6/14/2006
LoJack for your Laptop
Did your brand new MacBook get stolen already? Hopefully you had Undercover installed.Undercover is an application that aids in the recovery of a stolen Macintosh. It works by transmitting the internet location (internal and external IP addresses and the router address) of the stolen Mac and by sending screenshots as well as images from any connected cameras. At one point these screenshots will sooner or later reveal the thief's identity (e.g. when chatting, reading and writing emails). Combine that with images from any connected cameras and you have a very powerful recovery tool.
As you can imagine, Undercover can be especially useful for owners Apple MacBooks with built-in iSight cameras.But once you know the location of your stolen laptop, then what? Go knock on the thief's front door and get your ass kicked? No way. Orbicule, the makers of Undercover, then works with local police and law enforcement to help recover the stolen Mac. And if things go wrong, Undercover switches to plan B and simulates a hardware failure, forcing the thief (or someone who bought the stolen Mac on eBay) to return it to an authorized reseller. To alert the reseller, Undercover will start displaying full-screen messages and it will shout that the Mac has been stolen.
Owning Undercover is like having both a private detective and a LoJack for your laptop. Not a bad idea considering that 600,000 laptops were stolen in the USA during 2004 and only 3% were recovered. If only they made Undercover for iPods...
Undercover is only $30 and comes with a money-back guarantee. For more information check out: http://orbicule.com/undercover/
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8:25 AM
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having thought about this what would be great is if apple bought this up and it auto-installed with every OS install and even IF someone re-installs OS X, the mac will still 'phone home' with the macbooks unique id (im sure there is one of sorts)...
[*] posted by 
: June 13, 2006 10:57 PM
: June 13, 2006 10:57 PM
I do the same thing for my *nix laptops - they check in with a website and post an entry in a mySQL database through a GET request. This is initiated through "curl" running as a cron job.
I set the website to respond with an XML file if I think the laptop has been stolen, with instructions on what to run from the command line. I can delete my files, change passwords or system prefs, invoke a CLI app that takes a photo from the iSight (on mac laptops) and email it to me, etc.
Handy, if not a bit geeky.
I set the website to respond with an XML file if I think the laptop has been stolen, with instructions on what to run from the command line. I can delete my files, change passwords or system prefs, invoke a CLI app that takes a photo from the iSight (on mac laptops) and email it to me, etc.
Handy, if not a bit geeky.
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