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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!
The vast majority of thieves aren't even going to realise that this service is enabled. They certainly won't be deploying GPS jammers or reflashing the BIOS or opening the laptop up. And TFA article mentions that the whole point is to protect data by allowing users to shutdown access to an encrypted HDD that might still be open.
Yes, it'll probably be as secure as the Lenovo BIOS supervisor passwords.
(Hint: Supervisor password? Get a paperclip. The data pin goes to ground, boot laptop. Enter bios. Remove paperclip, set [new] supervisor password. It overwrites the old one. Which chip to mess with and which pins are which I leave to you and Google. Shouldn't take long.)
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
Just use a Sony battery. It will explode in their lap, sooner or later!
-Billco, Fnarg.com
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)
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
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.
Acid?
Real Men use Thermite.
Bonus: If the thief is holding it in their lap at the time, they have been REMOVED from the gene pool.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!