Slashdot Mirror
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)
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.
First thing that happens is the laptop gets wiped.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
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
It seems to me that you can always install some software like that yourself. Once I lost my laptop in my own house. Since I have ipcheck in a cron job, updating my laptop's IP address on DynDns, I just SSHed into it and made it play loud sounds until I found it under the bed. (I don't answer questions about what it was doing there)
find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s
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.
I suggest you read about Computrace and how they offered me money to hush and go away with their false claims. http://www.infiltrated.net/lojack.pdf
Infiltrated dot Net
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.
I did not steal a notebook, but had I stolen a notebook, here is how I would have done it ...
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.
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
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?
4. Locate the IP address via DynDNS. Log into the stolen machine. 5. Stream the audio from mics (pipe it from raw device to mp3 and send compressed). Do the same with webcam if it works with Linux 6. Go then show up and stick that fucker up with a gun. See how he likes it. "I want my laptop back.."
7. Get arrested for assault with a deadly weapon
8. Go to jail
I'm not sure where people on slashdot get some of these retarded ideas from but I know someone personally who was held at gunpoint for his belongings when we were in college. The thief used his cellphone that very night and with the help of the cell company he was able to get all of the numbers the person called. A reverse directory lookup later he had the address of one of the thieves friend/female family member.
After waiting in his car for two days (no shower, no sleep) he finally saw the guy who robbed him walking to his girlfriends house and held him at gunpoint. The guy who had originally robbed him called the cops and told them HE was held at gunpoint and guess where this genius is at now? In a state prison doing his third year for assault with a deadly weapon. When he was sentenced the judge told him that he didn't see any difference between him and the guy who he was robbed by.
Before you start posting on slashdot advocating vigilante justice I suggest you think about the consequences of being a vigilante. You aren't dog the bounty hunter and this isn't A&E.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
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?
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...
> 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
Your $1k laptop may only get the thief $50 (more than enough for an addict to risk pointing a gun at someone), but the next guy in the chain maybe gets $200-$300 after he reformats the drive and alters the serial numbers, MAC address, etc.