I wonder, can this technology be used to track people's whereabouts without their knowledge? For example, is there or could there be some NSA or other secret group back door whereby a tracing function may be activated via the internet?
This type of concern is already being tested for car systems, especially the radio systems used by luxury vehicles to monitor tire pressure. These specific systems tend to be the least secure, and can therefore be interecepted and read by someone nearby with the proper radio equipment.
Again, it sounds great, but I wonder if anyone can document any downsides from actual technical specs, and not just my Orwellian concerns.
Stolen laptops phone home
Summary
UK police report that code buried deep within notebooks has been successful in recovering stolen laptops throughout the world.
Topics
Computers that 'phone home' after being stolen are guiding police to the doorsteps of thieves across the world.
Tracking technology has helped police sniff out thousands of stolen machines, uncovering UK computers as far away as Argentina, Macedonia and Saudi Arabia.
West Midlands Police recently used the technology to make arrests and recover more than 30 laptops.
Alan McInnes, general manager with the Association of Chief Police Officers crime prevention initiatives, told silicon.com, that the technology will help stamp out computer theft.
McInnes said, "The more widely this technology is used, the more the risk goes up and the more it will devalue the attractiveness of computer theft. This tracking technology has already proven itself useful for recovering large numbers of cars, its success rate is about 95 percent, and we hope it will do the same for computers. You not only recover the stolen property you are looking for, you often will uncover more stolen property and other related crimes."
The most effective type of tracking software is buried within the bios of a computer's motherboard during manufacture, making it resistant to hard disk wiping or removal.
When a stolen machine is connected to the internet it will contact a monitoring center to report its IP address, allowing police to trace its location through the internet service provider.
Absolute Software claims its tracking and recovery software solution, ComputraceOne, has recovered more than 5,000 stolen computers worldwide.
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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srobtjones@...15th Apr 2008 -
I want tracking despite paranoid concerns
I personally think that there is no real need to be concerned about any government big brother conspiracy nonsense if you are not a crook or a terrorist. Nonetheless, I understand the concern. But you would have to look at the particular tracker solution that you are going to use and determine for yourself if you can trust it and if you can trust whoever is running the tracker service.
I'm using Trackion which is a $3/month service for one windows laptop. And I'm using TheLaptopLock which is a freebie tracker service on three other laptops. On a Macbook, I'm using MacPhoneHome (one-time $29.95 cost) along with MacLoJack (freebie at a private server, not related to Lojack for Laptops, but more similar to Orbicule Undercover). For each of those services, as well as looking at the other major services, I looked at if it worked, was it free or pay, how the tracking was done (was it just IP addresses, or were screenshots taken of user activity and photos taken of the user, and if the tracking is done all the time or if you can turn it on only when needed like when the computer is stolen), and then looked at whether the people running the tracking service were trustworthy.
I would be more worried and freaked out if I had no way to get my computer back. If you have a lot of important data on your computer, whether that be client data or tons of family pictures or tons of other stuff that would be difficult to reconstruct, I would want some way to track down my computer.
Of course, backup and encrypt because even if you have a tracker, the computer is still gone if it is stolen and there's no telling when you may get it back if you do get it back and you don't want anyone else going through your stuff. And also set your firmware password on the macbook -or- change the bios on the windows laptop to boot first from the harddrive (and not boot from the CD drive) and set a password on the bios on the windows laptop, to ensure that no one wipes your harddrive clean thus removing any tracker that you may install.
GiveMeGizmos15th Apr 2008 -
More Info Re: Thelaptoplock?
Hi GiveMeGizmos:
Thanks for your post. Very helpful to me. I am in Panama where there is a big laptop thievery ring operating. We're near Costa Rica and the laptops are quickly spirited across the border. Based on your post, I've been trying to research thelaptoplock but, besides their website, can't figure out where you found additional information. Haven't located any reviews but one download site gave it only one star. Since we have four laptops in our household and two of us are writers, loss of our equipment is our biggest nightmare. Hoping you can point me in the right direction!
Many thanks,
HC
hicotton16th Apr 2008 -
tracking
It seems your whereabouts should be easy to get:
"When a stolen machine is connected to the internet it will contact a monitoring center to report its IP address, allowing police to trace its location through the internet service provider"
how does your machine know it is stolen? It doesn't, the company just filters ip addresses (more likely MAC addresses), looking for machines reported stolen.
SO..no worries UNLESS we get an administration in power with contempt for the Constitution and individual rights, an administration which wants warrantless seraches and rendition to countries which practice torture, an administration willing to pressure companies for their records and companies willing to roll over ...DOH!!
register@...15th Apr 2008 -
RE: Stolen laptops phone home
Terrific idea. I can't see any downside, nor do I see any sinister hidden agenda. Granted, practically any technology can be reverse engineered for evildoing, but in the grand scheme of things how dangerous can "LoJacking" a laptop computer really be?
Bill Burke
http://wirelessspeech.blogspot.com
a_chameleon16th Apr 2008 -
No downside? Welcome to the real world
You can't see a downside? What if you are a political 'enemy of the state' by virtue of your unpopular views (NOT a crime in America--yet) and someone wants to find you when you don't want to be found? (NOT a crime in America--yet.) Well then it's a simple matter to find you, and a locked garage and a chair with straps awaits you, my friend. Sounds far-fetched? Maybe in America, but not in Tibet--or Iraq--or the West Bank. If this feature is going in my laptop I want an opt-in button on the initial startup page.
geedavey@...16th Apr 2008 -
RE: No downside? Welcome to the real world
Hello??? You install the software that allows the tracking, thus you have opted in!
SigmaX16th Apr 2008 -
RE: Stolen laptops phone home
I think it is great even though I don't use one at this time some of my kids do.
ken.england@...16th Apr 2008 -
It's invasion of privacy at the least
Can we say "invasion of privacy"? All of a sudden police agencies from halfway around the world have jurisdiction to snoop, phish and hack their way into your living room in the name of "homeland security" and "prevention of loss", when really all this amounts to is a hard-coded feature that constantly records your whereabouts.
Personally, I'm not going to buy any new laptop unless it's from an enemy state like China or Russia, and even then I'm going to make sure that before I even begin I will flash the bios with a version known to be free of "E.T. Phone Home" features.
If this is a physical chip however that can't be removed, then it would be wise to perform a thorough port-scan of the machine (from within a local network that doesn't have net access) and see which port is being used to transmit/receive these coded calls, and then be sure to block that/those ports on your hardware router before ever letting the laptop surf the net.
sxxxydan16th Apr 2008 -
Calm down...
It's an opt-in service. The BIOS version, you have to actually turn on. The software version has to be installed. At least that's the way it is for my new Dell XPS.
jiggafied816th Apr 2008 -
It's reporting your IP not coding all you do......
I personally don't care if somebody discovers my ip address. This is nothing like the Intel scandal from years ago when every Cpu had an unique ID and was purportedly being developed for secure internet transactions........now that one was invasion of privacy I don't care what anyone says having every document produced on the machine marked and every sales of sex toys or a hard drive marked.........that's an invasion of privacy. This is just like lojack for your computer...personally I don't have an issue with it and if you do...then fine you've got the freedom to turn it off. The intel scandal years ago claimed they shut it off but folks found out it could be reactivated remotely without the user knowing it...if this can be activated remotely then perhaps is is a problem but if it can't be....I don't see it as a big issue.
suemccartin16th Apr 2008 -
RE: Stolen laptops phone home
So if it's built into the bios the thieves will just get smart enough to go in and turn it off...no big duh there. You can't completely lock folks out of the bios since all you do is pop the battery to wipe the password (yeah harder on laptops but doable). Probably the main market will be laptops, which are admittedly expensive items. The only bad side will be the guy that sells his computer to somebody, forgets to turn it off or report to the clearing house that he sold it and then the police knock on the new owner's door, that could be aggravating for sure.suemccartin16th Apr 2008 -
RE: Stolen laptops phone home
Actually from what I've been reading on the subject, the hardware version that is now being incorporated into some of the new laptops is a bios option. It must be manually turned on and once enabled it can't be disabled. Can it be rendered inactive by a bios flash, who wants to be the first to test it?
michael.paparella@...16th Apr 2008 -
My experience with a stolen laptop
My ex-wife recently presented my daughter with a laptop computer that she had purchased from a "friend" of hers for $100. When I checked out the laptop I noticed that the opening splash screen upon booting was for a local corporation. I contacted the corporation to see if they happened to be missing any laptops. Turns out they recently had a number of them stolen and when I gave them the serial number of the one on my daughters, no surprise that it was one of the stolen laptops.
This "friend" of my ex-wife's just happened to be a security guard at the corporation where the laptop came from. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened here. Anyway, the corporation sent me a postage paid box to pack up the laptop in and I sent it back to them. Needless to say, my ex-wife's "friend" no longer works at that company.
The really sad thing is that no legal charges were pressed against him and I fault companies like these for worrying more about public image rather than seeing to it that thieves like this one get their time in jail.
All I can say is that if this is the norm, it seems to me that potentially thousands of laptops like the one I dealt with are stolen probably on a weekly basis but you never hear about them. First, because people are not being honest like I was and questioned a high end laptop acquisition for a cheap price and are unwilling to do the right thing and second, corporations are silent on the full extent of the problem.
I never got past the initial splash screen on the stolen laptop because it required a password to do so so I cannot say whether any confidential data was on it or not but the point here is that for every report of a stolen laptop with SS numbers or CC numbers on them, you can bet your bottom dollar that there are potentially hundreds out there that you never hear about.
Just my 2? worth . . .
cppsolutions16th Apr 2008
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