More and more of us are carrying around laptops and notebooks. Their growing popularity means that our personal information and precious files, like photographs and mp3s, are at greater risk of loss. According to one report there are 12000 laptops lost in US airports every week, and 70% of them are never recovered. That’s a lot of laptops! And with the devices getting smaller, it only makes them easier to filch.
There are things that can be done to secure your laptop, and, hopefully, safeguard your Kodak moments. Locks are available, somewhat like those used to chain bicycles to power-poles, and products are available to ensure the identiy of the person, using the laptop, is valid. There is also software available to locate a lost laptop.
Until recently that software has been based on proprietary code, and used a third-party central service for tracking the whereabouts of the device. These offerings have also had questionable privacy, in that it was possible that others could track the laptop, as it travels around, and therefore track the owner.
Adeona, new software from the University of Washington, USA, claims to be “privacy-preserving”. Meaning that only the owner can use their system to track the laptop. But wait there’s more! It is free. Free in both senses of the word. Free at no cost, and free, as in open-source. Adeona was the Roman Goddess of safe return. The software is available for Windows, MAC OS X, and Linux operating systems.
Once downloaded, installed, and activated, Adeona goes to work. At intervals that average 30 minutes it will send information to a distributed storage system. This information includes IP addresses, nearby routers, the wireless hot spot, and, if you have a MAC, a photo of the current user. All this information is encrypted. An IP address is an identification number given to each computer connected to the Internet, for example 192.159.1.56. Think of it as your computer’s phone number. Routers are equipment that connects bits of the Internet together, and a wireless hot spot is where connections can be made to the Internet, via a laptop, without using cables.
If your laptop goes astray it is a simple matter of finding another computer on which you can install Adeona. Once installed you run “retrieval mode”, and this information is downloaded. The writers of the software claim that by giving this information to the police, they, with the help of ISPs, who can identify where the computer was used, will be able to locate the missing computer, and hopefully return it to its rightful owner. You should also take note of your laptop’s make, model and serial number, thus helping police to identify it, when recovered.
Adeona need not be restricted to laptops. It can also be installed on desktops, and servers. The university is also hoping to release a version for devices like the iPhone.
There is one major problem. The unscrupulous person that takes possession of your computer may have enough knowledge to wipe your hard drive, reinstall the operating system, or just remove Adeona before it can issue a report. In saying this, there is always the chance that expert thieves are going to get around any steps taken to prevent theft. In the majority of instances, the felon will be an opportunist with no knowledge of Adeona, thus allowing the software to report the laptops new location.
It is always better to be safe than sorry.
