Virtuity's Backstopp destroys data if laptop leaves DMZ
By Darren Murph 
posted February 20th 2008 7:04AM
posted February 20th 2008 7:04AM
[Via Pocket-lint]
posted February 20th 2008 7:04AM
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C'mon already with the "lappies" baby talk. Is your desktop a deskie? Is your mouse a mousey? You're not even saving a syllable.
Hmmm... What could possibly go wrong here?
You seriously don't understand the "lappie" reference? Everybody to the limit, for crying out loud...
That makes me strongsad...
Does the word Fhqwhgads mean anything to you?
http://www.hrwiki.org/index.php/Lappy_486
Well, you should've seen the time I got a virus on my compy 386 got a virus!
This computer will self destruct in five seconds.
Imagine if the power drops and all your companies laptops suddenely erased themselves!!
Yes, Code601, that would be bad. But Backstopp doesn't seem to do that. It kills data from any laptop that has been flagged as lost or stolen, or, if the system is set up to look for this, removed from where it should be without authorisation.
If your Social Security #, address, banking details ... were on a laptop in a commercial or Govenrment body, wouldn't you like that? I sure would.
And if I were the CEO or CIO of a body that had lost a laptop with personal client or commercial data, I think I'd like this protection.
BackStopp integrates with a secure online backup service so all your data can be easily reloaded. Safe guards also prevent laptops erasing themselves due to outages.
So, the thieves steal the laptop AND the backup so they can do a restore?
Location-based security on mobile systems has been around for years. This isn't too hard to bypass either.
1. Grab laptop
2. Open laptop
3. Yank out hard drive
4. Leave
or just disable the wireless. either way.
If your that bothered, the time it would take a laptop to completle erase a hard drive (so that it cannot be recovered atall!) you could just disconnect the battery then rip out the hard drive later.
I guess the point in the software is more that the would be thief is unaware of the software, and after stealing the equipment and going online or out of radius the software can then discretely delete sensitive data.
I.e. 'Lost' Laptops with government data.
I know about this, and was involved in early discussions. There are a few points worth remembering:
1)It doesn't self-destruct just because it's moved - unless you set it up to do that.
2)Of course you can circumvent it - if you know it's Backstopp-protected - by taking out the battery and then the hard-drive. Or jumping into your nearest Faraday Cage. So that's what proportion of opportunist thefts and accidental losses, exactly? 1%? And why would you advertise your protection strategy? Do you publish your burglar alarm diagrams?
3) Yup, it's a bugger if your data is wiped and you didn't actually lose it; just thought you had. But as a corporate user, you'd better damn well have an automatic back-up policy, especially if you've got my personal or citizen data on there.
4)What's best: no protection because there's no 100% guarantee, or the best you can get right now?
This is a good idea and deserves support, I suggest.