du computer people..question for you!

[Beer Snob-50]

has anyone heard of lojack for laptop computers? you download it to your computer and if it is stolen the police will be able to find it. doesn't make sense to me but i thought i would look into it.

[NJmaverick]

1. I have heard of it, it seems legit

but I don't have any first hand or second hand experience with it. In theory it could work.

[EOTE]

2. I believe it's hardware/software.

You need to have some ID chip installed physically in your computer and the police track your computer through that means rather than any software.

[Beer Snob-50]

3. according to the website

you just download a program.....no hardware to install

[EOTE]

4. Hmmmm, I don't know how that would work.

Software can always be erased. If you do a low level format on the hard drive, I couldn't imagine that it would do much good in that case.

[Solon]

7. Yeah, I don't see how it would work effectively...

unless its written into the Bios(laptop with built in lojack) or wrote a part of itself in the MBR of the hard drive. Even if it was in written to that, it could still be destroyed, but even a low level format wouldn't do, you'd have to erase all partitions and also reboot the computer from another disk and then erase the MBR. I don't know how effective programs written on to the MBR would work though.

[crispini]

5. It could work, if the thief is stupid enough to use it as-is.

And if they hooked it up to the internet.

I would look into whether or not this is really being used. If the company is in charge of looking and then THEY report it to the police, the location, that is, then it might work, but I have my doubts that the zillions of police departments would implement this. Got a link? I'd be interested in reading about it.

[Beer Snob-50]

6. i just googled "lojack for laptops"

and went to the company link

[crispini]

9. It looks like certain computers support embedding this in the BIOS.

So, yes, it would work and it would be a software only solution. Pretty sneaky! I'd get it, especially if yours is one of the computers that supports embedding it in the BIOS.

[Beer Snob-50]

10. i was thinking of using it on my son's computer that he is bringing to college

i am leaning toward trying it.

[meegbear]

8. I was just looking at somftware that does that ...

I can't remember what it's called, but it's out there.