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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?"
A pack of semtex in your laptop.... If you fail to write the correct password after three times, it explodes...
I'm kidding... If those programs can track muggers, they can also track you and that's why I wouldn't trust them. The best way to handle this is to encrypt all your data and insure your laptop against theft. Oh, and daily backups of your data on trusted media which you lock away in a safe.
Essentially, only your data is worth something. The hardware can be covered by insurance.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
You could always have a scheduled task / cron job that combines ifconfig + lynx + a trip to a "what's my ip?" site, dump it to a text file and email it to a webmail address. Might give you an approximation of where it is next time it's networked.
First thing that happens is the laptop gets wiped.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
Dell has been embedding Absolute's Computrace in many of their laptops (I'm typing this on a SuSE 10.2 install on a Dell Latitude D820 that has it enabled). Once you enable it in the BIOS, there is no way to disable it without physically removing and replacing the chip.
"Powers. I have them."
If those programs can track muggers, they can also track you and that's why I wouldn't trust them. The best way to handle this is to encrypt all your data and insure your laptop against theft. Oh, and daily backups of your data on trusted media which you lock away in a safe.
Essentially, only your data is worth something. The hardware can be covered by insurance.
Agreed. Hands down, this is the best solution, and it will save you in many cases other than theft where you lose data. Modern laptops come with support for hardware acceleration of crypto (those blasted TPM chips) that can be turned in your favor.
While it's nice to maybe one day find your thief, it's not worth the security and privacy trade-off in my opinion. Besides, you should be encrypting a laptop anyway just as a matter of policy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Even with an IP address, postal address, and mapquest directions to the thief's house, I have a hard time believing an officer will put down his chocolate iced donut to go knock on doors over a laptop.
Camping on quad since 1996.
There are two reasons to care about a lost/stolen laptop: 1) losing the value of the laptop itself, and 2) the value of the data within.
For the value of the laptop itself, I would argue that the cost of any tracking solutions is bound to be more than (the chance of laptop being stolen x value of laptop itself). This comes down to the age-old question of 'whether or not to buy insurance'. In this case, it's just not worth it - especially considering that you're buying insurance that may or may not 'pay' in the event of a loss!
Regarding the value of the data contained in the laptop, my reasoning is that if you are carrying around data that is *truly* valuable, then being able to get the laptop back if stolen is the least of your worries. If you are not responsible enough to keep valuable data either by your side at all times, or in a safe place, then you aren't responsible enough to be working with said data to begin with. Secondly, if people are clever enough to track down a laptop with valuable data in the pursuit of corporate/governmental espionage - they're damn well clever enough not to hook the thing up to the internet. Finally, if by some chance the swipers decide to drop the thing off at the pawn shop in order to make an extra $100 (yeah right), by the time you get the laptop back the real damage has been done anyway.
Summary: tracking services = waste of time. -JT
The assumption you have here is that some thieves are not complete morons. Some thieves are smart enough to do the easy workarounds like you said, but there are others (many of them) who are not and will easily get caught. I view most of these solutions merely as "deterrence" more than an actual way of recovering the items. We had some computers stolen, we put in cameras and large signs notifying people they were under 24-hour surveillance. I think the signs are probably more effective than the actual cameras, the point is to make people wonder "Hmm, maybe I will get caught if I steal from this place, why not try something easier.."
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Yeah, but the shady PC retailer he sells it to probably does.
Your car might drive you into the ground first. Please make sure, for your sake and others', that you're at least keeping your car safe.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
> I'm willing to bet a free program could be almost as useful, with maybe a bit more work if the thing is stolen.
No it couldn't. The software is trivial. A program that sends a web request with the serial number embedded in the url a few seconds after a network interface comes up is all that is needed. But once you know your laptop is at IP x.x.x.x that doesn't do YOU a damned bit of good. No ISP is stupid enough to give you the IP+timestamp to physical connection point mapping for liability reasons. Think it through and imagine the Pandora's Box doing that would open. That is what you are actually buying from the tracking company, their preestablished relationships with law enforcement and the ISP community. Once known and trusted as a laptop tracking company they CAN get that info into the hands of law enforcement. Although I bet for legal reasons the tracking company itself NEVER sees the phone number/node/physical address.
Democrat delenda est
Remember guns don't kill people, they are harmless things.