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Which Lost/Stolen Laptop Trackers Do You Like?
saudadelinux writes "I was held up at gunpoint in July, and my laptop was stolen. There are companies out there which, for a fee, install tracker software on your laptop. If it's stolen or lost, they track its whereabouts whenever it gets on the 'Net and work with local law enforcement and ISPs to find the machine. I'm wondering: has anyone used one of these services? Does anyone have a recommendation for which company to go with? My new laptop is a a dual-boot Ubuntu/XP machine, and the couple of companies I've looked at do Windows-only. Are there Linux options?"
I use a built in grenade on a timer you must reset every 24 hours.
I did forget to reset it once with tragic consequences. I really miss that dog.
Oh well, its the price you have to pay for security.
O.J. just wanted those jpegs of him and hoover that were in your documents folder.
Either roll your own or wait. If you are lucky, someone will rob Linus Torvalds of his laptop, all production on the kernel will stop while Torvalds and friends crank out a "stolen laptop tracking system" that is greatly superiorthan any other.
If you are really proactive, you could go steal his laptop yourself. That way you have another laptop to use, and you will jumpstart this scenario.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Only if they're reasonably smart. We had a thief call Dell Support after he could not get logged in. Duh. -- Mitch
kinky.
If you have Linux on your laptop, they won't be able to figure out how to get on the net anyway, especially via wireless. :)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That would make airline travel more enjoyable...
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
software can be deleted, chances are the hard drive will be wiped, so all ur data's already gone
really the best idea is to call chuck norris, and convince him roundhouse kick every laptop thief in the universe.
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
I did not steal a notebook, but had I stolen a notebook, here is how I would have done it ...
Nice going Sherlock. And what are you going to do the next time you need to boot that laptop up while you're driving? Type in your boot password? I don't think so. Boot passwords are the bane of any sane person's existence. Here's my take on the whole situation.
1. You have to figure out what your goal is
a. Do you want to recover the laptop?
b. Do you want to protect the data on the laptop?
c. Do you want to cause damage to the person who stole the laptop?
2. Then you have to figure out how to accomplish the goal
a. Do you want to be active or passive?
b. Do you want to blow up the laptop?
c. Do you want to have the perp chased by sharks with frickin laser beams mounted on their heads?
d. Do you want to win the nobel prize for inventing teleportation and recovering the laptop via molecular transmission?
In my case, I want to get the laptop back and cause damage to the perpetrator. So, I'm working on teleportation technology based around the Intel i75602 chip and a nanogrid platform affixed to the bottom of the unit. The next time the fucker turns the system on, it will buffer the molecular structure and then BAM! the entire pattern buffer is uploaded back home. The only problem I have right now is that the bandwidth on even the fastest broadband connections just isn't quite there for uploading the buffer information in a timely manner. So the teleportation is taking somewhere around a year or two of constant connection just to get the laptop's bottom right rubber grommet home. I've considered bittorrent to speed things up a bit. But then you wind up with other people having part of your laptop's hardware on their systems.
As far as inflicting pain so that the fucking thief will rue the day... I make sure to always buy laptops that are notorious for overheating and have LIon batteries that can explode. Then I can remotely turn off ACPI temperature sensing and the CPU fans to force an overheat. After that, all I have to do is scan the news for mysterious fires in the area.
I checked out the undercover website and noticed that in one of the perp snapshots the dude is in the bathroom, sitting on the can. I'm not sure if I'd want my Mac back after seeing that pic.
Now you tell me, after I used my bowie knife to dig my name and contact information into the screen of my laptop... :-)
Remind me to try that (smuggling milkbones, that is) next time I fly somewhere. Boy, would that be a funny misunderstanding. Well, for some definitions of the word "funny".
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
How-To
For the love of... I shoot you just once and you won't shut the hell up about it!
You need to set it up so that if you don't run a certain script once a week, the Goatse wallpaper happens.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Look, that guy's carrying a stolen laptop as if he owned it! Call the cops!
The only solution? Anti-theft stickers!
ANTI THEFT: Runs Slackware Only!
GENTOO: Not For You
DEBIAN: CUTTING EDGE (2 years ago)
NO GUI: RUNS CLI ONLY
and so on
I kid, I kid!
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Yes, there are a bunch of them. They are called "Democrats".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Those places always seemed kinda fishy...
Program Intellivision!