Stolen Laptop

[wa8yxm]

A Thief walks into a pawn shop in Downtown Detroit (1977) and sells some stolen goods to the two men behind the counter.. This shop was known for paying "Top dollar" on hot goods.. As he takes his cash he says to the counter man you arn't cops are you? The counter man answers that they are, They produce their badges and everything. The thief declines to believe them and says "Admit it you bought those off someone didn't you?" NO, they gave them to us when we graduated the academy, There is a camera behind that mirror and a microphone in the counter in front of you.

The thief points to the camera and says "You mean there is a camera behind that mirror" They answer in the affirmative, and (Thumping his finger right atop the microphone) there is a microphone in the counter? Again they answer in the affirmative.

Ah you can't be the heat, The man would never admit it.

True story by the way.. The pawn shop was owned and operated by the Detroit Police, When "Clients" of the shop screamed "Entrapment" that was the tape they played in court.

If crooks were smart,, Prisons would be empty.

[RanCarr]

Originally Posted by lhill

Well, it finally happened to me....someone broke into our house yesterday and stole alot of things, one being my laptop..... .

You really need to back up your next PC using a thumb drive or CDs/DVDs. Remove them when you leave home. You have a slim chance of getting your laptop back. I hope you didn't have your banking or other sensitive information on it.

[Wayne M]

There are three types of "crooks."

The Smart ones.
The Average ones.
The Dumb ones.

The smart ones have all the money and hire the average and dumb ones to do all the thieving.

The average ones get caught once in a while.

The dumb ones, well those are the ones you see in prison. They always get caught.

Generally speaking, if there was no theft type software on the computer, it is history. Maybe a dumb one will show up with it and get caught, but even then it is unlikely. Considering that they even know how to use a computer, it will become their private property for awhile. When they are through with it they'll sell it to the kid sibling.

Good luck.

[lhill]

Thanks folks, I just bought a backup drive called "My Passport" that's 1 Tbit I believe. It'll take me a while to fill it for sure!

[RedneckExpress]

On yer next one, be sure to get an Intel Anti-Theft equipped unit and get the tracking and recovery service from the company of your choice (McAfee, Symantec, Absolute Lo-Jack, Winmagic, etc.. etc...)

This way with a simple phone call, they can turn your laptop into a brick and in some models, actually track it on a map via the onboard 3G nic.

[KBolin]

Originally Posted by lhill

Thanks folks, I just bought a backup drive called "My Passport" that's 1 Tbit I believe. It'll take me a while to fill it for sure!

Can I recommend you buy 2? It's not a matter of if a drive fails but when. I had pulled out my passport drive to retrieve some files that I couldn't find on my main system (turns out I filed them in a different location and didn't remember) and when I plugged in the passport drive it had failed even though it worked fine the last time I used it.

I keel 5 copies of all my photography and always have at least 1 copy stored off site and another in my safe.

[Robot9000]

Originally Posted by RedneckExpress

On yer next one, be sure to get an Intel Anti-Theft equipped unit and get the tracking and recovery service from the company of your choice (McAfee, Symantec, Absolute Lo-Jack, Winmagic, etc.. etc...)

This way with a simple phone call, they can turn your laptop into a brick and in some models, actually track it on a map via the onboard 3G nic.

I would focus more on the Data than the hardware. Protect the data, let the bad guys keep the hardware (Gives you a good excuse to upgrade :wink: )

By the time you discover the laptop is stolen, The Bad Guys could boot it up and copy off any personal or financial data including your passwords. The bad guys can rummage though the data and copy any info off in minutes. By the time you retrieve the PC, they could have uploaded the data to their hacker friends.. The horse is out of the barn by then.

The only way to protect your data is by using a product like Bit-locker, Trucrypt, PGP whole disk, etc.

[RedneckExpress]

Originally Posted by Robot9000

I would focus more on the Data than the hardware. Protect the data, let the bad guys keep the hardware (Gives you a good excuse to upgrade :wink: )

By the time you discover the laptop is stolen, The Bad Guys could boot it up and copy off any personal or financial data including your passwords. The bad guys can rummage though the data and copy any info off in minutes. By the time you retrieve the PC, they could have uploaded the data to their hacker friends.. The horse is out of the barn by then.

The only way to protect your data is by using a product like Bit-locker, Trucrypt, PGP whole disk, etc.

Aye, however, the AntiTheft is designed to work with those so that the encryption key is locked out of the system making the hard-disk completely inaccessible (No manual entry option).

The downside to PGP and the others is unless yer running a high end SSD drive, your system will bog down terribly. We used PGP here at work, the folks with older laptops using standard hard disks can take upwards of 10 minutes to boot vs those using the SSD drives.

[Robot9000]

Saying you need SSD disks to run disk encryption is simply not true. We have hundreds of laptops where I work that are anywhere from new to 4 years old that run Bitlocker or McAfee (Safeboot). None of them have performance issues. In most corporations it has been part of the standard laptop build for years (EDS/HP has used it on all laptops since 2007). I have 3 laptops at home of varying ages (oldest is 3 years old) and they all run TrueCrypt. No problems.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just don't want anyone to be scared off from using some technology that is free, easy and will protect their data.

[RedneckExpress]

Originally Posted by Robot9000

Saying you need SSD disks to run disk encryption is simply not true. We have hundreds of laptops where I work that are anywhere from new to 4 years old that run Bitlocker or McAfee (Safeboot). None of them have performance issues. In most corporations it has been part of the standard laptop build for years (EDS/HP has used it on all laptops since 2007). I have 3 laptops at home of varying ages (oldest is 3 years old) and they all run TrueCrypt. No problems.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I just don't want anyone to be scared off from using some technology that is free, easy and will protect their data.

Intel, where I work, has been using PGP for a very long time, and I've yet to encounter a pre-2009 non-SSD-based laptop that didn't suffer from slow down from a full-real-time whole disk encryption using standard platter hard drives found in the HP systems used here.

I'm also not familiar with any of the major brands of whole-disk encryption software being "Free".

I have not used bitlocker or McAfee's Safeboot, only PGP Whole-Disk. Perhaps Bitlocker or Safeboot are running a lower grade encryption system that requires less overhead.

[SRT]

Originally Posted by Mr_D

We've had ADT for close to 20 years now. Signs alone seem to do the job!

Have had ADT for 6 years. Several of our neighbors also have ADT.

[Ramblin]

Originally Posted by SRT

Have had ADT for 6 years. Several of our neighbors also have ADT.

My neighbor stole my ADT signs and put them in HIS yard.

[Dunner]

Steal them back, along with anything else you can get your hands on. That'll show him how good stolen signs work.