Lojack for laptop

On March 13th, I started to go to work and found my back window of my Silverado broken and my xps m1530, missing along with my camera and ipod. I immediately called the police, then lojack to report the theft. On March 25th, I got call from the police, informing me they had my laptop in their possesion. No camera or ipod though. Police said person bought it "on the open market", and no charges were filed, until further investigation. Upon receiving the laptop back, I went to the Internet Explorer history and found where the person had went to the manufacturers website for accessories for the digital camera, like charger, docking station, etc. It just so happens, not very many Kodak V610 bluetooth cameras were sold in our area. I called the detective in charge of the case and informed him of this. He called the suspect and was given a line, about checking kodak for his sister. At 4:00 pm today he called me and informed me he was in posession of my camera and a bunch of other stuff, and the subject was under arrest.
This recovery was all due to the 89.99 price of lojack(3 yrs coverage).

 

That's awesome news! That it worked out for you, and you got it recovered!

When do you get it back (camera, etc)? I'm glad that for $89.99 it was a worthwhile investment! I have it on my lappy, also!

Cin

 

I pick up the camera on monday, officer is off rest of week.

 

That's good ~ really, only 4 days away!


Cin

 

how does lojack work?

 

It's special software installed on your Dell lappy...in case your lappy is stolen..once you report it as stolen...it is activated and *tracks your lappy's whereabouts*

Here is more info:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/lojack?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd


Cin

 

That's awesome. LoJack worked, Police did their thing and you got it back.

Good detective work on the camera aspect. Nice!

I got it with my DellCare package when I ordered the M133O back in the day, but I have wiped my laptop many times. I know there is a BIOS agent that is permanently enabled once you enable it. But if the system is wiped by a more professional thief than the one who took yours, does the LoJack still work or is it worthless at that point? Anyone know?

 

Great I'm happy that you were able to recover your stuff. When i worked at Office Depot, part of my job was to install Lojack in all the Laptops we displayed. If remember,Lojack is installed in the bios, so basically you can't get rid of it even if you wipe the hard drive

 

can i get this after the fact? or can it only be purchased at time of sale?

 

on the newer laptops, it is bios driven. So even if they install new hd or reinstall new os. It still calls Lojack. As a matter of fact. when it is reported stolen, it is in instructed to call in every 15 minutes while it is connected to net. it takes from 10 or more days usually to recover it, depends on the police dept and how high priority it is to them. mine took 12 days. There is no way to detect lojack, you can go into bios and it will only say it is active or not active, or something in that order.

 

See this site:

http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/

Fairly good deal!

Cin

 

i wonder whether the bios connects to an ip address or a domain name... the second one can be spoofed.... the first one might have problems if behind a router or something

 

Nice to hear successful stories like this !!!

 

Congrats
Glad you got your laptop and camera back.

It should not be too difficult to get around lowjack - just reinstall the bios

I wonder if it works on dual boot systems...

 

sweet, thanks

 

I have updated bios 4 times and have 4 hard drives i interchange (1 windows7 x64, 1 oem vista ultimate 32bit, 1 vista ultimate x64, 1 ubuntu x64). Never had to reinstall anything. Now with a motherboard change maybe. You can log onto your lojack acct and it will tell you when your laptop checked in and you can make a test call. It works no matter what.

 

^^^^ Hmmm that is interesting...so.. how can lowjack be defeated ?

 

NP! Let us know if you end up ordering it directly thru thte site. I'm curious as to how easy the purchase and install is direct thru them


Cin

 

you made just about everyone who has this happy. it always feels good to know it actually works without having to deal with it first hand.

I still havent decided on this or actual insurance yet. insurance has accidental warrenty built in as well. but its also 3 times the cost and the thief never gets caught.

is there any kind of gaurantee it will be recovered or anything like reimbursing you if they cant get it back.

 

No................

 

After XX many days after being reported stolen if they have not found it they just end the investigation and give you your money back you paid for the service.

 

I would say that for $59.95 (starting price) weighed over life of your lappy, that would be worth it for me! I purchased it with my lappy though!

But, look...here is a case where the thief actually got caught..and the cost of the service, paid off

Cin

 

Does this come as standard on the M1530?

If not, is it available to UK customers?

I can see how easy it would be to get around in two ways, but obviously it's not a good idea to put that on the internet Having said that, without people being aware of it being there they won't go to the trouble. It could still be effective.

 

some m1530 config bundles come with lojack, others you can choose when configuring, or buy it later

it also depends on whether th epolice department in UK takes these stuff seriously.... lojack checks what IP the computer signals from, then matches it with a location, then informs the police of it.... most likely, the police realizes that high-tech-theft == more bad stuff going on in that place and would raid it if they get enough suspicious cause for a warrant...

 

im curious what would happen in the case of like a large dorm. 1 kid kicks your door in takes your lappy then runs 12 doors down the hall. the school has a router i assume assigning ips but when it radios home the ip outside of the internal network is the ip it will use. so it says the lappy is at school somewhere but where.

 

From my understanding of the product, it sends multiple signals continuously once actived (someone correct me if wrong). If the software doesn't deal with internal IPs or anything identifying an internal side of the connection then at the very least the IT department at that facility could look at their own network to see where the packets are coming from. It wouldn't be hard to ID it and find out where on their network the stolen laptop was.

 

Write down your ethernet and wireless MAC address. If it ever gets stolen, give the MAC address to the network admin and they can check the network for its activity.

Theres no easy way to pinpoint a wireless location but if its connected to a certain access point then they can narrow it down to an area. If its connected via ethernet then they just need to check the switch to which room it is allocated to.

 

They claim that they recover 75% of stolen computers; thats pretty impressive... The con is that its another very hard to remove program in the bios, and may cause problems, see the amazon review:
http://www.amazon.com/Computrace-LoJack-Laptops-Year-Subscription/dp/B000BRCZZK

The question is would you not make sure your laptop never gets stolen, lowjack or no lowjack ?
IMHO, lowjack is more suited towards te coporate environment, where the laptops are more important to the corporation than to the employees.

I personally would not have any peace og mind even if lowjack was installed

 

I agree about making sure it is not accessible to thieves. I felt like an idiot, but busy evening and forgot to remove it as i normally do. Mine is used home, work and in my truck. Bad thing is, we live in middle class neighborhood and burglaries are all too common. Homes are being broke into weekly here. So it almost has to be on my person 24/7. After recovering mine, i am convinced it was well worth it
.
thoughts on Lojack:

1. If the thief cannot get on the internet, Lojack cannot check in with monitor. (You can log onto my laptop, but not access any confidential info)

2. Keep confidential info locked in password protected file, password and or fingerprint.

3. This type of silent connection could also send any info software asked for. (Big Brother) With Lojack premium, you can delete files remotely and disable the computer.
If this is the case, seems to me, someone could theoretically hack into your computer and spy on you or steal info.

4. Lojack does have a decent track record and it worked for me.

5. Austin Police Dept. told me chances of recovering a stolen laptop, without Lojack, is very slim. The have to stumble upon it and check sn, or wait for it to show up in
pawn shop. He also told me over 90% of recovered laptops are located by Lojack.

 

Dell has their own version of lojack:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/prosupport/computrace?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz


It also seems to be more reasonably priced, I see it for $54/3 years, and
$78 for 3 years with remote data delete.
For 5 years its $93/$110

 

This seems like it's for "large businesses" where corporations would buy hundreds or thousands of licenses. The retail copies of lojack that Dell sells are around the same price as the ones Lojack sells itself.

 

Er, no; you can get "Dell Laptop Tracking/Recovery" for personal purchases. Eg., I see it available for the dell m4400