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Lenovo Service Disables Laptops With a Text Message
narramissic writes "Lenovo plans to announce on Tuesday a service that allows users to remotely disable a PC by sending a text message. A user can send the command from a specified cell phone number — each ThinkPad can be paired with up to 10 cell phones — to kill a PC. The software will be available free from Lenovo's Web site. It will also be available on certain ThinkPad notebooks equipped with mobile broadband starting in the first half of 2009. 'You steal my PC and ... if I can deliver a signal to that PC that turns it off, hey, I'm good now,' said Stacy Cannady, product manager of security at Lenovo. 'The limitation here is that you have to have a WAN card in the PC and you must be paying a data plan for it,' Cannady added."
From a stolen lapt
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
Pretty interesting security feature but not if your buddies get a hold of your cell phone.
This would excite me more if I could send a remote command that would detonate a small brick of C4 in the laptop. Why disable the computer when you can disable the thief?
I would pay for the version that explodes with maximum anti-personnel affect.
Bizarre that Lenovo is considering this instead of an el-cheapo GPS phone-home device.
While it may be some comfort that ones encrypted data gets to stay secret, and this might be enough for many, I'm on the side of the fence where I'd want to tasar the theif, in the neck, in the guts, in the arm pits, in the groin, in the mouth, and so on and so forth. Even if it is just a crappy old work laptop.
Maybe there's some way to rig it up so that the phone call can activate a bit of a hot power button, push it and it triggers the zapping goodness.
and dismantling the entire laptop to reset the BIOS is actually FASTER than an OS reinstall..
Defective Logic
This is exactly what we need in terms of laptop security. To you nay-sayers out there spinning doom and gloom scenarios about friends pranking your laptop with text messages, I can only assume that there is some secret passcode that you must send as part of the text-message to disable the machine. In fact, it should be convoluted, and hard to remember. Fortunately, as the proud owner of a brand-new Lenovo laptop, you can keep information like that stored right on the laptop, which you take everywhere.
Just use a Sony battery. It will explode in their lap, sooner or later!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Why not install Windows Vista, iTunes and the game Spore. That way you don't even need to send an SMS, just wait until code is activated progressively making the computer useless.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
"I'm not sure that can be described as being 'good'."
No, you're right, instead of shutting down the laptop, Lenovo should have put in telescopic legs with wheels on the bottom so that it could make its way home to its rightful owner.
Exactly. Smart thieves perform a thorough risk/reward calculation and a lot of planning before they go for target. They are near impossible to catch.
I, for one, regularly steal rolls of toilet paper from work.
I'll never get caught because I put a lot of forethought into each coup and perfectionized my strategy over years. I only lift one roll at a time so it doesn't get noticed and so I can at any time pretend to be just carrying it around because I need to "clean my desk or something". Plus, I always drop the roll into my bag while sitting at my desk and without looking down. Eyes must be focussed on screen, innocent facial expression - nobody would ever notice from a distance that I'm performing a felony under the table in just that moment!
Bare the occassional accident (when I miss the bag and have to crawl under the table to recover the loot) I think I can safely claim that the perfect crime is possible and I have mastered it.