Open Source software for tracking the location of stolen laptop

[Keen101]

I don't know if any of you have heard of this before or not, but i just discovered it today, and thought it might be a good idea. I don't have a laptop, so i can't really test it out. But, i figured I'd post it for anyone interested anyway. It seems to use crontab to schedule random tracking of ip addresses and other useful info. And while it is not a guarantee that you will get your laptop back, it could certainly help police and bring the chances up.

Now i don't know much about crontab, but i have the suspicion that it does not run at the GDM login prompt. If i am correct, then this program is only useful on systems that auto login.

anyway it's called Adeona, and here is the link.

http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/

[hyper_ch]

as I fully encrypt my system this won't be of any use at all becuase those who steal it could not even run the system.

[icejack_outlaw]

how u do it hyper_ch.... can u teach me....

thanks

[hyper_ch]

do what?

[madverb]

as I fully encrypt my system this won't be of any use at all becuase those who steal it could not even run the system.

Wow... does this encryption incarcerate criminals too? I gotta get hold of this! How do you implement this policing encryption?

[hyper_ch]

upon installation.

[Keen101]

Yeah if i had a laptop I'd use entire disk encryption too.

I've heard if you use the alternate install disk, ubuntu has an option to use entire disk encryption.

[woodenbrick]

Cant all this be bypassed by just formatting the hard drive? They wouldn't have access to your files, but they still have a functioning laptop.

[hyper_ch]

Cant all this be bypassed by just formatting the hard drive? They wouldn't have access to your files, but they still have a functioning laptop.

yes.. but FDE's task is to protect the data.. and if they format the disk, then that track of location is also gone...

I consider my data on the disk more valuable than the cost of the machine.

[kevdog]

In many machines the encryption at boot can't be installed -- I have two such machines that could never finish the installation process when choosing whole disk encryption -- so its really not a perfect solution for everyone. Suggesting whole disk encryption when the topic of this thread was specifically regarding "tracking" is a little off topic.