p2p network to distribute the load for the tracking servers. Obviously a lot of details would have to be worked out to avoid abuse, but it could be as simple as sending an "I'm here" message encrypted with a dedicated private key to the p2p network. The person who wants to track their stolen goods just pops the public key (stored on a CD/usb stick/online, generated on install) into the network and it comes back with the last known location. No?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Simple enough, though it generally requires a warrent.
All blocks of IP addresses are owned by somebody, mostly ISPs.
Once you have an IP address, you look up who owns it and you call them. They do their research, looking at things such as DNS records, DHCP assignments, DSLAM logs, etc... They then look up which customer that was, and there you go.
In a corporate enviroment a simply DNS lookup should give you a computer name, a little more the switchport it's connected to, and a little digging who's logged into it.
I don't read AC A human right