Having tons of people ask me about this software and heard a campus cop claim they had a "100% success rate" at recovering laptops. Obviously the campus cop was completely full of it, but anyone know how effective this software is on average? They claim to make it hard to delete, but it seems like a reformat or (even better) tossing the drive and pawning the rest of the laptop would easily defeat it. Anyone have any actual experience with this stuff?

I don't think it sounds like a decent investment, but I'd like some real info (other than anecdotes or company brochure crap.)

7/24/2007 11:36:59 PM

well the thing is if someone stole your laptop i dont think they'd expect it to be on there, therefore they wouldnt toss the drive, i think the software resides on a small hidden partion, so you'd really have to look for it to delete it.

but me, i wouldnt buy it, unless i had a $3000 laptop

7/24/2007 11:39:44 PM

Yeah, I usually tell people that if they're that worried to just get their kid renter's insurance. My renter's insurance is 125 a year and covers 40,000 in property and gives me 300,000 in liability and water damage coverage... with only a $100 deductable. Yeah it's more expensive than lojack, but it works 100% of the time and covers all my shit.

7/24/2007 11:43:14 PM

wait a minute, what if you lose your laptop at the library,

also i heard this other dude who insured his laptops thru state farm, for cheap, he actually ended up destroying both of them and they're gonna replace it.
its a hell of alot better than paying dell or whoever for their stuff

7/24/2007 11:48:01 PM

Renters and homeowner's insurance generally covers property away from the home as long as it is something listed on the policy. mine does.

7/25/2007 12:13:26 AM

Yes lowjack is absolutely worth it if you have any sensitive information on your computer. It's not worth it if you just want to insure the hardware.

And yes, it does have near a 100% success rate in recovery.

7/25/2007 1:38:19 AM

so what does it do

just phone home when you connect to the internet?

7/25/2007 8:36:09 AM

Quote :

"Renters and homeowner's insurance generally covers property away from the home as long as it is something listed on the policy. mine does."

Yeah it does. Or atleast mine does. I'm still in school and on my parents insurance so my mom just added my computer stuff to the policy.

Also if i leave for a long time i set up some security in my room. If anything moves in my room, a webcam activates, tracks the motion, and sends the video to a remote server and sends me a text that someone has entered by room, along with a few frames of the video to my phone. I know it's dorky but i was bored taking a break from studying last semester and was messing around with pro security video software. It's pretty neat what you can get it to do.

Plus if my place ever gets broken into i'll have all the video up to the point where the usb is disconnected from the computer. Not to mention i'll know the instant my room is entered and be able to see who it is from the frames sent to my phone. Pretty neat what you can do for cheap these days. I have some expensive musical instruments in there too, and i don't really trust the doors.

[Edited on July 25, 2007 at 9:06 AM. Reason : .]

7/25/2007 8:57:39 AM

^what program is that ?

7/25/2007 9:18:09 AM

^
http://www.pysoft.com/ActiveWebCamMainpageGoogle.htm

You can do pretty much anything with it. Plus i like video security stuff, so i figured might as well play around with it, and i'll have the video if my place ever gets broken into.

7/25/2007 9:43:17 AM

^^^^ Yeah basically. The thing is, like the club, it will only work as long as very few people are familiar with it. But yeah, these are students who don't really have "sensitive" information to steal. People look at me funny when I tell them insurance is easier since your laptop would be considered evidence until a trial anyways. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't nuts suggesting general renter's insurance over something like this for most people.

Anyone know how exactly that all works - recovered stolen property being considered evidence. How long does it take for something like that to be adequately cataloged so it can be returned to the owner?

[Edited on July 25, 2007 at 9:59 AM. Reason : ]

7/25/2007 9:57:37 AM

^^ thanks, i'll check it out

7/25/2007 10:02:50 AM

^^Depends. And virtually no one knows about Lojack for computers. Funny thing is, its been around for a pretty good while and its a son of a bitch to even detect.

Short of literally swapping drives immediately, the perp is going to get popped for it sooner than later. And as "duh" as that sounds, very very few thieves bother with drive swaps, because you don't get much for a fenced laptop in the first place.

7/26/2007 2:59:59 AM