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What Are the Best Laptop Theft Recovery Measures?
BarlowBrad writes "Yesterday my house was broken into and among other things two laptops were stolen. Getting past the feeling of violation, I am looking to the future and how to both prevent theft and recover computers should it happen again. I have found various services that claim to track and recover stolen laptops such as LoJack for Laptops, Computrace, GadgetTrak and Undercover, but I (obviously) have no experience with any of them. I also know that Intel will be coming out with a new anti-theft technology chip, but that isn't supposed to come out until the fourth quarter and I'll be replacing the laptops before then. Does Slashdot have a recommendation between these services or suggestions for another?" Read on for a related question about automating this process.
BarlowBrad continues: "I have also wondered if there is a 'home brew' solution that I could cook up myself. I'm not an elite programmer, but I am somewhat computer savvy and open to ideas. At least one of the replacement laptops will have to be a Windows machine, but the other may be a Mac or run Linux, so ideally I'd want a solution for multiple platforms. Perhaps a script that sends an email with the IP address every time the computer connects to the internet? Or is there already something out there like that in the Open Source community?"
For Your Eyes Only I think.
Mod down parentpost, & don't click the link.
do not click.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
At my school, all students are provided with a laptop. All computers come loaded with Computrace, and it has never failed to recover a stolen laptop...even ones that have ended up overseas after being wiped and sold on eBay. The only time Computrace fails is if a) the CMOS is physically replaced or b) the laptop never sees an internet connection again.
Seeing as the TSA rep is probably a 350lb., sleepy, overpaid, apathetic moron... I'm betting on the Aussie with a knife.
Unless you're talking about a casual theft by somebody who intends to sell the laptop on the street, or for their own use, this won't work. If the laptop is fenced, the first thing the fence will do is wipe the hard drive. They do this to remove any trace of the original owner, though it also prevents any phone-home scenario.
Recent products like Computrace/LoJack (same product, different brands) can be installed in the BIOS so a disk wipe doesn't affect them. The catch is that it has to be installed at the factory, so you have to buy the security software (and an annual subscription) when you buy a new laptop. Also, it isn't that hard to reflash a BIOS....
I shouldn't need to point out that you should also have a bare-metal recovery backup. In fact, that's probably more important than any anti-theft measure: paying $1K for a new laptop hurts, but not as much as losing all the work that's on your laptop. A bare-metal solution spares you the hassle of re-installing all your applications and re-applying all the customizations we geeks love to do.
The real Lojack system, for cars, predates the Internet and GPS. It's pretty good. About 90% of Lojack-equipped cars are recovered when stolen. When you buy Lojack, an installer comes out and installs a little box somewhere on your car. You don't know where, and they have many alternative locations. It gets power from the car, so it keeps itself charged.
The unit finds an FM broadcast station with the Lojack subcarrier and listens for a message with its serial number. If your car is stolen in an area with Lojack coverage (which includes most major US cities), a police stolen car report is copied to Lojack's computers, which then tell the subcarrier transmitter at the broadcast stations to start broadcasting messages with the unit's serial number. The unit in the car then starts emitting a beacon signal.
Lojack has good integration with big-city police departments. They equip police cars with Lojack receivers at Lojack's expense. Any Lojack receiver that's emitting turns on indicators in police cars, showing direction and approximate range. When you see a police car with four antennas in a square on the roof, that car has a Lojack receiver.
In Los Angeles, the LAPD's air force, both rotary and fixed-wing, has Lojack receivers. This has resulted in some dramatic stolen car recoveries. Cops like the system, because not only do they get cars back, they often find someone they want driving the stolen car.
But "Lojack for Laptops" doesn't use that system. It just reports IP addresses when the unit connects to the Internet. A company called Absolute Software seems to have just licensed the Lojack name; it's apparently not part of Lojack Corporation at all.
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1819239
I think the point there is to make it distinctive rather than to scare off a tech-illiterate thief.
It may be too late now, but if something is missing from your bag file a claim before you leave the airport. NWA actually requires you to file the claim at the airport, per http://www.nwa.com/travel/luggage/delayed.html#property (nice option for international travelers who may not have web access to read that until they're home). For what it's worth their baggage contact information is: Central Luggage Service c/o Northwest Airlines, Inc. Department C-5260 7500 Airline Drive Minneapolis, MN 55450-1101 Domestic (toll-free): 1-800-648-4897 (Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. CT) International: (612) 725-5450 Fax: (612) 727-4639 Sorry about the laptop.
Keep your good computers at home. Get some old clunker to take on the road. Scuff it up and make it look bad. Keep your data on a USB key on your keychain so you know you won't lose that. Your fast machines at home are available to you wherever you can find some bandwidth. A savvy thief may pass over your laptop when he sees how old it is. Instead of one nice laptop, get two or even three used ones for the same price and you'll have one for backup and one to scavenge for parts.
This is an advantage of Computrace...they take care of all if it for you. Once the machine is reported stolen, and they get a beacon with the IP address, they coordinate everything with the ISP/Law Enforcement.
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1) safeguard your data. /home partition on my laptop is encrypted, so my data is inaccessible to others.
The
2) make the laptop unattractive to thieves
Have your name and address engraved on several parts of the housing and lid. Or have some metal or plastic tags engraved and bond them securely to case and lid (or even to the screen). This will make the tags impossible to remove without replacing the case (or the lcd). This will make the laptop harder to resell.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
That said, I have a friend who's LoJack secured laptop was stolen. He was under the impression that his computer was guaranteed up to $1,000 because it had LoJack on it. Turns out that since the thief didn't connect it to the internet within 30 days of stealing it, the guarantee didn't apply.
While I do think your odds of recovering a laptop are significantly improved if you pay the $50/year for LoJack, I agree that the more practical solution is to encrypt your hard drive, back up your data, and save the rest for a replacement.