Ask Slashdot: How Do You Prepare For The Theft Of Your PC?

A security-conscious Slashdot reader has theft insurance -- but worries whether it covers PC theft. And besides the hassles of recreating every customization after restoring from backups, there's also the issue of keeping personal data private. I currently keep important information on a hidden, encrypted partition so an ordinary thief won't get much off of it, but that is about the extent of my preparation... What would you do? Some sort of beacon to let you know where your stuff is? Remote wipe? Online backup?
There's a couple of issues here -- including privacy, data recovery, deterrence, compensation -- each leading to different ways to answer the question: what can you actually do to prepare for the possibility? So use the comments to share your own experiences. How have you prepared for the theft of your PC?

Comments

Build one that is too heavy to steal

[xfade551]

Just build a gigantic tower PC with full water cooling rig, in a case with no good grip points, then strap it to the leg of your desk with plumber's tape and screws with security torx heads.

Security through obscurity

[93 Escort Wagon]

First, track down one of those Dell laptops from the early 2000s - the two-inch thick ones which used desktop processors and weighed something like ten pounds.

Then take the ginormous power brick from that laptop, hollow it out, and hide your MacBook in there.

Revealing data

[petes_PoV]

First, the cost of repairs after a break-in will far exceed the value of your PC. And in addition, the increased insurance premiums will probably dwarf the repair costs, too.

Most burglaries are drugs-related. All the thief wants is to get in, grab enough to pay for their next fix and run away. All this stuff about organised robberies, knowing what to look for, recognising a pearl in the pigsh... , thefts to facilitate hacking - that only happens in bad movies.

There is not a housebreaker in the world who has any technical knowledge. All they will see is a PC-shaped box. And being a PC, it's resale value is negligible. it probably isn't even worth carrying to their car. I would suggest buying a broken Macbook or iPhone as a decoy and leaving that as a "sacrifice". Being instantly recognisable and easily portable, that would be stolen in preference to what you actually value.

If you are still worried that a thief will steal all your little secrets, then the simple solution is to run Linux. Anyone in the thief's circle will not recognise that as being Windows and they will therefore toss the PC at the earliest opportunity.

Is there a non-obvious solution here?

[shatteredsilicon]

Material loss: Insurance (read the small print and make sure you get a policy that covers it).

Privacy loss: Encrypt the disk. Commercial and open source full disk encryption software is easily available.

Data loss: Backups. Plenty of affordable online backup/storage solutions are available, some specialising in specifically in backups (Backblaze, Crashplan), others that are more generic (Amazon Drive, Google Drive).

Nothing you can do except encrypt and insure

[cerberusss]

So I was at the receiving end of a burglary last year. The wife woke me up because she heard something. And in some sort of half-sleep/half-awake state, I stormed down and charged at the two guys that were riffling through our possessions.

Thank god I live in Europe so burglars aren't armed or anything. They ran away to the front door and tried to escape. I ran after them and when they were opening the front door, attacked them. At some point during the pushing and shoving, I woke up and thought -- what the fuck do I actually care?

So I said "okay guys, let's stop here. I haven't actually seen your faces and I'm not looking" (I started staring at the floor) "and I don't really care, just take that stuff and go". They took off and I called the cops. They took fingerprints and stuff but never caught them.

They took an iPad, a MacBook and some money. I remote-locked the iPad, and realized I had Prey running on the MacBook. I switched the MacBook to "lost mode" but one year later, it appears they formatted the drive before connecting to the internet. The files on the MacBook weren't encrypted, the iPad was.

Lessons learned:
- I got most of the value back through the insurance
- Install Prey or some other remote locking software stuff
- Don't go and fight burglars, it's not worth it

I know a bit on this subject.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be the "crack" man for a couple of home burglars. IE, I used to unknowingly crack windows passwords, reinstall OS's, etc for some guys who would break into houses and steal shit. They told me that they'd buy the laptops for cheap at flea markets, and flip them. I of course didn't believe it, so I started recording serial numbers around the 3rd laptop. Funny enough, eventually I buddied up with them and one of them came clean with what they do and how they do it. (Wanting me to do more laptops at a bulk discount.) I agreed, did a few more for them, and then submitted all the serial numbers, text messages, and license plates to the police... In all I cracked/reinstalled around 20 computers, only a couple came back as hits as stolen by the police.

After that, I had to get serious about defense. If those fuckers ever put two and two together, they'll know who busted them. On top of this, I have tens of thousands of easily steal-able computer stuff too.

So here is what I learned working with professional thieves:
1) They want to get in as quick and quite as possible.
2) They want to get in when no one is home (9am-3pm)
3) They want to be not visible from the road, but close to the main road. (So back side of apartment buildings.)
4) They want to be in and out in 3-5minutes. Thus negating burglar alarms.
5) They're looking for easy to steal stuff. Laptops,Guns, Money/IDs, Video Games, Video Game Consoles, TV's, PC's, anything else (in that order).
6) They don't have a soul, they don't give a shit about you or your stuff.

Here is how you prevent your PC from being stolen:
1) Start with making your home difficult to break in:

Most entries are through an exterior door, generally by kicking it in. Replace all striker plates with a 4 screw system that has at least 2 2-inch long screws. Replace or add a metal plate around the lock of the door. You can do both of these in an apartment, and turn 1 kick entry into a 10 kick, possible no entry.

If you own the home your self, replace all exterior doors and door frames with steal frames. Metal doors and metal frames are extremely difficult to kick in.

Next are the windows. Keep all windows locked on every floor! A thief can easily climb up to a second story window and open it. Next, make your windows break proof. Some fire paranoid people will say don't do this, but home thief is much more common than breaking a window and jumping out of it during a fire. There are several security films that you can apply to a window that can make it withstand repeated attempts to smash it in with a hammer. Please note, this is EVERY window. Don't think a thief will shimmy in a busted garage door glass... These people are scum of the earth.

If you have a garage door, make sure the door opener opener is not using a common opening system. I don't know too much about garage security, so do some research.

Buy a doorbell camera. Make sure they can see it. This also helps great with UPS.

Finally, stick some home security stickers around your house. Make sure they're of real security companies. Even if you don't have service, a thief isn't going to pick your house if its difficult to get in, and the neighbor's is easier.

2) Securing your PC.

Once a thief is in your home, there isn't really much you can do. The main thing is, you have to make getting what they want so difficult that it'll take longer than 5 minutes. Easily frustrated, thieves are on a clock, and will just grab the easy to get stuff and run.

IF you have a laptop, this means one of those security cables. Although a decent wire cutter (which some thieves will have with them) will slice through them with ease. So with that in mind, unless you keep your laptop in a anchored safe, it's gone. Get insurance. Ditto with video game consoles, video games, etc.

The PC is a little different beast. Short of having a complete anchored rack cabinet with locks, there are two things you can do (one of which I currently do, the other I will pro