Laptop tracking software

[kck]

Ahh... I got ya. I think the only way to do that effectively would be to configure your computer with two partitions or two physical drives. Put all of your music on you secondary drive (i.e. then one without the OS), and everything else you wanted to keep secure... and then work to encrypt that drive.

To do that you would need software that runs on the OS level (so after the OS is up and running)... however you would really need to test this out, I am sure there would be overhead on the OS, and you very well could run into some conflicts/performance issues.

Something like this I guess...
http://www.magic2003.net/

[dodge]

Cool man thanks, although it seems like it's getting very complex. It'd be cool if you could encrypt certain files within a hard drive. But no worries man. I'll stick to the tracking software. They should invent something that when activated by the user on a secondary laptop means that who ever turns on the stolen laptop has it blow up in their face with all that blue paint like in bank bags, you know the ones you see in the movies?
So concealed under the keyboard is a bag containing that dye shit, when activated BOOM!!... Motherfucker's got shit backfired right in their fucking face with a useless laptop!!

[kck]

Cool man thanks, although it seems like it's getting very complex. It'd be cool if you could encrypt certain files within a hard drive. But no worries man. I'll stick to the tracking software. They should invent something that when activated by the user on a secondary laptop means that who ever turns on the stolen laptop has it blow up in their face with all that blue paint like in bank bags, you know the ones you see in the movies?
So concealed under the keyboard is a bag containing that dye shit, when activated BOOM!!... Motherfucker's got shit backfired right in their fucking face with a useless laptop!!

LMAO!!! We should invent it!

[dodge]

Was thinking exactly that! Shouldn't really be too hard. Kinda working on a car airbag principal (they manage to pack those things so small) except with paint in it. Could even go one step further and put microdots in the paint. Basically microscopic dots containing information on the laptop (owner etc). So if the police see someone walking down the street with blue ink on their face they can look at it under a microscope and inform the laptop owner that yes, their laptop is fucked, but have no fear, the criminal has been caught and currently has blue dye all over him/her.

[djhipnotikk]

personally i'd back up all my stuff on an external, and hide it away in a closet (or bank)..i don't know if i could stand losing my entire music collection.

[dodge]

personally i'd back up all my stuff on an external, and hide it away in a closet (or bank)..i don't know if i could stand losing my entire music collection.

Already done that. What I mean is I have some real gems on my laptop. Shit I have had to search high and low for. Shit I have had to email the artist to get hold of it, and a couple of the cases the artist has actually done re edits for me, or re EQ'd it for club use so I'm pretty much the only one that has it. I'd hate some punk ass bitch to have the pleasure of owning that shit!

[BradCee]

can't you ping the mac (physical) address of the network cards to find it?

i know there's a command in windows for tracing (roughly) where an ip is coming from, not tried it with mac addresses though.

have you got any other computers? can't see it being too difficult to set something up to just ping the laptop from another computer if pinging a mac address works?

something i will experiment with in the morning. despite being on windows, but now i'm curious

[kck]

I am pretty sure the MAC address is only going to work for things that are directly connected to you.... I don't think you can ping MAC addresses across multiple WAN links.

Even if you could ping the MAC address, you really wouldn't know where that address is... you could do a traceroute on the IP address, but again that is only going to give you general location (ISP name, maybe location depending on how they label their routers)... not enough to go on if you are looking to knock some teeth out of a thief! : )

[Hippie]

Another tracker
http://preyproject.com/

Hiding your stuff
http://www.cleanersoft.com/hidefolde...ide_folder.htm
http://www.winability.com/folderguard/
http://www.truecrypt.org/
http://www.jetico.com/encryption-bestcrypt/

U can select drives and folders to be hidden and encrytped with some of those.

A USB encryption key is another option.

Booby trapping the PC and installing your own Trojans and things incase it gets stolen are a dangerous game, there's always the possibility of it going horribly wrong lol

[BradCee]

install a gps card into the laptop? just googled and found a bunch. then find some sort of software/app that allows you to trace it that way?