Detection Software for Stolen Laptops

Does this work or is this hype

[lgn1]

We had 3 laptops stolen from our organization in the past three years, with a recovery rate of 0.

We are looking at some software products, that apparently burns the tracking software directly in the BIOS and has self healing features.

They claim a good recovery rate on stolen laptops, as as soon as the laptop is plugged into the network (or via wireless). The tracking software will notify its location (however I suspect the Police and the ISP gets involve in finding its exact location). I would rather deal with the criminal directly, however this is sort of froun upon by the authorities, anywhere outside Texas :)

This tracking software sounds to good to be true, but at $50 dollar a year for subscripion, even having a small chance of somebody rotting in jail over stealing one our laptops, or dealing in stolen goods would give us emotional satisfaction.

Anybody use one of these services, and have any luck with it ?

[jsinger]

How does the laptop know its own location? GPS?

Kinda fun to think how an enhanced "Texas" version might operate

[thecoalman]

Well besides GPS it could be set to ping an IP with its own unique ID number, from there you would have to get law enforcement involved. Basically spyware you install yourself.

Doing some searches on Google brings up one company that offers a product beyond that, it will delete sensitive data, lock the computer down etc.

[grandpa]

Had this been installed on my first laptop, stolen several weeks ago, I might have reported that it does work. Alas, I didn't, and I can't. This replacement laptop is begging to be stolen... it would be such a blessing.

[Habtom]

it will delete sensitive data, lock the computer down

Who is going to tell the laptop that it was just stolen?

[thecoalman]

Well I don't know exactly how it works, but I'd imagine this software is root-kit like in nature and can't easily be detected so the person that steals it probably won't be aware its on there. Similar things are done all the time by hackers, do a search for Sony Root kit which is almost exactly the same thing. When the laptop is stolen you report it to the company. When the stolen laptop is connected to the internet it will connect to an IP assigned by the company that provides the software, the company would inform the software to activate any security measures. It would also record the IP of the Laptop. That information could be given to law enforcement and they could then contact the ISP to determine who was using the IP.

If the software is installed in the BIOS it could lock the computer don't completely and make it nothing more than a paper weight.

You could even make a "poor mans" version of this but it may only catch the really stupid criminals that would be unaware of the possibilities. You'd first set up page on your own server that records the IP's of anything that connects to the page, then schedule windows to load the page on start-up. You could also set this page as your home page in your browser, soon as the person starts windows or opens the browser you've at least captured the IP where the stolen laptop is.

Someone with better programming knowledge than me could certainly improve on that idea. I'm sure I'm not the first person that has thought of that, there is probably something simple and easy to do available now.

[MatthewHSE]

Who is going to tell the laptop that it was just stolen?

I think it has to do with YOU knowing the laptop was stolen and reporting it to the software vendor's website, which the laptop checks with every time it connects to the Internet.

[grandpa]

It works!

Here's a recent news item [nytimes.com] that should give you hope.

[jsinger]

Here's a recent news item that should give you hope.

That great story was on national TV today. The victim remotely activated a camera in her stolen Apple to photograph the thieves at the keyboard.