Has anyone heard of Adeona? It's a free open source alternative to the LoJack laptop tracking software. Check it out at http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/. Do these programs actually work?

Worked for a company that used LoJack, because some of their data was military related. They had a 90% recovery rate on stolen laptops, so I'd say it was worth the money for them, at least.

Don't bother. The first thing they would do, is to wipe off the boot sector with zap.com and the reload new windows. Hardware chips are reset easily by shorting their pins.

There is nothing you can do to prevent this.

However, if your thief is dumb, then even a simple trick will work:

Have one user account not protected by a password, so that a thief has "no problems getting it up" and will not seek qualified help. Once windows loads, have a simple utility connect to a particular web address and leave it's IP. There are many free things that will do just that. Even an updater with a modified path will do.

Once you see your laptop logged in, call the cops on that IP.

DELL laptops got a track-me option thats bios enabled. So if you used that ensure u set a pass on the bios. those usually can only receive a BIOS pwd reset by sending the device back to the manufacturer, welcome 2009 :-)

Also, get one that supports HDD encryption. You need to type your key or passphrase prior to booting, but the dirves are not recoverable (Dell , IBM and HP)

or, for a business, on top of that you can run a preboo authntication and encryption software like from McAfee that on top of that, (the above) you need to provide your device credentials prior to the booting process.

So even if lost, and IF the hardware encryption is hacked or simply protected, sstill the machien wont boot up anymore.

all that can be done is either wipe th ehard drive (casuing data loss and your stuff is protected) or replace it with a new one.
No, a usb cable wont allow them to access your secondary HDD easier.

(again welcome 2009):-)

mcAfee so far i know, has a bunch of data loss and prevention stuff going on, recovery....


as far as it goes to the IP...

well, i want to see that to work :-)

Some have a integrated broadband device (sim card based), that cna be used for triangular location (verizon, track my fleet service etc).

Well hope that gives any ideas l-)