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."

Comments

Re:Useless

[Thelasko]

Thieves typically dont have the IQ to do any of that.

Remember, there are two kinds of thieves. There are amateurs and there are pros.

Amateurs are desperate people, usually because of an addiction of some sort, who steal whenever an opportunity presents itself. They see a car with an unlocked door, or an open window and they act. These people are the most common type of thieves, and will be caught with this technology.

Professionals steal things for a living. They are very calculated and know all of the security measures people use, and how to avoid them. This technology will not stop a professional. In fact, nothing will stop a professional. Professionals are why you buy insurance.

Fortunately, there aren't many professional thieves. When you think about it, it's very difficult to become a professional thief. This is because a pro cannot be desperate. They need to have time to study their target and come up with a plan of attack. This requires a person with a certain personality, that doesn't steal out of last resort, but steals for some other reason. There aren't many people like this in the world, and most of them are caught before they become very good at stealing.

My favorite piece of information about stopping thieves can be found here. (Warning, link contains flash video)