Track your stolen computer with Locate PC

Posted by Martin in Hardware, Mobile Computing, Notebooks, software  Tags: , , , , ,

17

May



If you travel a lot chance is that you will eventually fall victim to theft. If you happen to have your notebook or laptop with you most of the time chance is pretty high that the thief will have the desire to steal that one. Chances are pretty slim that you will see your notebook again after the theft but you can increase them a bit by using Locate PC.

Locate PC only works if the thief is stupid enough to boot your computer while being connected to an internet connection. I cannot really say how many thiefs would do that but it can happen and that’s probably reason enough to use Locate PC. A slim chance is better than no chance at all, don’t you think ?

Locate PC (via Cybernet News) will send emails periodically whenever the PC is connected to the Internet, by default one email is send per day and another one for every IP change. The application is running in the background with an obscured filename and no system tray icon making it harder to identify. I would say that you do not need to worry about that though, if the thief really boots the PC while it is connected to the Internet then you should not fear that he will discover the little tracking application.

locatepc

One thing that actually might work pretty well is to create a bogus account that does not require a password. I mean, a thief that gets a password prompt will probably not be able to load the operating system which would make the whole configuration void.

The emails that are send contain several interesting information, not only the IP that it is being send from. It displays the computer’s host name and logged in user. This will be probably your information though. More interesting are the network connections that are listed. A dialup connection would reveal the phone number and the user name which can lead directly to the thief.

A traceroute command is issued as well and identifying information are pulled from Windows. The important information that can lead to the thief are the IP address, the network connections and the traceroute command. Everything else will be your information unless the thief decides to chance the name and address of the owner to his own.


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9 Users Commented In This Post

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Anti-Theft Software for Mobile Phones says:

[...] writing the article about Locate PC, a utility that sends information like the IP address on a daily basis I was wondering what the [...]

Diebstahlsicherung für das Handy » Ghacks.net DE says:

[...] morgen habe ich einen Artikel über die Software Locate PC geschrieben, die eine E-Mail von einem gestohlenen PC in Intervallen versendet und habe michg [...]

Techbuzzard says:

Seems like an interesting idea to track or locate laptops or PC’s which are stolen. But there are quite a few limitations here. On the one hand the thief needs to log-in and connect to the Internet for the software to get activated. But I do not think the thieves are so naive so much that they will connect to the Internet with a stolen PC. The first thing that they will do is format the drives and install a fresh OS rather than use the existing one. The other thing is that you mentioned is to create a bogus account. I do not think it makes sense because, unless and until you have all the user ID’s mentioned in the welcome screen (that’s an option), the thieves do not have a chance to try all the ID’s and get into the system. People who really care about their systems and their data would have easily disabled that option. It’s a technological limitation that this software gets invoked only when a person logs into the system and connects it to Internet. I would like that the BIOS should include the credentials of the owner like mail ID or other details, and once booted, it should run some program in the background which connects to the real owner through emails or mobile messages indicating the correct IP address and the location once the system gets connected to the Internet. Well, there are quite some loopholes in that too, but let’s assume that a technology will come wherein the BIOS can be reset or updated by the real owner. This is just my personal opinion and anyone has the right to contradict on this.

Martin says:

Techbuzzard: The bogus account should be the first, probably named admin or something that requires no password. I think that thiefs would actually try to boot the computer or connect the computer to another one to snoop on the hard drive contents for other valuable information before they format the hard drive.

But it’s only the dumb that will fall for this. There is no real way to make sure you get your notebook back if the thief knows what he is doing.

Techbuzzard says:

Hi Martin,

What you said above is right, only the dumb or the naive can ever think of such an idea. We can create as many bogus accounts like Admin of whatever as we like, but what’s the point in doing it. Maybe some years before, may be thieves could have thought about that, but in the present day, a thief who can stole the PC do very well know why and what for he is steeling the PC. So it does not matter how much we try to impersonate, the person who does it always find a way out….

neill says:

guess the tricks with webcams etc work only as long as it’s a novelty
booting with CD/DVD would stop it
solution would be intregration into the BIOS, but even that is not perfect (re-flashing/swap chip)
i keep pics of all my components so i have all serial/model # avail if needed

Cyberbite says:

Sounds gud!!
Thank you for da info!!

Anti-Theft Software for Mobile Phones - Ken’sTechnology Blog says:

[...] Software for Mobile Phones Jul.02, 2008 in 未分类 After writing the article about Locate PC, a utility that sends information like the IP address on a daily basis I was wondering what the [...]

vishnu says:

I want that software

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