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LocatePC: Free Theft Recovery Software For Your PC

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cmpm:
In order to reformat the laptop, one would have to open it.
If it's set to start upon opening would that make a difference?
One would at least get a location other then where it is supposed to be.

I have a son going to college this fall with a laptop.
Though he will be living at home,
this is his first year of college.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Nighted:
Tell him not to let it out of his sight and if he loses it you'll smack him so hard he'll get a speeding ticket going through China!

Worse case scenario, at least laptops are way cheaper now than they were 7 or 8 years ago. I could buy 4 for the price I payed for my first one in '98. Crazy.

cmpm:
lol...Nighted...

He actually bought it himself with a perfect attendance record, the tech school and high school were in together on Computer type classes and he took them. He earned $450 towards a pc purchase of his choice.

With that and some of the money he already had, he got a laptop. He also has a desktop which we gave him for a graduation/birthday present. Which he built himself. He wanted to build it and he did a fine job.

Anyways, perhaps setting the computer to only boot from the hard drive. Lock out booting from a cd or anything else. Lock the computer if there are any hardware changes, like switching hardrives. All password protected. Put in the password and back to the way you want it.

A gps on it would be cool but perhaps too expensive.

Back to opening the computer and booting from the hard drive. On campus there is wireless. So it would have to be set to connect and send the e-mail immediatly before anything else I would think.

And perhaps pickup any unsecured wireless connection and do the same in case it is opened off campus. There are many unsecured wireless setups. I can pick up 2 in my neighborhood alone.

steeladept:
The problem I see on a college campus (or anywhere for that matter) is that by using IP address alone in a DHCP environment, it can be anywhere.  What's more a simple ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew forces it to get a new IP address. Take that and move it anywhere without impunity, because your IP just got moved to someplace else.

So you simply log an IP address of where it is, eh?  Well reformat is simple to do without accessing the CD or HD as appropriate.  Either way, once there is no OS to boot to, you can reinstall an OS of any type.  Any software that did the tracking is gone and so is the IP addresses that it tracked.

What about putting it in the Hardware somehow?  Has anyone reprogrammed a BIOS without causing issues?  I don't know anyone who can, let alone do so for download without screwing up someone's PC.  Using a card instead?  Well first you have to have a slot, then a program to understand what it is doing (fixed again by a format), then you have to find it and install it.

These various issues is why I think it is almost worthless for any real thief.  No, to track it regardless, it must be done in the BIOS or some hardware level tracking independent of the OS.  A MAC address can be one example built into the NIC card.  A BIOS tracker could work if the computer supports it somehow (BTW:  Many could, that is how vendors track the serial number electronically to assist you via their web sites).  But again, to keep it independent, an outside source would need to query the hardware.  Some firewalls could block this, and hence a MAC tracker would make the most sense.  You can't connect to the Network without exposing SOMETHING that identifies your computer uniquely, and that is something a MAC address is designed to do.  Now, is Tekzel right about it being only on a subnet?  I am not sure, but I didn't think so.  Still, there is a way to do it, I just don't know enough details to say how.

seanchk:
You might also want to take a look at a laptop bag that has anti-theft features built-in, I travel extensively and have been using a CourierSafe 100 secure computer courier bag, its made by a company called Pacsafe and aside from being a great bag it has a bunch of anti-theft features, steel cable in the shoulder straps that can be locked to a secure fixture, combination lock to secure the zippers.  They also make another very nice computer bag called the MetroSafe300 which I considered but went with the courier bag style.  Check out thier website at http://www.pacsafe.com

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