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).

I really, really wish I had thought about this and bought LoJack or insured it on my car insurance or something, but I didnt :(.

Anyone have similar horror stories?

[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.

[staunch]

If you saw those requests from a bad guy you'd be wishing you could change it to:

    curl https://myserver.com/runme.sh 2>/dev/null|/bin/bash

[tx]

There are about 3 or 4 companies who built products they sell for Windows that do exactly that: install a background service that keeps pinging their servers.

Some courts had said that Microsoft was killing the competition by bundling "free" stuff into Windows. To me it looks the other way - their weak OS only gives people chance to make money by compensating for its deficits.

[qaexl]

Hey, good idea ... I'm going to do that.

[mohamed_rafique]

122.164.125.114

[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

[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.

[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.

[dcurtis]

I rarely leave my laptop unattended, but I once melted it. Honey mustard potato chips, it appears, are EXTREMELY flammable.

The point is, just because you keep it with you, doesn't mean you don't need insurance.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[amichail]

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

[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.

[nickb]

I use Filevault. Never had ANY issues with it so far. My password is also pretty strong (10 alphanumeric characters with punctuation sprinkled) so I doubt anyone would get much out of trying to crack it.

Everyone who travels with their laptop should use some kind of an encrypted FS if their data is worth anything.

[kogir]

I'm using Bitlocker + EFS on Vista and have noticed no performance problems at all.

[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.

[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.

[dcurtis]

Yeah, and then your car insurance will go up. Not really worth it.

[mwerty]

Also, renter's insurance will probably cover it.

[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...)

[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?

[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?

[immad]

You might want to use the mobile component of the laptop at times. Like in a cafe for example, or perhaps if you were to attend a conference or maybe on a long train ride.

Am i missing the sense of your first question?

[inovica]

You are right, seems a really stupid question :P Laptops are purchased for their portability in general - means you can code from anywhere.

[mattmaroon]

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

[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. :(

[tlrobinson]

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

[rms]

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