Protect Your Laptop from Theft

[juane414]

"Protect Your Laptop From Theft" - Joe C

http://www.overclockers.com/index.p...=4362:retriever&catid=58:software&Itemid=4264

"The one drawback to this program is that if the thief is savvy enough to wipe the drive, this app gets wiped also."

Isn't this just a cheap version of Lo Jack?

www.lojackforcomputers.com

I would say Lo Jack is the better way to secure your computer. It seems like it's about equivalent in price. The two advantages that Lo Jack has over Frontdoor is that Lo Jack has a moneyback guarantee and the program is not removed from your computer if it is reformatted. I can verify this, because I reformatted my laptop about a month ago and my computer still successfully communicates with the Lo Jack website.

Does anyone else here use either Lo Jack or Frontdoor that knows of any other major differences between the two?

Edit: More info on how LoJack actually works in post #6

 

[juane414]

Edit: This post has been rendered irrelevant due to reasons in the following post...

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Daniels was a spammer. He's no longer with us. If you'd like to pay your respects, his ashes have been scattered in the outhouse out back.

 

[juane414]

LOL... well I guess I take back my welcoming in that case...

 

[hkgonra]

How does it stay on after a format ?
Is it hardware ?

 

[juane414]

How does it stay on after a format ?
Is it hardware ?

I'm wondering that too actually. All I know is that I had LoJack on my computer out of the box. When I first got it I went online and registered my computer.

Since then I reformatted and reinstalled windows fully expecting that I would have to reinstall LoJack as well. So I went to the LoJack website and logged in. I ran a little test to see if it was installed and working, and expected it to report back saying that I needed to reinstall. That wasn't the case though, and it said everything was working fine.

I know that I merged all of the partitions and reformatted the entire drive, so I really don't know how it could have stayed on there.

I found this on LoJack's website.

Computrace Embedded in the BIOS

To help make sure that the Computrace Agent cannot be disabled by criminals, Absolute Software works with computer manufacturers to pre-install a portion of the agent in the BIOS. The BIOS-based Computrace Agent has the ability to survive operating system reinstallations, hard drive reformats, and hard drive replacements. Find out which computers come with Computrace built into the BIOS.

The BIOS-based agent will secretly re-install Computrace LoJack for Laptops on a stolen computer, so our Theft Recovery Team can track and recover the stolen computer even if the hard drive has been replaced or tampered with.

http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/products/how_does_it_work.asp

I just found some more interesting stuff. Apparently manufactures are making laptops with the LoJack BIOS even if it doesn't ship with LoJack. Also, the LoJack BIOS agent is able to reinstall the LoJack software if the hard drive is replaced. I also found a list of all the laptop models that ship with the LoJack compatible BIOS. Here it is:

http://www.absolute.com/products-bios-enabled-computers.asp

This is all extremely fascinating to me... I also don't feel quite so weary about my laptop ever being stolen

 

[hkgonra]

Do they actually show you where your laptop is or do they do like onstar and only tell the police ?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

I'm also somewhat curious now... I've heard of laptop tracking like this before, but the part about reinstalling is weird.

How does the computrace attempt to reinstall? Is it windows only? How does the system accomplish loading the app from BIOS?

 

[juane414]

Is it windows only? How does the system accomplish loading the app from BIOS?

I'm assuming that the small app that's installed on the BIOS attempts to access the internet and download whatever client app is needed to contact the LoJack center. Whatever is installed on your computer, it's small and invisible. I can't find any LoJack files on my computer at all. It's extremely mysterious how it all works. All I know is that somehow my computer calls the LoJack center every day to report it's location. If I ever report the laptop stolen, they will be able to track it because it will call the LoJack center every time it accesses the internet.

Apparently you can get LoJack for Mac's as well.

At any rate I'm starting to think that LoJack is much more secure than the alternative mentioned in the main page article.