How to Track a Stolen Laptop

In June 2008 the Ponemon Institute released a report entitled “Airport Insecurity: The Case of Missing and Lost Laptops.”

Some of their findings were surprising.

• 12,000 notebook computers are lost at US airports each week.
• Between 65 and 70 percent are never recovered.
• Most laptops are lost at security checkpoints.

That’s almost 672,000 notebooks lost each year just in airports. That doesn’t include theft from businesses, thefts from parked cars, thefts from hotel rooms, and luggage theft.

It’s a leafy jungle out there, at least when it comes to keeping up with a laptop.

The best prevention measure seems to be planning for eventual loss. That’s where Adeona comes in. They are an open-source, free notebook tracking service. Adeona’s focus is on letting the user take responsibility for his or her own privacy rather than depending on the tracking company’s privacy policy and potential loss of personal data. (This has been a banner year for data breaches.)

The model used by some other well-known notebook tracker services is something like this

• Software is installed on the notebook.
• The software periodically communicates with a server to provide the user’s IP address and “local network topology.”
• The machine is stolen.
• The owner notifies the tracking service.
• The tracking service watches for the laptop to connect.
• The tracking service contacts the owner with information he can take to the police to enable the laptop’s recovery.

Most notebook thefts are done by amateurs. There’s no way to know if they’ll be technically proficient enough to wipe the hard drive, thus wiping out the tracking application, before going online. There’s a good chance that the thief won’t be proficient. The act is likely to be a grab and swipe. The thief may be thinking of selling the notebook on eBay or pawning it, or he may even want to give it to a family member or friend as a present.

Even worse, from the thief’s perspective, he may not even be able to start the laptop. My ThinkPad has a TPM – Trusted Platform Module – on the motherboard. Other than knowing precisely what the configuration of my notebook is, it also contains the password for the device, and it’s not erasable. Unless the thief can guess my password, he’s not going to start the notebook without changing the system board.

But what if you don’t have a power-on password set? What if the notebook is just sleeping or hibernating when it's stolen?

Then the thief will be very happy. Maybe he’ll watch a few YouTube videos and play some online games before selling or giving away your notebook. There’s a very good chance that he will want to try out the notebook as soon as possible.