Recovering a Lost or Stolen Gadget

gurps_npc writes "The explosion of portable electronic devices, can really weigh you down. Carrying a pager, phone, iPod, camera, and game is quite a lot. Worse, it gives you many more such things to misplace or get stolen. This CNN story discusses some of the retrieval services that help you keep what belongs to you. I particularly like the first one, about a new Singapore-based software that when you download it to your phone, messages everyone in your phone's database whenever a new chip with a new phone number is installed in the phone. This makes it very hard for someone to steal your phone as all your friends get their new phone number."

Comments

So...

[Tuoqui]

what is stopping anyone from deleting all the friends in the phone's list before they switch the chip? Or as I thought, doesn't the chip hold all that information on it (at least for SIM cards)

I'd like a means to deactivate the device

[mrmeval]

when I'm not near it. RFID?

Re:I'd like a means to deactivate the device

[TheRaven64]

The approach to combating mobile phone theft in the UK that seems to have worked the best is for each phone to have a unique code that can be transmitted to disable it. When a phone is stolen, you call up the network and they permanently disable the phone. A thief needs to make sure they sell the phone before the original owner notices it's missing, to someone who doesn't realise it's stolen. No one who suspects it's stolen will pay, since they know it will turn into a brick as soon as the original owner realises.

I often wondered why iTunes couldn't include a list of IDs of stolen iPods, and disable them on connection to the computer.

I have a great solution that works perfectly.

[Lumpy]

I buy replacement and loss insurance on all my expensive items I also encrypt all important data. (cellphone requires a pin password to turn it on or use it)

If someone steals my PDA, they wont get the data as it's safe, and I get a brand new PDA. works great.

I just wish the security in PDA's were decent so that after 3 attempts it locks the PDA and will not unlock until it is resynched in the cradle of the mated PC. Palm and Windows pocket devices can be reset and sold. Phones are 100% useless on the black market (you do report and have your esn blacklisted with your cellphone company right?) PDA's should have the same kind of protection available.

Bluetooth

[nanosquid]

There are various Bluetooth presence software add-ons that will lock your laptop, cell phone, PDA, etc. when it's out of range.

Car alarm for your MacBook

[floki]

iAlertU is definitely the coolest way to keep your MacBook (Pro) from being stolen. You can turn it on with your remote control like you do with your car keys. It even features the familiar car locking and unlocking sound. When someone grabs your notebook the fall sensor normally used to shut down your hard disk when a fall is detected activates, the screen starts flashing and an alarm siren goes off. It even snaps a photo of the thief with the built-in iSight webcam and emails it to a predefined address.

Be sure to check out the YouTube video of the software in action. It really made me laugh just because of the sounds. Can't wait to try that out in my university library :-)

Re:Software solutions won't do it

[AusIV]

I put my money on the non-respectable thieves. I have a laptop that I take every where with me. I keep it close, and I have a lock for it when I leave it unattended (usually just in my apartment). But on the off chance that it ever gets stolen, I also have a daemon installed that will register it's IP address with a remote server as soon as it finds it has a new IP address. While I hope it never comes down to it, I suspect it would be much easier to track down my laptop if it ever got stolen than it would be if I weren't running that daemon.

A "respectable thief" would boot with a Live CD to collect my personal information before formatting the drive, but a typical thief would more likely just boot it up.

Like I say, I keep my laptop close, and lock it up when I can't, but I feel a bit more secure knowing my laptop phones home.

flawed thinking

[petes_PoV]

This makes it very hard for someone to steal your phone as all your friends get their new phone number."

I believe most theives steal goods to sell them on, rather than to use them themselves.
In that case, so long as they can get ca$h for your goodies, they won't care who has the number after they've flogged it off. It's not as if they will offer a guarantee, or after-sales service.

The only real solutions are to prevent items being stolen, or to make it blindingly obvious to a potential buyer that the item is non-functional