stolen laptop tracking

dichapman

I am thinking of buying something like this http://www.absolute.com/ for my daughter. She has had her hard drive stolen but had the laptop with her. Just wondered what you guys think or are there alternatives?

Knarf44

Have you seen this?

http://preyproject.com/

Mymymy

Knarf44 wrote: »

Have you seen this?

http://preyproject.com/

Was going to mention prey as well - I just installed it yesterday!

gonzo127

although i can understand it having a free product i personally wouldnt pay for one of these types of product mainly because i beleive any half way intelligent theif would just end up formatting the hard drive (meaning the program would be deleated) once they have had a nosey through the documents in a none internet enabled area and copied the useful data across onto a external hard drive

dichapman

I had heard of prey, are both deletable from the hard drive? How do you trace your laptop with prey?

gonzo127

all and any software is deleteable, it all depends on how technically minded the thief is, if it is only a opportunistic thief then the likelihood this type of software will work very well, if however they know a decent amount about computers then they would take the precaustions nessesary to stop this type of software working,

Mymymy

dichapman wrote: »

I had heard of prey, are both deletable from the hard drive? How do you trace your laptop with prey?

Prey will show you the location of it on a map (using the geolocation of the wireless router it attaches to) as well as taking a photo of the thief and sending it to you if you have a webcam. It can also lock the computer down so that it cannot be accessed. By disabling alternative boot devices and passwording you BIOS it is exceedingly difficult/virtually impossible for someone to reformat and reinstall.
Of course there will be ways around it but since it's free and simple to use it's worthwhile using. Physical security, strong passwords and regular backups of your data are all very important as well.