[OSX-Users] support for stolen or harddrive destructed laptops

[m.c. schraefel]

Having experienced total harddrive failure recently, and feeling 
pretty chuffed about having pretty recent backups for restore, i was 
curious about the Dark(er) Side of laptop mayhem - like when it's 
stolen which seems to happen from time to time in our labs.

This article from this week's tidbits offers some interesting 
solutions - and a product that has education mass licensing - which 
we may want to investigate for laptops in the group
(http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/education.php)

here's the article:



What I Learned from Having My Laptop Stolen
-------------------------------------------
   by David Blatner <david at 63p.com>
   article link: <http://db.tidbits.com/article/10165>

   Someday, somewhere, somehow your computer will be gone. It will be
   stolen, or the hard drive will self-destruct, or it will be hit by a
   meteor  [or be pushed out an airplane -mc]. While the latter would 
at least provide you with an
   excellent story, assuming you weren't using it at the time, having
   your laptop stolen, as mine was recently, just plain sucks. However,
   I did manage to learn a few things in the wake of disaster, and
   wanted to take the opportunity to share them with you here.

   Three things are lost with a computer's theft: hardware, data, and
   privacy. I'll let others deal with the emotional aspects of loss,
   and instead focus on the practical ones.


**Hardware** -- The loss of the hardware is, in many ways, the least
   of your problems. Sure, it's money out the door, but as my mom once
   told me, you can always make more money. That said, I do encourage
   you to make sure your computer is insured. Many homeowner insurance
   policies do not cover computers that are used primarily for work, or
   those that are stolen offsite (like from a car). Be sure to check
   your policies carefully. Safeware offers independent computer
   insurance, if necessary.

<http://www.safeware.com/>

   I would also recommend installing tracking software on your
   computer. Of the various options on the market, I picked MacTrak  by
   GadgetTrak for my replacement computer based on several factors: I
   liked the company's owner, whom I met at his Macworld booth; I don't
   like the idea of a third-party company being the mediator between me
   and the tracking data (as other companies do); and I like the
   relatively simple and straightforward approach the software takes.

<http://www.gadgettrak.com/products/mac/>

   If my new laptop is stolen, I log into the GadgetTrak Web site and
   report it missing. The next time my computer pings their server, it
   sees the status and starts occasionally taking pictures (with the
   built-in iSight camera) and reporting its location (based on
   whatever Wi-Fi address the thief is using). Those photos and data go
   directly to me, and it's up to me to give that information to law
   enforcement.

   There are a number of other products and companies that can track
   your Mac including LoJack and Undercover. While both programs have
   some interesting features (Undercover in particular does some things
   I'd like to see incorporated into a future version of MacTrak, such
   as taking screenshots as the thief works and simulating a hardware
   failure to force the thief into bringing the machine in for repair),
   evaluating them should be saved for another article.

<http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/>
<http://www.orbicule.com/undercover/ >


**Data** -- So tracking helps protect against the loss of hardware,
   but what about the loss of data? This was my biggest concern at
   first, considering I kept everything on my laptop and was not that
   conscientious about backing it up. Lucky for me I had two things in
   my favor. First, I had been using SuperDuper about once a month to
   back up the whole laptop to an external hard drive. It's easy,
   cheap, and painless to back up a complete copy of a computer, or
   make incremental backups regularly.

<http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/ >

   Second, I had installed a copy of CrashPlan a year or so earlier.
   CrashPlan is one of several programs on the market that sits in the
   background and backs up your hard drive to either an external drive,
   another computer (on your local network or one connected to the
   internet) that has the software, or to a central location (see
   "CrashPlan: Backups Revisited," 2007-02-26). I chose to store my
   data at CrashPlan's bank vault in Minneapolis for about $5 per
   month.

<http://www.crashplan.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/article/8882>

   About two hours before my laptop was stolen, I had stopped in at
   Glenn Fleishman's and Jeff Carlson's office to say hello and check
   my email. While there, CrashPlan quietly backed up a few more files
   without me even knowing it. Thanks to those few minutes of being
   online, I was later able to recover about 95 percent of my data. The
   only significant data I lost was the previous month's worth of
   photos in iPhoto (which I had for some reason instructed CrashPlan
   to ignore).

   Some of you may be asking, "But what about Time Machine?" Well, to
   be honest, it didn't work for me at first, and after 5 minutes of
   troubleshooting I got tired of it and gave up. For those still
   curious as to how CrashPlan sizes up to Time Machine, you can find a
   comparison of the two options on CrashPlan's Web site.

<http://www.crashplan.com/consumer/features-timemachine.html>



**Privacy** -- My next overwhelming sense of loss (and that which
   stays with me to this day) was the loss of privacy. I did use a
   program called KeePass to protect my passwords and some other
   private information (I now use 1Password, which offers far more
   features, such as autofill in login screens). But what about my
   Quicken files? Or photos of my family? Contracts and other business
   documents? Suddenly all of that was in someone else's hands.

<http://keepass.info/>
<http://agilewebsolutions.com/products/1Password>

   After about 5 days, I logged into the CrashPlan Central server and
   saw that all the files it was backing up had been deleted from my
   laptop. Or at least, it simply couldn't find them anymore. That was
   a small relief, but ultimately I don't really know what happened to
   the data, which leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

   So here's how I'm doing it differently on my new laptop. First, in
   the Security pane of System Preferences, I turned on the checkboxes
   labeled "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen
   saver" and "Disable automatic login."

   Next, I created a new Guest Account in System Preferences. In the
   guest account, I set up Parental Controls so a user can't really do
   much beyond log in, use iLife, surf the Web, and so on. More
   importantly, behind the scenes, I have granted MacTrak permission to
   run quietly. The idea is that a thief, not being able to log into my
   account, will find that they can log into the Guest account, which
   will enable me to capture their whereabouts. It may be a long shot,
   but it's better than nothing.

   On top of that, I have used Firmware Password Utility to lock my
   firmware, stopping anyone from reformatting the hard drive,
   launching from an external disk, or even starting the laptop up as
   an external FireWire drive. (For more information, see Apple's
   support article about setting up a firmware password.) I'm sure that
   the firmware password is surmountable, but hopefully any future
   thief won't know how.

<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1352>


**Going Further** -- I've implemented two other security options on my
   new computer. First, before leaving for a recent overseas trip, I
   dug out an old Kensington cable lock that I bought about a decade
   ago but never got around to using. Being able to lock my laptop to a
   table gives me a little extra peace of mind.

<http://us.kensington.com/html/1434.html>

   Second, here at home, I also have two fireproof media safes for
   backup DVDs and CDs. Note that I said "media safes" - regular safes
   may be fireproof for paper, but electronic media will melt in them.
   I had to get two because the space inside is tiny (the majority of
   the safe is concrete or some other heavy and thick material).

   There are still plenty of other security options I could choose to
   utilize. For example, I know Mac OS X has FileVault, but the fact
   that it encrypts my entire home folder (including gigabytes of
   photos and videos) puts me off. Yes, I could move photos and videos
   out of my home folder, but I'm still not wild about FileVault.

   Ultimately, I feel that the measures I've taken are relatively
   inexpensive, easy to implement, and leave me with a comfortable
   sense of security. Sure, the NSA could crack it, and yes, a meteor
   could still do some serious damage, but if some jerk steals my
   computer again I won't hyperventilate or panic. It'll be okay.

   [David Blatner is arguably the world's most-recognized authority on
   Adobe InDesign and the co-host of the site InDesign Secrets.]

<http://indesignsecrets.com/>