Protecting Your Laptop Computer For Free

There is an old saying which goes, "just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me." This certainly should apply in your mind when it comes to protecting your laptop computer. Network World recently reported, "Some of the largest and medium-sized U.S. airports report close to 637,000 laptops lost each year, according to the Ponemon Institute survey released Monday.

Laptops are most commonly lost at security checkpoints, according to the survey. "This means that more than 17,000 laptops are lost in United States airports, for every calendar day of the year." Certainly there are some rather expensive solutions for protecting your laptop computer from being lost and/or stolen.

The University of Washington has recently released a free solution for protecting your laptop computer. The software is known as Adeona. It can be downloaded from adeona.

Currently is available for: XP and Vista (Microsoft), Linux, and Mac OS X (10.4 or 10.5). Macintosh laptop owners have the additional benefit of being able to capture pictures of the laptop user or thief using the built-in iSight camera. You can see examples of this adeona.

There are other advantages Adeona offers besides being free protection for protecting your laptop computer. It uses a state-of-the-art cryptographic mechanism to ensure that the owner is the *only party* that can use the system to reveal the locations of the missing laptop. Further, it uses a community-based remote storage facility. Adeona accomplishes its magic tracking your missing laptop using OpenDHT.

Installation of Adeona is very simple, and if you want step-by-step instructions, you can find them here adeona.

Currently, Adeona is only available for laptops and desktops (a great idea for your servers). They are considering mobile devices such as the iPhone. More details are available at adeona.

Tcat Houser is an international road warrior that travels extensively. Not long ago, he assisted in airline safety attendant (while cruising at 38,000 feet) to discover the registered owner's name on a Macintosh PowerBook left in the WC (water closet) after the owner visited this location and went back to sleep. You can see some interesting pictures from different cities. He has visited by going to Travel4roadwarriors.

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There are (3) Comments

Posted By: David Failor Date: July 16, 2008

Nice idea! And I love the open source part. The only issue I can think of is this is a software implementation so the thief could defeat it by installing another OS or reformatting the drive. Another complementary solution would be to install a GPS device--the advantage of GPS is that it is a hardware solution and works even if you aren't logged on. Of course, it is still possible to defeat but it is more difficult to dismantle the Laptop or PC than to log on and manipulate the software.

Posted By: Derrick Ali Date: July 16, 2008

Thanks for the info - I downloaded just now

Posted By: James Henry Date: July 17, 2008

I found this article very useful, as I expect the software will be.