Peter Staack Product Testimonials & Reviews

Laptop computer theft has become a very common occurrence, as more and more people are taking them everywhere they go. Recently, more and more people have been able to recover stolen laptops using their wits, and software that enabled them to track the computer via IP address and even remote monitor it. There are a lot of alternatives, but I've recently taken to using Adeona - named after the Roman Goddess of Safe Return, who was said to protect and guide home children who've left their parents' home - a free open source tracking application, designed under lead Ph.D. students on the project Gabriel Maganis and Thomas Ristenpart, working with University of Washington faculty members Tadayoshi Kohno and Arvind Krishnamurthy.

After installing a very small, unobtrusive client app, the user is then given a key to later track that machine down should it go missing. On MacOS X, it enables you to activate the webcam, and take snapshots. I've tested it out on a WinXP SP3 work laptop, playing musical proxies with my laptop, and was able to determine the network each time. Behind transparent proxies, I could trace it back to the source, and was then able to login to it via Remote Administrator, giving me full control. As well, I could also activate the remote hard drive encryption lock, if I wanted to completely secure the system remotely.

While I obviously can't trace it beyond any anonymous proxies or large network firewalls (at least not without the help of law enforcement), and it's actually not that difficult to terminate the Adeona client service, generally most thefts of opportunity aren't going to be committed by IT experts. Against a savvy and determined computer criminal, no measure of security is completely infallible. However, Adeona seems more than sufficient in cases where someone swipes a laptop. Adeona, paired with other remote security applications (Radmin, No-IP, Bitlocker Remote, Guardian Edge, etc.) and good system security practices (AES encrypting, and regularly backing up valuable software), make a formidable tool in protecting and recovering a stolen laptop.

Cross posted on my Personal LiveJournal - Adeona Free Open Source Laptop Tracking