Laptop security can be increased by installing a small application on the system that checks if the laptop is connected to an A/C adapter. Laptop alarm will play a sound as soon as the laptop gets removed from the power supply.

It has to be noted that this method of protecting a laptop is far from perfect. It would for example be possible to close the lid of the laptop to avoid the alarm going off. Alarm comes as a portable executable or installer and has to be configure with a sound file. An alarm mp3 file is provided by the developer of the software program.

Other options are running a Python script that makes use of a laptops accelerometer to detect someone moving it. All of these methods are not fool proof but add a new layer of security that could prove to be very effective especially if the laptop thief does not power down the laptop immediately.

The laptop theft recovery software Prey tries to increase the chances by collecting and sending a bunch of information over the Internet. It obviously does not help if the thief is clever enough to format the laptop before using it. If the thief boots the operating system and connects the laptop to the Internet then Prey will be able to submit the data.

Prey works by checking an url regularly for existence. If the url exists it will send out the collected data to a specified email account. The date includes:

This includes the general status of the computer, a list of running programs and active connections, fully-detailed network and wifi information, a screenshot of the running desktop and — in case your laptop has an integrated webcam — a picture of the thief

About the url that has to be created. The laptop theft recovery program has been designed that way to avoid data being send out continuously by the software. Users can for example sign up at a free web hosting service such as Blogger to create the url that the software program checks (for Ghacks it could for example be http://www.ghacks.net/stolen/).

The user needs to specify login data to a s SMTP server so that the data can be transferred. The laptop theft recovery software Prey is available for the Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating system. The Linux and Mac version are currently more advanced and come with a bi-lingual interface, automatic connection to the first open Wi-Fi network.