Lojack for computers - possible?

[Patty_O_Furniture]

Having recently had my laptop stolen, I wonder why it isn’t possible to install something in a PC that will issue a cry for help under certain circumstances. Cell phones now routinely come with GPS software meaning that you could, I suppose, call up your provider and ask them where your cell phone is in the event it was stolen. This seems like a great idea for costly, easily stolen items like laptops.

Or how about an application that tells an ISP what phone number it’s dialing in from. That way I could report my stolen laptop to my ISP and they could set up a filter to look for the next time it came online.

These ideas seem to good for somebody not to have invented them already. Do such things exist?

[Mr.Matthew]

Several products exist. This page explains several of them. It’s a great idea.

[Duckster]

*Originally posted by Attrayant *
These ideas seem to good for somebody not to have invented them already. Do such things exist?

Been out for years.

Using Google searching under “stolen laptop alarm” I found …

• http://www.fawcette.com/dotnetmag/2002_10/magazine/columns/wireless/

• http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/08/15/laptop.security.idg/

• http://www.computerworld.com/mobiletopics/mobile/story/0,10801,59091,00.html

• http://www.idg.net/idgns/2000/08/11/StolenLaptopSparksAntiTheftTechnology.shtml

[aktep]

A few months (maybe more than a year) ago was either stolen from the University of Texas and used elsewhere, or stolen from elsewhere and hooked up to a public Ethernet port at UT. In either case, the laptop immediately notified a system belonging to the proper owners of its IP address, it was quickly isolated, the goods recovered, and the suspects apprehended.

So, not only do they exist, they work, too.

[World_Eater]

Nice, I think I’ll look into that for my SOs laptop