LoJack for Laptops
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http://live.pirillo.com/ – Scotty2k from our chat room writes: “my laptop was recent stolen outside my place in my car. I got out of the car for 5 minutes and went inside and came back out to get it and it was gone, I knew for sure it was my neighbors that were moving in and they were parking right behind my car. When I noticed it missing I confronted them and they change the subject, 2 weeks later it was at my door step with a note “heard you were missing a laptop, is this yours?” I bet they got to the windows log in and gave up, and with no laptop battery power adapter they were SOL unless they bought one.”
You know, today I was out and about running errands. I was streaming live using uStream and EVDO. As I was leaving the parking garage, the attendant saw my MacBook Pro. He sadly mentioned that his laptop was just stolen today, and he has no idea who might have done it. I asked him if he’s using LoJack. His response was basically a blank stare.
After leaving the garage and wishing the attendant good luck, I had to stop at the Apple store to purchase an international adaptor for our upcoming trip to Germany. I happened to see a 3 year subscription of LoJack offered for only $99.00. At that moment, I knew I had to buy this peace of mind. With traveling so much, this will make me feel a lot better about having my laptop with me.
LoJack is a software that you install on your laptop, and then register with their site. This is the exact same service that has been helping thousands of people to recover their stolen vehicles for years. LoJack for Laptops is a theft protection service that tracks, locates and recovers stolen laptop and desktop computers. Software installed on your computer works behind the scenes to silently and securely contact the monitoring center, and if stolen, reports its location using any Internet connection.
According to recent research, a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds from coffee shops, college campuses, hotel rooms and motor vehicles. According to the FBI, 97% of these are never recovered. The LoJack team has successfully recovered 3 out of 4 stolen laptops that were covered with their protection. That’s pretty good odds… much better than 97% never being recovered.
I know that the peace of mind alone is worth the cost for me. Have you ever had a laptop or desktop stolen? Did you get it recovered? Do you use the LoJack service? Let me know what you think. I’m interested in hearing your tales.
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9 Comments
Carl
September 6th, 2007
at 8:27am
Good, software.
Better, embedded in the BIOS.
Best, hardwired into the motherboard.
Kawa
September 6th, 2007
at 11:15am
3 recovered out of 4 stolen is certainly a good number! But how does it work?
Only if the laptop connects to internet?
The lojack center traceroutes the ip and finds geographic location, including apartment number?
How you get it back? You bang the door and yell to give it back to you?
What if the thief formats the laptop?
I think a hardware protection on motherboard would be ideal. Using GPS/GSM and not be able to even switch it on if the user does not know the password. Add a nice sticker will let thieves know that this laptop is useless to them.
Or just backup, encrypt and be careful.
Michael Harrington
September 6th, 2007
at 6:01pm
A free alternative to LoJack is “The Laptop Lock”. You do the phone calls to the police if your laptop is stolen instead of paying someone else to do it.
Remember also that LoJack and The Laptop Lock can be installed on desktop computers also.
The Laptop Lock can be downloaded at http://www.thelaptoplock.com .
GizmoGuy
September 7th, 2007
at 8:31pm
If the $49.99 per year or $99.99 for 3 year LoJack price scares you away, you may want to consider PC PhoneHome (www.PCPhoneHome.com) as an alternative.
For a ONE time ONLY fee of $29.95, this software sends an email to the address of you choice every 24 hrs or anytime you change networks, or your IP address changes. If your computer is stolen they will assist with the recovery of your computer. They also have some great bundled deals if you have one than one computer you want to protect.
My suggestion is to set up a special email account to have the notifications sent to. Then DO NOT have that email account set up on the computer you are protecting, which could tip off a thief!
However if the thief formats your hard drive before going online, neither of these software solutions are going to work.
Justin
September 12th, 2007
at 9:09pm
I have LoJack installed on my ThinkPad T60P. I replaced the hard drive and did a fresh install on the new one of vista and the website shows it still making calls a mouth later. Last call showen was from today. I think it enbeds its self in the bois when I enter the Bios I get a message that says it’s installed.
a.s.
September 28th, 2007
at 8:45am
so NOT true.
my car was broken into in San Francisco with the laptop inside a briefcase. The lojack team was notified. I even noticed that the thief logged in early 9am morning the next day. Lojack failed to acknowledge that. For 2 months they kept extending my search, even notifying the San Francisco cops didn’t help. I got my $50 back but what was that worth? Did it give back my $1500 laptop?
Chris Pirillo Recommends LoJack for Laptops - Laptop Security Blog
June 2nd, 2008
at 1:18pm
[...] runs a live video stream fairly regularly. In a live streaming he did several months ago, he made mention of Computrace LoJack for Laptops, an Absolute Software laptop recovery service for [...]
Scott Gallen
December 5th, 2008
at 1:03am
LoJack for laptops doesn’t work outside of the US and Canada. Check with Computrace if you don’t believe me.
I had mine stolen when I was in Paris last month. Computrace told me that if it isn’t being used in the US or Canada. I am just out of luck.
I have the factory installed bios Lojack enabled on my $1700 dell I bought in October.
I wish I had kept my money. :(
Michael
March 5th, 2009
at 5:57pm
With ThinkPads, you can set the computer to require a boot password or finger swipe. I’m sure there’s people out there who can bypass that, but it’s not common knowledge.
LoJack requires the computer to boot into Windows and an internet connection.
So what’s better – making it really hard for someone to access the computer via the boot password/fingerprint or making it easy to get into Windows and enabling LoJack?