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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?"
Our University is using CompuTrace/Lo-Jack on our laptops. AFAIK, this is built into the BIOS and is not something that nuking the OS etc can remove. It allows for tracking location OR the option of remotely nuking the data on the drive to stop identity theft. It is a pretty widely used system and I think they are also responsible for the Lo-Jack system that Police Departments use to track physical equipment such as construction equipment when it is stolen. The website is here: http://www.absolute.com/laptop-security-solutions.asp
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Well, the author of the article mentioned it was a windows/linux laptop, and that he couldn't find a tracker for anything but windows.
I put for that that we've FINALLY found a real use for windows. Create a small partion on it for windows, with the tracker software, and only use it for that.
It is doubtful the criminals would know what to do a boot into linux...so, encrypt and protect your real work on the Linux side, and leave the windows part for them to log into when they steal it.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The impression we get from TV crime drama is out of touch with reality. For lack of resources or otherwise, even violent crimes don't get the attention CSI portrays. I was shot by a robber at a friend's house, and the detective declined to review the crime scene with me. When the police allowed my friend back into the house after they collected the evidence, he pointed out the shooter's hat was still on the table.
There's nobody with tweezers going through the carpet looking for hairs. Nobody really gives a shit about a laptop or a car except the victim.
-Dave
Actually, Some of the newer Dell and HP laptops have the tracking software built into the bios/motherboard. Were looking at using it in combination with the Encrypted laptop hard drives, and fingerprint readers.. For us, its not so much about getting the laptop back, but making sure they can't get at our data. Privacy of our customers is critical. Also, the Computrace stuff built into the Dells can be told to remotely wipe the hard drive.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
To me, the most vitally important aspect is going for something that is hardware based. With TPM enabled bios and such these days on a modern laptop, the client is embedded and does not rely on your OS whatsoever. This is great considering most of what we seem to be discussing in this thread is Linux.
CompuTrace worked so well that in our tests (and later, based on four thefts out of 300 systems) that we noted the following: - I can wipe the hard drive (even low-level format) and the system will _still_ phone home immediately once on the Internet. - If you take the hard drive out and place it in a different system, _THAT_ system _also_ phoned home, based on the TPM components there.
(This was mostly HP TC4200 and HP TC4400 tablets.)
www.absolute.com
As stated before: cron a bash script,
First thing that happens is the laptop gets wiped.
Most people stealing laptops at gun point aren't that technically inclined or professional. There have been documented instances where the thieves were viewed with the built in laptop camera. Most of the time the they only grabbed the laptop from you because it seemed valuable.
Secondly, if you go to a pawn shop and pickup a laptop you can usually get the last owners personal data.
However, thieves that target laptops professionally will probably wipe your data, but usually they'll snatch your laptop from the air port or coffee shop while your not working, but those people are extremely rare and you don't see that much anymore since laptops aren't as valuable as they used to be.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/
I use that on my mac machines. I know it's not linux specifically but I just thought I'd toss that out there. It uses the built-in cam to take clandestine photos, too...
Call me old fashioned but I still like to believe that the majority of Police do have an interest in protecting the public, the members who are only interested in the power trip are a minority (although the do exist).
As a personal example, a couple of years ago I had a bike stolen from my garage. It was probably only worthy $200-$300 and I figured the chances of the police finding it where non-existant so I didn't bother to even file a police report. About 2 weeks later I was driving on the other side of town (well city of 650,000) and guess what I saw in the trunk in front of me... my bike. I tried to follow the car but lost it in one of the worst areas of the city, but I did get the licence plate. I then went straight to the police station and filed a report, unfortunatly the licence plate was stolen. The next morning the police came out to my house and took a formal report. 2 hours later, they called me back and had found my bike 2 blocks from where I lost the car. The cops had actually driven down every street and alley in the area looking for it.
To make a long story short, the police do care about finding stolen property but they need an idea where to look for it. They don't have the ability to look in every pawn shop in an average city, every day. Software can help, assuming the theif simply stole the laptop to get a quick couple of bucks.
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
the average home break thug won't use the computer - they probably won't even turn it on, they'll sell it for drug money
Orbicule and Lojackforlaptops, since they run on Macs and Mac's OS X is sitting on top of Darwin ( Unix) either should to the trick. Kyle
If I were ever to steal a laptop, the first thing I'd do is take out the HD. Slap the HD in another system as a secondary, so I could scan it for sensitive information (CC#'s, usernames, passwords), and then blast the drive with a squeaky clean install image. I'd do all of this before I even turned the laptop on for the first time. If I were really thinking, I'd probably also take out the laptop batteries until I was ready to flip it.
So how does your boot loader work with that attack vector?
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
Then again, if you take a hand every time he steals something, he won't be able to do it more than twice. It works in Saudi Arabia. A mate of mine forgot his cell phone on a table in a restaurant, and only realised it the next morning. In a flat panic, he asked the staff if anyone had seen it. One of them pointed to the table where he'd been sitting. The phone was still sitting there. Untouched. Exactly where he'd left it.
Contrast that with the brutal home invasions by armed robbers here in South Africa, where they will torture the families (children included) by pouring boiling water on them, or dripping melted plastic on them. This just to get hold of a cellphone or two, some cash and maybe a laptop if they're lucky. And then they'll probably shoot at least one of the family members, and rape another, just because they can. Then they'll go and rob the house next door, because it'll take the cops hours to arrive, if they ever do.
You think I'm joking?
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2184926,00.html/ (Pensioner killed at home)
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2157731,00.html/ 3 women repeatedly gang raped while robbers cook and eat the food they were preparing. Then robbers moved on to another house and repeat the process.
Usually the crime is black on white (gangs of 4 or 5 blacks, usually armed with guns and knives will force their way into a home).
South Africa has the highest rate of murder in the world. Over 50 people a day are murdered in this country. Approximately 18,000 women are raped every year. At least those are the ones being reported. You cannot open a newspaper without being bombarded with news about a baby being raped (certain superstitious sectors of our society believe that raping a 9-month old baby will cure them of HIV/AIDS, or they do it for revenge e.g.(http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=304811&area=/insight/insight__national//)). They have no scruples. No shame. They take what they want, when they want it, and fuck you if you even look like you'll get in their way.
My point (after all that) is that prison doesn't work in terms of rehabilitating these people. Most of the people who do the kinds of atrocities mentioned above are people that have already been in prison, and have been let out or escaped (our prisons are well over 100% full). Prison is no deterrent. The only way to stop these guys from doing exactly the same thing 24 hours out of prison is to make them incapable of doing so. I'll leave those methods out of here, but I am pro-death penalty (I'm sure there's nothing like having your mom tortured, raped and then shot in the face, right in front of you, to make you radically change any liberal views you may have on something like that).
Most people (especially those who have never even been to Africa) are quick to point the finger, play the race card, and blame it all on the previous (White) government, forgetting that the regime changed nigh on 14 years ago (in 1994). That's a whole generation of school kids. With time to spare. And things have not improved. In fact they've deteriorated. Grinding poverty, failing infrastructure, crushing governmental incompetence and a lot of rage and hate are the primary contributors (particularly with regards to the gratuitous brutality of the crimes). We have (on average) a 2% conviction rate for violent crimes. 2%. And that's for the guys who get caught. Most don't get caught. They make a living off robbing people like this. Taking a life, even that of a child, means nothing to them.
And if you're coming here for the soccer world cup in 2010, please, for FFS be careful, because they WILL target foreigne
remember to loot and pillage before you burn!