Comments on: GPS Should be a Standard Laptop Feature

By: duncan

duncan — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 20:58:58 +0000

The connection thing seems like it would make the LoJack approach not work…but in 2007 a laptop that never connects to any network is useful primarily as a paperweight.

So as soon as the thief tries to do ANYTHING useful with the stolen machine it yells for help.

By: Mark Evans

Mark Evans — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:27:07 +0000

Paul: Yeah, I wondered about how the connection issue. I guess anyone who used a stolen laptop to connect to the Web would trigger the service.

Duncan: Thanks for the plug! Looks like one of those low profile Canadian success stories.

By: duncan

duncan — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 19:22:26 +0000

Hi Mark,

You missed a chance to plug a Canadian Tech success story! That LoJack for Laptops technology is provided by Absolute Software of Vancouver. Not only have they signed up a bunch of distributors and partners, the stock has gone from $3 to $35 in less than 18 months! Great performance, and with a market cap of $800 million it is likely to make it onto the TSX index.

I don’t own any stock, but it has been a cool story to watch…

By: Paul Butler

Paul Butler — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:50:44 +0000

I was looking for a similar solution just a couple days ago. LoJack claims to recover 3/4 laptops stolen, which is pretty good considering that all they do is track the IP

GPS is a good idea, although the laptop would still need some way of calling back with the data. LoJack just uses the internet connection, but this requires that the thief supplies a wireless password or another way to connect (this is my understanding, anyway). Maybe cell phone towers would be useful, both for the positioning data (I’m not sure how sophisticated cell phone towers are in locating the cell phone, but it would probably be more effective than GPS indoors) and relaying the information back to the owner/police.

By: George

George — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:01:52 +0000

There’s little reason to get software to “destroy the data” on a laptop if it’s stolen. If my laptop gets stolen, the thief won’t have access to a shred of my data, since it’s all stored on a Truecrypt-encrypted drive.

Truecrypt is totally open source and free. I can’t figure out why corporations don’t start using it - it’d eliminate the privacy and data-loss issues whenever a laptop is stolen from an employee’s car or house or desk…