Recover your notebook from thieves

My computer was stolen,now what?..

Well,if you have insurance you can always activate it and wait for a redund to buy a new one,but the problem is that it won’t bring you back the most valuable thing on your computer –information! It can be an important university work,a  thesis,an ultra complex work for your company or simply the family photos –your informations most of the times are worth much more than the computer itself!

So,the answer above is not exactly the best,or the one you’d like to hear,is it?.. and if I told you there might be a way to find out where your computer is? Meet PREY:

Prey is a software (program) that allows you to activate a monitoring system on your computer (must be installed prior to have your equipement stolen!) which sends reports to a web page,with information about modified files,active connections,running uptime,IP address for tracking (it allows you to discover the Internet provider and from the provider eventually obtain the thief’s address),desktop pictures and if the computer has a webcam it can even take a snapshot of the bad guy!

This program tries to automatically connect to wireless networks so you have a better chance of tracking and there is also the possibility to send out alerts to the monitor so that the thief or someone nearby knows the equipment was stolen and is being tracked,but attention that it might not be the best ideia,since if the thief doesn’t know what the program is doing the chances to recover location data and taking snapshots from the webcam are bigger.

Obviously the crook may always try to format the computer,there’s where the BIOS password protection comes in play (To prevent the boot device to be altered –which should always be the hard drive only!).

Seems great,but how much will it cost? 500,00?! 300,00?! 100,00?!

As certainly you don’t want to spend a lot of money,this software costs.. zero ($0)! How come? It’s an Open Source project,from Tomáz Pollak,developed under the GPLv3 license. There are of course comercial solutions available,but I’m a fan of free software solutions. If you feel satisfied with the program consider a donation to help supporting the project.

Prey works in most popular operating systems (Windows,Linux,Mac OSX) and also in Android cell phones / portables.

Now you can leave your computer more protected,but better yet is not having to use the tool at all.