
My laptop was stolen. - cellis
So, my $1k laptop was stolen with my project/startup code over the holiday (all backed up to shared host/gmail). After all was said (obscenities/what-I-would-do-if-I-caught-theif) and done, it was gone: stolen, I assume, from my jeep. What do you guys do to ensure that this doesn't happen, and if it does, what recourse do you have? I have no idea where it was stolen, (at work, parents house, or coffee/book shop).<p>I really, really wish I had thought about this and bought LoJack or insured it on my car insurance or something, but I didnt :(.<p>Anyone have similar horror stories?
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paul
$ crontab -e

    
    
     */3 * * * *    curl -m 5 http://myserver.com/ping.txt > /dev/null 2>&1
    
    

Maybe I'll get their IP address at least.

~~~
nickb
That's ok if you don't have a password on your account or you don't require a
password to wake up from sleep. That's too dangerous so I recommend the
following:

Set your Mac to use Filevault and go to Security section and select "Require
password after waking up from sleep" so if someone opens up your laptop,
they'll be greeted with a login screen. Now you want them to reboot...

What I did to make a 'honey pot' is this: I created a guest account (named it
'Krista') and that account doesn't require a password so if someone steals my
laptop and reboots it, they'll be able to use this account. The account itself
is locked down with very little permissions. I allow the use of a browser and
the browser launches immediately after login (add it to Login items). The home
page of the browser is set to my server's redirect page that uses meta refresh
to immediately take the user to Yahoo. But I do get their IP. I also have curl
set to ping a page every 20 min or so.

You could pay some cash for Orbicule (they use your iSight to grab pics of a
person sitting in front of the screen) etc but this method is more than good
enough. A step-up would be to proxy all of the requests from the browser
through the proxy you control... but I haven't found a nice proxy to install
on a shared server.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any method that would survive a reinstall of OS
X but most thieves don't know how to do that anyway.

~~~
imsteve
The cron daemon should be launched at a runlevel preceding anything windowing
related, this is the default in all linux distros. So you shouldn't have to
log to anything for it to be running.

Also, if you have sshd running, which decent OS will have, then you can
automatically take over the computer remotely.

I'm sure this is easily applicable to OSX.

~~~
nickb
The point is that you want to give a reason to a thief to connect your laptop
to the net. If a thief cannot log in and cannot even use a browser, what are
the chances that he'll connect it to the net? Zero?!

You want to give the thief something so they connect your machine to the
internet for longer periods of time... and they can't compromise your user
account and your files.

~~~
imsteve
> give a reason to a thief to connect your laptop to the net.

How exactly does your strategy do this?

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jgrahamc
One nice way to do this on a Mac is to leave the Guest account available. Even
though the user cannot get into your account because of your uber-strong
password and FileVault encryption, they can go into the Guest account and surf
the web (and activate your LoJack).

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snorkel
95% of laptop thieves are not computer saavy. Rest assured they are not
examining your hard drive for sensistive data or reading your email, data
theft is too sophisticated for laptop thiefs and takes valuable time that
could be spent smoking crack, but needless to say changing your online
passwords is first order of business. If your laptop was a windows PC then the
thief traded it for pot to a cousin who is currently installing pirated games
on it. If the laptop was running anything other than windows then the hard
drive has been reformatted. If it was a Mac laptop then it was traded to a
fence for cash who reformatted it then put it on ebay.

Fortunately laptops are getting cheaper. The best policy is buy a cheap laptop
and assume it will be lost, stolen, or broken. Treat it as disposable.

~~~
ochiba
That was hillarious, you really had me cracking up there

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mrtron
I lost a pair of pants once, but it was worth it to leave rapidly.

Losing a laptop is never good, it is a reminder to us all to backup. The
actual laptop isn't worth very much, but a laptop full of data seems
priceless.

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chengmi
1) A car is for transportation, not storage. 2) Laptops, like children, should
never be left unattended. 3) No one needs insurance until they need it. 4)
Finish your code, make money, and buy a new laptop.

~~~
davidw
Yeah, I'm super paranoid when I'm out and about with my laptop. I do not leave
it unattended.

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DanielBMarkham
My laptop is like my alternate brain, so I usually get a more expensive model
with all of the insurance and on-site stuff. Sure -- it's probably paying way
too much for the value I receive, but in my opinion it's a better investment
than a car. After all, a car only takes me places. A laptop expands my reach.

And no -- don't sell the Jeep! Just stop leaving your laptop in it unattended.

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noonespecial
Check ebay for the next week or so. You might be able to buy it back!

~~~
icky
> You might be able to buy it back!

Or just report to ebay and the police that it was stolen, and _get_ it back.

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cratuki
Is there some sort of free software filesystem where you basically
automatically sync it with a silo somewhere remote? I've got a new clean
hosted instance, and was thinking it would be neat to be able to use mercurial
for source control on my laptop, and know that it was constantly duplicated on
my leased hosting.

Any advice?

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inklesspen
I use Orbicule's Undercover service, which is much like LoJack, only
specifically tailored to Macs.

I also back up to an external drive nearly every night (Thanks, Time
Machine!), and check my code into source control (SVN or Mercurial) on my VPS.

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amichail
Anyone use an encrypted file system? Is there much of a performance penalty?

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imsteve
Performance isn't the problem. If any of your drives ever corrupt a single bit
then all of your data is trashed (with most setups) and _that's_ a big
problem.

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BitGeek
This is no the case with filevault, when it is set up with a login account. I
have lost encrypted disk images under OS X due to drive problems... but have
had a filevault make it thru a failing disk without trouble.

It helps that the Mac has HFS+ and Journaling.

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pi3832
Sell the Jeep and buy a car with a real trunk. As a bonus it will probably get
2x the gas mileage, and oil changes and tires will cost 1/2. Not to mention
insurance.

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carpal
If it was stolen from your car, you might be able to get your car insurance to
pay for it. But you might have to file a police report.

~~~
mattmaroon
Actually, I'm almost 100% sure you can after filing the report. I'm not sure
you want to though.

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tlrobinson
I'm just waiting for my laptop to break / get stolen, it would give me a great
excuse to buy a new one...

(it's a 1.33GHz PowerBook...)

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edw519
Really stupid question:

Why ever even move your startup laptop? I have never done this. I work on my
startup from home 95% of the time. The other 5% I edit check program listings.
Startup laptop backed up and secure at all times. Am I the only one?

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imsteve
Why would you ever get a laptop instead of getting a much better bang for the
buck desktop if you're never going to move it?

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axod
Try using a desktop whilst sat on the toilet. Or am I the only one...?

~~~
davidw
That's what a subscription to the paper copy of The Economist is for.

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mattmaroon
I def recommend using PGP full disk encryption for Windows if you have
sensitive data on the laptop.

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tx
You had your backups. So what is the problem? Where is the "horror" part?

~~~
cellis
Sorry, I'm poor, so I consider $1000 to be a horrific loss. :(

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tlrobinson
I don't leave my laptop in my car...

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rms
are you covered on your parent's homeowners insurance? You might be if you are
a full time student.

