Intel to debut Anti-Theft Technology to deter laptop theft

Laptop LoJack's number might be up, Intel's apparently gearing up to start pushing its so-called Anti-Theft Technology for laptops. Details are still sparse, but apparently it provides boot-time lockout of unauthorized users (presumably among other things) upon occasion of theft, and is being picked up by partner companies like Lenovo, Fujitsu, Phoenix, and McAffee for release later this year. It'd be really nice if we could get some connected GPS to phone home when your laptop takes off without you, but it's nice to know the industry's finally starting to take this stuff on instead of leaving hapless theft victims to fend for themselves.

[Via Ars Technica]

[SurKaz @ Apr 4th 2008 7:56AM]

exactly how are they going to deter that?.. hard disk encryption?. already there.
Are they going to turn on a built in GPS device in the laptop when we report it stolen? Won't that increase the cost of the laptop?...

[happy_penguin @ Apr 4th 2008 8:15AM]

I would think that since it's Intel, they'll be hard wiring this into the processor and/or main board. It doesn't seem to me that the inclusion of the necessary electronics would be all that expensive, but I would think that one would have to pay for the service in some way or another, either up front, as a monthly fee or when the service is activated after reporting a stolen laptop.

[happy_penguin @ Apr 4th 2008 8:15AM]

I would think that since it's Intel, they'll be hard wiring this into the processor and/or main board. It doesn't seem to me that the inclusion of the necessary electronics would be all that expensive, but I would think that one would have to pay for the service in some way or another, either up front, as a monthly fee or when the service is activated after reporting a stolen laptop.

[bandon else @ Apr 4th 2008 7:59AM]

Finally they have some sense,
But i wonder how ong till some hacker gets past it just have to see when they get it rolling out

[aardvark sandwich @ Apr 4th 2008 8:11AM]

Driver only caries $20 in ammunition.

[dervheid @ Apr 4th 2008 8:14AM]

Of course, if the "hapless victims" were to BE MORE CAREFUL WHERE THEY LEAVE THEIR LAPTOP...

[Flashpoint @ Apr 4th 2008 8:24AM]

EXACTLY

who the hell leaves a laptop in the open space of a car?

When I leave my laptop in my car, I lock it in the trunk, and even then, I try to disguise it with useless junk like rags or plastic bags.

If you leave stuff out in the open: gps devices, purses, cellphones, etc, expect to have your car broken into - or have it stolen.

I rarely if ever get stuff stolen because I take care of things and use COMMON SENSE.

[j_g_puff @ Apr 4th 2008 8:52AM]

GPS is a silly idea. It needs a clear view of the sky to work. Putting it in the boot (or 'trunk' if you prefer) of a car would disable the tracking.

A much better idea would be to have hardware that automatically sends something to a particular server whenever the device is connected to the internet. Then, as soon as the thief tries to surf using his stolen laptop, the police have some location data. If this is buried deep down in the hardware it would be difficult for a thief to disable.

Of course, he probably wants to sell the PC on, in which case the above suggestion doesn't really help much.

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 9:16AM]

Chop their fucking hands off - that's a deterrent.

[Dolemite @ Apr 4th 2008 12:09PM]

I hate being the victim of theft as much as everyone else, but, a stolen laptop is not a sufficient reason to turn civilization into Saudi Barbaria.

[DVO @ Apr 4th 2008 9:18AM]

since when can GPS not function through the trunk of a car?

I can use my GPS in the basement of a house, in elevators, even in some Los Angeles subway stations - 100 Feet below solid concrete...

What kind of crummy GPS service are you using that can't get service through less than an inch thick piece of metal?

[xtrmcheeze @ Apr 4th 2008 10:05AM]

I always thought installing something like LogMeIn (logmein.com), the free version, would be pretty good for this. If you've setup LogMeIn on your laptop, when it's connected to the net you'll see it's online. From there you can get the IP it's using at the time, with the IP I'm sure you can contact some authorities to have them talk to the ISP owning that IP, have them get the address of where that IP is being used, have them go to that property and get your laptop back and sack the bad guy, or the chump that bought the laptop from the bad guy. That's just one idea that's completely free.

[xValentine @ Apr 4th 2008 10:23AM]

Just low jack those laptops like on Cars. :)

Humor me.

[Jobob @ Apr 4th 2008 10:40AM]

@i_g_puff, they have something that does exactly that for Mac. The software is called Orbicule. When your laptop is stolen you call the company and they start to pinpoint the location of the stolen machine. Not exactly sure if they do an active search or if the laptop is set to ping their server every so often or what. So, this kind of technology is there. Also, they use the built in cam to take a pic of whomever is booting up. Luckily I haven't had to test it out yet. I assume that there might be similar technology for PC's. I guess the main thing is that they have to connect to the net.

But mostly, common sense is the way to go.

[Charbax @ Apr 4th 2008 10:51AM]

OLPC already has this technology. Again, Intel is over 2 years behind.

[rahul @ Apr 4th 2008 11:18AM]

nice pic :)

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 11:23AM]

and? Your point is?

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 11:24AM]

and? Your point is?

[Kurian @ Apr 4th 2008 11:55AM]

Long sleeve or short sleeve?

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 12:14PM]

@ Dolemite

Or a forum into a place for stereotypes and racism

[Dolemite @ Apr 4th 2008 1:31PM]

Well I would like it if you showed me what part of my statement was racist.

As for stereotype, my question is the same: what stereotype? The Saudis cutting of hands? See that is not a stereotype, it is a fact. You've heard of them right?

As for referring to the Saudis as barbarians, well that too is one of those unpleasant facts:

*Beheading foreigners (especially non-muslim migrants) under false criminal charges...
*Seventh century legal system...
*De jure subjugation of women...
*Islam only religion recognised, with severe restrictions placed on all other faiths...
*Birthplace of Wahabism AND Islamofascism...
*Radicalizing muslim populations around the world through cash and intolerant salafi-supremacist ideology...
*Severe restriction on art, literature, music, films, and other arts leading to permanent cultural lag...
*The most backwards, intolerant, dominating, barbarous, totalitarian apartheid state in history...
*Absolute zero positive contribution to the progress or development of mankind, whether artistic or scientific...

Nice try though.

[FriendGen @ Apr 4th 2008 12:37PM]

They will have Fire that shoots out of the sides of it like those old anti car jacking systems keeping your porn safe!

[Joe @ Apr 4th 2008 12:46PM]

It has to be hardware and operational for both Mac and PC. I just had my laptop bag containing a MacBook Pro running Vista and many other items stolen last week. It is heart wrenching to say the least. My guess is that the new end user will have to wipe the computer to use the machine which is why the solution of LogMeIn is unlikely to work. If it was hardware, maybe a USB device like a keyboard, the tracking chip would be detected during the installation of the new OS. Unfortunately, laptop tracking will still not stop the thefts because they are usually idiots, but hopefully you could recover the devices and catch who ever did not respect our society.

[Jeff @ Apr 4th 2008 12:52PM]

Nothing that relies on the internet to do anything is a good theft deterrent. A decent thief is going to know that the theft deterrent system does this and simply press the button that switches off the wireless connection as soon as Windows starts booting up. You could build it into the BIOS or something instead, but then thieves would simply know to drive to an area with no wifi access points before booting the laptop. Thieves know how all theft deterrent systems work.

The reason Lo-Jack works (and I'm not sure if the laptop version is the same) is that a) it's a completely closed, proprietary system, b) there are multiple transmitters spread around the car, and c) the transmitters are randomly hidden. Not even the car's owner knows where they are. I have Lo-Jack in one of my cars and while I suspect where a few of the transmitters are hidden by the fact that a few of my interior panels look like they've been removed and then reattached, there are a total of 11 of these things throughout the car and I've managed to pinpoint maybe 3 of those with any real confidence. And that's with driving the car and looking at it every day for 2 1/2 years.

Theft deterrent systems have to be designed in such a way that thieves cannot defeat them even if they know they're there and know how they work. Most thieves are not that dumb; thieving is their "job", and the successful ones are really good at it. You can't design a system in such a way that you're relying on the ignorance of a thief for it to be effective.

[Jeff @ Apr 4th 2008 12:53PM]

Ugh! My comment was supposed to be a reply to j_g_puff - replying doesn't seem to be working for me right now.

[WhiteRtlNav @ Apr 4th 2008 1:08PM]

LoJack for Laptops, AKA Computrace, does exactly what you describe and is available for PCs and Macs. Once you enable it in the BIOS, it cannot be disabled. If the computer is reported stolen, then whenever it connects to the Internet it will report it's location.

[ZeroCorpse @ Apr 4th 2008 1:48PM]

Any douchebag who leaves his laptop in his car, like in the picture up there, deserves to have it swiped by some lowlife.

I'm not saying I would take it, but I'm saying you're leaving it in plain sight, unprotected except for a thin sheet of glass. It's not exactly an intelligent decision, is it?

Take it with you. Lock it up. Don't leave it sitting out like an idiot. The bad guys WILL prey upon you if you give them the opportunity. They look for easy marks, not challenges, and if you're an easy mark, you will get ripped off.

I always get mad at the "What now?" ad that shows some idiot in a coffee shop who turns to flirt with a girl and then turns back to find his laptop missing. DUH. Why didn't you secure it to the table, dumb-ass? That's what that little Kensington Lock Hole is for. A basic laptop security cable is around $25 bucks, and it would have prevented someone from doing a snatch-and-run on your laptop.

If you're vigilant, and not stupid, you can prevent laptop theft without needing to pay for LoJack. Stufbak is pretty good, and doesn't cost near as much as LoJack. It doesn't track, but it does give a heads-up to the authorities and pawn shops when your stuff shows up on their desks.

Most importantly, encrypt your data if it's important to you. And keep a backup of your hard drive, just in case you DO lose your laptop!

[Abuzar @ Apr 4th 2008 3:20PM]

Oh I never said I disagreed, I AM muslim. It's not barbaric, it just puts them in their place. Sets an example doesn't it?

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 5:07PM]

We'll not mention Guantanamo Bay then? Something every US citizen must be proud of, but you keep throwing your stones, it's a big glass house after all!

[Dolemite @ Apr 4th 2008 9:04PM]

Well, I am not sure what you are trying to get across with Guantanamo Bay. Perhaps you are trying to say that holding terrorists over there is barbaric. Yes, allowing captured terrorists to gain weight all day should be considered barbaric.

But you know what? Guantanamo Bay is still more free than Saudi Barbaria. At Guantanomo Bay, the prisoners are allowed to practice their own religion, even if it was what inspired them to wage war on civilization in the first place. And yet, there is no freedom of (or freedom from) religion in Barbaria. In Guantanamo they get to grow fat and play soccer, while in Barbaria, they would have had their heads chopped off in a parking lot. So are you saying that America should decapitate the inmates at Gitmo?

[Abuzar @ Apr 5th 2008 12:55AM]

They ARE allowed to practice their own religions in Saudi ARABIA. Non-Muslims are not allowed in Mecca and Medina, but that's it.

You're like a person who grew up in the bible belt and was spoon fed nonsense since the age of 2.

[Dolemite @ Apr 5th 2008 6:39AM]

About being able to practice their religion: Well this simply is not true. While I do agree that one can enter the country without being a Muslim, but that is not the same thing as allowing practice. Freedom of religion requires the uninhibited and OPEN practice of religion. Do you honestly think that one can fully and openly practice a religion other than Islam there? Why then, do they confiscate non-Islamic religious books at the airport? Why is it not allowed to openly discuss other religions, much less preach them. Why then are people subject to the mutaween? To Sharia law?

As a Muslim, I hope you can answer a question for me: if Muslims in the non-Islamic world were forbidden from bringing in Islamic books, or from openly discussing the merits of Islam, or from openly engaging in proselytization, or were subject to observe non-Islamic religious law instead of civil law, would you still regard that as being free to practice your religion? If you do, then you must be a very flexible person.

Well, you are making things complicated. Not by your argument the Saudis allow religious tolerance, as that is completely false. Instead you are making things complicated by assuming that I am a Christian, and an intolerant Bible thumper at that. For all you know I could be a Muslim, or an atheist, or a Scientologist. But this argument is not about Islam or any religion, it is about the Saudi state. So my point is that I am speaking as a human being to another human being, as rather than being spoon-fed my beliefs, I actually think outside of my personal biases, whether cultural or religious. However, if you are unable to step outside of your own biases (e.g. Islam\ummah brotherhood), then maybe it is you who was spoonfed beliefs.


BTW, how many Zunes do you think the Saudis buy each year?

[Abuzar @ Apr 5th 2008 8:01AM]

I don't know how many Zunes Saudis buy each year.

They use Sharia Law because it's not a secular country, so what do you expect?

[Dolemite @ Apr 5th 2008 10:33AM]

"They use Sharia Law because it's not a secular country, so what do you expect?"

But wait, I thout you were trying to say that there is religious freedom in Saudi Arabia...and now you are saying I should not expect such a thing because it is not a secular country...

Well, which is it? Does it allow religious freedom or is it a barbaric theocracy? No matter how much cognitive dissonance may be present in your head, only one of the above statements is true.

Oh, and the Zune thing was a joke...

[mymaclife @ Apr 5th 2008 11:42AM]

I'd leave it Abuzar, you are 'casting pearls amongst swine', let Dolemite think every country outside the USA is imperfect... when he gets a passport and travels a bit he will find out the world view on his wonderful 'home of freedom' - you are wasting your breath.

[Abuzar @ Apr 5th 2008 11:42AM]

lol I know it was a joke.

What I am saying is that if you're Christian, no one is stopping you. Hell they don't let me give the azaan here in Orlando, Florida, so can I say I have no religious freedom here?

Why would you call it Barbaric Theocracy? Sure it's a Theocracy, but I don't see what makes it Barbaric.

[Dolemite @ Apr 5th 2008 4:27PM]

Well, yes I think I remember the uproar against the call to prayer. But see, the question of azaan is related to city ordinances and it applies to everyone and all religions equally. If there is a ban (I am not sure what the exact status is right now) it is because it would violate municipal noise ordinances. There can be no ban if the call to prayer takes places within the mosque itself. It is only a question if there is noise pollution. You see, churches and secular, non-religious establishments have to abide by the same laws, so this is not something which targets Islam alone. I know people would be equally against church bells ringing incessantly or people playing loud music out in the open. Religion has very little to do with it. I am not denying that there are not racist xenophobes out there who do not like seeing religious buildings other than churches, there certainly are people like that. However, the rationale of the law is not based on any particular religious view.

What makes it barbaric? Well, my first instinct would be to argue that a theocracy is inherently barbaric, but that is not always true. Throughout history, there have been many theocracies which were tolerant. It is the judeo-Christian-Islamic idea of theo-exclusivism which lends barbaric tendencies to their theocracies.

However, apart from being a theocracy, what makes the Saudi barbaric is that it is a fundamentally backwards and obscurantist society: the very definition of barbarism. I do believe that it is possible for a society to be traditional and opposed to Western ideas and still be civilized, as civilization is not based on a particular relgious, ethnic, or geographical specific. In fact, some of the greatest civilizations in history were not only more advanced than Western socities, but also diametrically opposed to them. However, the Saudis are not simply "traditional", but they are distinctly opposed to any and all true progress of humankind. And one of the true indicators of human progress has been freedom, and not just negative political freedom, but positive actualizing freedom. And yet this is a concept which does not exist in Saudi Arabia because it is in opposition to Wahhabi ideology. It is one thing to say that there is no God but their God, and another thing altogether to demand that all of humanity accept such an argument as well. So it is one thing to believe in ideas from the sixth century, but it is barbaric to force those ideas upon a humanity which has progressed far beyond it.

To go back to the original point which started this argument: do you honestly not see that it is barbaric to chop off someone's hand beacuse of theft? or that it is equally barbaric to live in a society which treats women like property of their male relatives? A society which not only encourages but sanctions and facilitates "honor" killings of women? It is not just that these ideas are primitive and the remnant of an era long gone, but that these ideas are in opposition to the advancement humankind has made since then. It is nothing but barbaric to oppose progress and human development, both of which involve change, something which the Saudis are not too fond of.

Here is a small list:

*Beheading foreigners (especially non-muslim migrants) under false criminal charges...
*Seventh century legal system...
*De jure subjugation of women...
*Islam only religion recognised, with severe restrictions placed on all other faiths...
*Birthplace of Wahabism AND Islamofascism...
*Radicalizing muslim populations around the world through cash and intolerant salafi-supremacist ideology...
*Severe restriction on art, literature, music, films, and other arts leading to permanent cultural lag...
*The most backwards, intolerant, dominating, barbarous, totalitarian apartheid state in history...
*Absolute zero positive contribution to the progress or development of mankind, whether artistic or scientific...

[mymaclife @ Apr 4th 2008 5:10PM]

btw that was at Dolemite, a truly open minded member of the world.

[filpaul @ Apr 4th 2008 6:23PM]

Didn't Intel already try something like this with the Pentium III serial number, and everybody railed against them?

[j_g_puff @ Apr 4th 2008 9:28PM]

I would be very, very surprised if you can use your GPS in a subway. Are you sure your device uses GPS and not something else like WiMAX? If you're certain that you do use a GPS device, I would be VERY interested to hear what it is and who manufactures it.

The amount of power picked up by your GPS' antenna is utterly miniscule. Even foliage and windscreen wipers can intefer significantly with the signal (http://gpsinformation.net/gpsclouds.htm). A useable GPS signal is composed almost exclusively of line of sight (LoS) rays. Reflected rays will probably suffer too much attentuation at the point of reflection to be detected by your unit (Garmin's site gives some info about this: http://www8.garmin.com/aboutGPS/). As such, a GPS unit must have a LoS to the satellites which it is using. Receiving a usable amount of power in a building with windows is possible. Receiving a usable amount of power behind concrete or metal is very unlikely, especially if the metal forms a complete enclosure around the device (as in the case of a trunk).

[j_g_puff @ Apr 4th 2008 9:30PM]

That's @DVO, by the way. Reply definitely isn't working right now.

[mymaclife @ Apr 5th 2008 4:06AM]

Reply is fucked at present which makes any convo useless!