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Back To My Mac Used To Catch Laptop Thieves
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Read the dialogue box closer, you can delay it by much longer then 5 minutes.
Another stolen laptop retrieval method
I have an iBook and installed a product called Verey which I found at Macworld 2008. Whenever I wake my computer or go online after a long break, it asks for my password (masquerading as Mail or Safari). If I don't put in the right password, it takes a short video of me without a click or other announcement and emails it to me along with info about the IP address used. The green video light does come on, but there is no other warning to the user. It also twitters me. Then the screen goes black and puts up a message: "This computer belongs to (my name). $100 reward. (my phone number)". I get to choose the reward amount. Rebooting leads to a request for password again.
Verey is a one-time purchase and does not use a server to track the iBook.
I have an iBook and installed a product called Verey which I found at Macworld 2008. Whenever I wake my computer or go online after a long break, it asks for my password (masquerading as Mail or Safari). If I don't put in the right password, it takes a short video of me without a click or other announcement and emails it to me along with info about the IP address used. The green video light does come on, but there is no other warning to the user. It also twitters me. Then the screen goes black and puts up a message: "This computer belongs to (my name). $100 reward. (my phone number)". I get to choose the reward amount. Rebooting leads to a request for password again.
Verey is a one-time purchase and does not use a server to track the iBook.
chickenninja
macrumors 6502
ArtOfWarfare
macrumors G3
I think he meant MacBook.
I get them mixed up too.
iBook was defiantly a more catchy name.
lol, for a second I was going to ask why they never did a similar name change with the iMac.
"MacMac"
lmao
Of course... I guess they could have the "Mac".
First of all this is RETARDED.
So you leave your computer unlocked, no password on wake from sleep? So basically even though she got "crazy lucky" and got her computer back, all her data was exposed.
You have a choice between security & leaving you computer wide open with all your data to the world.
THIS WILL NEVER WORK FOR ANYONE WHO HAS THE FOLLOWING:
a login password (even if you share your login, better to share a password)
a password on the screensaver or sleep
a thief who knows what a System Disk is
Half their brain
OR You can be stupid and:
Leave your data accessible to the first person who touches your notebook.
Have your identity stolen (be tough to buy a replacement laptop)
Sure having a password protected computer might mean you can't magically recover it because the thieves won't be connected to wifi, because they can't even login, so they will format it instead... but if you can't afford another $2000 laptop then get insurance and protect your data NOT your just your $
So you leave your computer unlocked, no password on wake from sleep? So basically even though she got "crazy lucky" and got her computer back, all her data was exposed.
You have a choice between security & leaving you computer wide open with all your data to the world.
THIS WILL NEVER WORK FOR ANYONE WHO HAS THE FOLLOWING:
a login password (even if you share your login, better to share a password)
a password on the screensaver or sleep
a thief who knows what a System Disk is
Half their brain
OR You can be stupid and:
Leave your data accessible to the first person who touches your notebook.
Have your identity stolen (be tough to buy a replacement laptop)
Sure having a password protected computer might mean you can't magically recover it because the thieves won't be connected to wifi, because they can't even login, so they will format it instead... but if you can't afford another $2000 laptop then get insurance and protect your data NOT your just your $
also in her case she should have quickly enabled SSH, then from terminal she could have taken snapshots the thief would only see a green LED.
If the thief reformatted it would have gotten rid of this anti theft stuff, right? I know it seems a silly question but it seems as though someone needs to come up with something that broadcasts from the firmware.
onicon
macrumors regular
well, i have personally caught one thieve who was stupid enough to bring a stolen macbook to our store.
more so, he asked if i could clean it and install windows on it because he lost the windows discs (that made be shure it wasn't his book, so i phoned the number of the logged in account, telling the thieve it would require some minutes to reset the computer) 😱
his look when 6 police officers showed up 3 minutes later: priceless 😀
the funny thing was: he could have just connected the power supply because the book had gone to save sleep mode.
more so, he asked if i could clean it and install windows on it because he lost the windows discs (that made be shure it wasn't his book, so i phoned the number of the logged in account, telling the thieve it would require some minutes to reset the computer) 😱
his look when 6 police officers showed up 3 minutes later: priceless 😀
the funny thing was: he could have just connected the power supply because the book had gone to save sleep mode.
There are other options. Like:
Have a password for login and wake from sleep. If your laptop is stolen while asleep, the thieves won't be able to do anything but reboot it. Make sure you have a firmware password so they can't boot off an external drive.
On reboot, have it login automatically to a dummy account. That way the thief won't have access to your personal information. My dummy account has a message on the desktop about my contact information and offering a reward. Make sure that, from this account, the thief can connect to the internet and use applications. You want them to connect to the internet as long as it's not from your own account.
Have Undercover installed. After you've reported your mac stolen to Orbicule (the company that makes undercover) the next time the computer is connected to the net, it'll send you IP addresses, screenshots and pictures from the iSight without launching an application or otherwise alerting the thief.
I'm pretty sure that this method is close to foolproof on a MacBook Pro. It doesn't expose your personal information to the thieves and it does make sure that, at least for a while, they are unlikely to simply throw the machine away.
The small price to pay is that every time you reboot, you have to remember to press shift to disable automatic login or you'll go into the dummy account and have to log out from it.
I have no affiliation with Orbicule other than as a customer, by the way.
Why did 6 police officers show up? And why did he bring it in to install windows but had problems with sleep mode?
Yes, it does often force you. One time I left a Windows machine on overnight performing a very processor intensive rendering operation. To my horror when I came back to it in the morning I had found that Windows had downloaded an update and automatically restarted, completely obliterating my render in the process!
It doesn't, you set it so updates would automatically be downloaded. Turn that off and it isn't an issue. Updates occur on the second tuesday of the month early in the day, so you should have been informed of the update occuring as well.
theBB
macrumors 68020
Well, the last time I told Vista to go away for an hour, it came back with the same "restart" option after about ten minutes. Vista SP1 seems to have more annoying little bugs than XP.
By the way, how did this Laptop Thief thread turn into Windows bashing? 🙂
MikeELL
macrumors regular
onicon
macrumors regular
I guess thay had nothing else to do (the next police station is only a few hundered metres away). As for the Windows install and sleep mode, he was a complete moron. That's why. 🙂
Shasterball
Suspended
One woman has found Apple's Back To My Mac feature (part of .Mac) to be extremely useful in helping to capture a pair of laptop thieves.
Police have made two arrests and have recovered most of the $5,000 worth of electronics stolen from the woman's apartment in late April.
Article Link
One of the better stories... Sounds like a decent Apple commercial...lol.
chrono1081
macrumors G3
Actually it still is an issue sometimes. My work machine infront of me has automatic updates turned off, always has, and right there is the "5 min popup window" asking me to restart. I have stuff to do though so its not getting a restart. One of the worst design features ever in any os. Forcing the user to restart.
There is a script that disables its ability to restart but for the life of me I cannot remember where to find it cause I want it again.