A notebook walks every 53 seconds. ABT.V a solution?
- From: "Igor The Terrible" <igor_the_terrible@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 19 Aug 2005 12:41:21 -0700
....an article in Forbes seems hint around on it.
Despite the company's fundamentals and the software itself having a
minor issue, it is the surest means of recovery when it comes to your
machine and data out there if it gets stolen. They have a 97% recovery
rate. This could be a good time to jump in before the holidays.
http://www.absolute.com/
The Digital Life
NEW YORK - The idea conjured up all sorts of wonderful fantasies. My
laptop is stolen. I call an 800-number and before the setting of the
next sun, a swat team of heavily armed and armored paramilitary police
are breaking down the door of a bandit's den to reclaim my purloined
computer.
At least that's my fantasy. In fact, the reality may not be that far
off. Well, maybe not a swat team and maybe there wouldn't be a whole
nest of bandits involved, but there is a recently renamed software
product that promises pretty much that. Absolute Software's LoJack for
Laptops used to be called CompuTrace, and now it's back with a new name
and a new identity.
It's also in some respects a little scary. More on that in a moment.
Meanwhile, I did spend some time playing with LoJack for Laptops. The
folks at Absolute Software delivered a disk to my office and, after a
few glitches having to do with my outdated laptop software, I
successfully installed it, made the appropriate calls to an 800-number
in Vancouver, British Columbia. And lo and behold, they told me just
where my laptop was located.
It worked perfectly. Inevitably, there's more to the story than that,
of course. Basically, the idea is that you walk into CompUSA, where it
went on sale Monday, plunk down $49.95 (or $99 for three years of
protection), and you go home with the program on a compact disc. (There
are absolute hopes to add more retailers later this year.) Load it onto
your laptop, and it dials into a computer in Vancouver, it logs you on,
registers your computer's serial number and who you are along with a
password. Then, you sit back and wait for it to be stolen.
If that happens, that's when the "recovery team" kicks into action.
Those are the go-to people. If your computer does walk out of your
office, hotel room or the trunk of your car, you simply call the
800-number, or go to another computer, and report it stolen. Within
seconds, your computer goes on Absolute Software's "most wanted" list.
It works like a charm, as soon as the bandits use your stolen laptop to
go online. By the way, all the time your computer's been sitting in
your office or den, it has been regularly checking in with its master
in Vancouver. If the computer gets into the wrong hands and is reported
stolen, Absolute's recovery team will see that status pop up on their
screen.
Within seconds, Absolute can use one of three ways to determine where
the wayward computer has gone. If it's a dial-up modem, it can tell
what phone number the computer is using to get online, and trace the
address. If it's broadband, it can track the IP address and then, with
cooperation from the Internet Service Provider, locate the street
address where the IP is installed. And then there's a third way that
even John Livingston, Absolute's chairman and CEO won't tell us about.
Once the computer's been located, the recovery team--all ex-cops, by
the way, most of them from the Vancouver police--call local law
enforcement and tell them where they can find the purloined device.
"At the beginning, we wondered whether law enforcement would really
care about laptops," Livingston confessed. "But they were very
supportive. Property theft is a situation where they don't get a lot of
success. But this is stolen property with a built-in electronic tip
where it's located. They also realized that, in 5% of the cases, the
location they go to other criminal activity is taking place."
Last month, for instance, a distress call came from a laptop in
McKinney, Texas. The local police stumbled onto a big chop-shop
location with drugs and weapons. They also got the stolen computer
back.
This is also one tough little piece of software. LoJack for
Laptops--Absolute licensed the Lojack name from the car theft recovery
company--can survive the entire stripping and reformatting of the hard
disk. And, to make it even more invulnerable, most of the big laptop
makers--IBM/Lenovo (nyse: IBM - news - people ), Dell (nasdaq: DELL -
news - people ), Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ) and
Gateway (nyse: GTW - news - people )--have just begun embedding a
recovery chip on their system boards, so that even if the thief
replaces the hard drive, the computer will still be able to make that
SOS call.
Sounds a little like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator. You can
almost hear the computer growling, "I'll be baaaack."
Which is where a few little concerns come in.
First, the software does live on your computer pretty much forever. You
can "uninstall" the software, but I had to wonder whether it really
goes away. Second, it turns out that the folks in Vancouver can, only
on your instructions of course, wipe the hard disk or any of the data
or software on it when you report the computer stolen. Now that's
great, if you don't want your last five years' tax returns falling into
the hands of a greedy whistle-blower. But, despite Livingstone's
assurances, I was a little worried about just how much Tania in
Absolute's recovery department was able to see on my hard drive back
there in Vancouver.
Finally, there still isn't a version for Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news -
people ) Macintosh computers, at least not a consumer version, though
there is a corporate product. Absolute says one will be forthcoming by
year's end.
And, when we tried to install the software on my wife's ancient Dell
laptop, it didn't take to Windows98 operating system. There is a
version that works on Windows98, but you have to get it straight from
the Web site. Type www.lojackforlaptops.com. There'll be someone out
there listening!
PC Theft & Recovery Statistics
GENERAL STATISTICS
Total laptop theft losses for 2004 increased to more than $6.7 million.
CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, 2004
More than 600,000 PCs were stolen in 2003.
Safeware The Insurance Agency 2004
Theft ranks as the number two cause for overall PC loss.
Safeware The Insurance Agency 2003
Laptop theft has been attributed to 59 percent of computer attacks in
government agencies, corporations, and universities during 2003.
Baseline 2004
Computer crime statistics reveal that approximately 80 percent of
computer crime consists of "inside jobs" by disgruntled employees.
Gartner Group
73 percent of companies do not have specific security policies for
their laptop computers.
Gartner Group 2003
80 percent of those surveyed acknowledged financial losses due to
computer breaches.
CSI/FBI 2002
97 percent of stolen computers are never recovered.
FBI
The average company loss due to laptop theft is more than $47,000.
CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, 2003
http://www.forbes.com/2005/08/19/digilife-lojack-laotops-cx_daa_0819digilife.html
.
- Prev by Date: Re: Bought @$8 --- Sold @$16
- Next by Date: Merck (MRK)
- Previous by thread: Conrade Black has a Problem.
- Next by thread: Merck (MRK)
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
