Track Your Missing Laptop With Adeona

“Almost every laptop on sale today comes equipped with the
Kensington security slot on the side or back, through which you can
connect a theft-deterring locked steel cable. The system’s down
sides are (a) that a would-be thief can damage or destroy your
equipment trying to yank the cable out, and (b) that you have to
buy the cable separately. As an alternative, the free software
utility Adeona won’t preemptively deter theft, but it will help you
track down your stolen equipment and better the chances of its
recovery by police.

“Adeona runs in the background, and works its magic by waking up
at random intervals to record data about the equipment’s location
and status, which it encrypts and then silently uploads to off-site
storage. If your laptop (or, for that matter, your co-located
server) goes missing, you can retrieve its latest records from
elsewhere, learning such information as its internal and external
IP address, local network configuration, and more. Armed with that
info, you can call John Law and take a big step toward recovering
your goods.

“Adeona is distinct from commercial equipment tracking
alternatives in that it takes multiple measures to ensure that the
off-site status records are anonymous, untraceable, and encrypted.
To accomplish this, the system randomizes many of its parameters —
the length of time between status checks, the time between status
check and upload, and the destination node of the off-site
storage.

Complete
Story