My flat was raided and ransacked during the London riots, but thanks to tracking software I fed intel to the London Metro police until he was apprehended and my laptop returned.
Glad the person got their Mac back, but why does this story and ones like it always end at the recovery of the property? Could we get an update on the <i>punishment</i> of the criminal? I'd like to know what kind of repercussions the criminals suffer--do they get prosecuted? I'm just curious if these software tracking systems have been used in court as evidence to convict any of these criminals.
Sorry I wasn't implying that the software I used made me a hacker, that is simply just my profession... I use the term very widely to be someone who codes, pentests, reverses malware or jailbreaks iphones...
This is why I have file vault + password screensaver on my MacBook Pro + insurance. I'd sooner have to wait a few days to get a new laptop than rely on: a) the user not instantly formatting the computer, b) prey finding my laptop, c) the police doing something about it.
It's amazing how when big media releases a story about "hackers ruining America", people come out of the woodwork saying "actually, the term for someone who practices forced electronic entry is 'cracker', and 'hacker' just means someone who writes code", but when someone uses it that way, the HN post fills up with comments about how the term 'hacker' has been diluted.<p>PICK ONE, GUYS.
I care more about the safety of my data than the safety of my computer, so I have FileVault full-drive encryption turned on. I don't think a thief could log into my computer without wiping the drive, which would wipe Prey if I had it installed. So I'm not going to bother installing it.
This is neat, but it only works if your setup is simple enough to be usable by a random thief so that they can get an Internet connection ready so that the machine can phone home. Were someone to steal my laptop and boot it, they would reach a tty login prompt in a dvorak layout, and playing around in grub would also lead to an LFS install with a patched agetty greeting them in lolcat. (My LFS was just for fun, so I did silly stuff with it.)<p>In other words, they would probably just wipe the computer and install Windows, and I wouldn't hear about the machine. I guess I could have a Windows install ready with a guest account and sneaky tracking software just for the benefit of an hypothetical thief, but it doesn't seem worth the effort.
<i>>Luckily the thief was a smart little bugger and he was able to bypass the password by using an OSX install CD to create a new admin account.</i><p>So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the machine?<p><i>>I cranked up the frequency of reports to one in every five minutes to try to get a screen capture of him using gmail or facebook so I could snag a name or login credentials. </i><p>Hmm, start a keylogger (and a sniffer) in the background and then scp the logs a couple hours later?
Here is a much funnier and more technical account of someone retrieving their stolen computer. In video form!<p>Skip to 3:15 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI8S2houW4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAI8S2houW4</a>
Am I the only one who feels that it's wrong to put someone's personal information and picture on the internet just because he stole a laptop? Of course you get your personal information stolen as well, but in my opinion that doesn't justify spreading his image and name all over the internet. that kind of intrusion into privacy (of the thief) is a much bigger crime in my eyes than the loss of some laptop.
Is this one of those viral marketing campaigns again? Yesterday, there was a popular thread on Reddit about some guy who retrieved his stolen Macbook by using the exact same software that's being mentioned here. And not to mention the several other threads here on HN a few months ago that are suspiciously similar.<p>Or maybe it's just really useful.
I just installed Prey. Ignoring the OP's use of the word "Hacker", you don't have to pay them anything to get good value from the software.<p>I set it up so if this file ever disappears <a href="http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/prey.html" rel="nofollow">http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/prey.html</a> it starts sending me alert messages like the one below:<p>Good news my friend, it seems we found it.<p>Here's the report from your computer:<p>########################################################
# geo
########################################################<p>:: lat=(deleted)<p>:: lng=(deleted)<p>:: accuracy=33.0<p>########################################################
# network
########################################################<p>:: public ip=(deleted)<p>:: internal ip=192.168.8.121<p>:: gateway ip=192.168.8.1<p>:: mac address=34:15:9e:07:af:86<p>########################################################
# session
########################################################<p>:: logged user=sudonim<p>:: uptime=14:21 up 3:12, 6 users, load averages: 2.12 1.91 2.06<p>Happy hunting!<p>-------<p>Then it attaches a picture taken with my camera and a screenshot. All in all, pretty handy to have running.
What I don't understand: I you're so concerned that someone steals your laptop, why do you then install tracking software instead of encrypting your harddrive?<p>If someone steals my laptop I wouldn't care about the cost of lost hardware. Instead I'd care more about my private data that now is in the hands of someone else.
Quick look at the source code (<a href="https://github.com/tomas/prey" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tomas/prey</a>) seems to show that if you wipe the HD you're SOL. I'm still waiting for Apple to release Find My Mac (similar to Find My IPhone), which will withstand a hard drive reformat.
I've been wondering about these services. Not having more information about the inner-workings of a monitoring/recovery service, I'm concerned about the company's ability to spy on me the same way I could spy on anyone who uses my stolen laptop. What prevents this from happening?
One problem I find with these tracking applications, at least for the average users, you actually have to remember that: (1) you have one installed and (2) your credentials.<p>It's kind of a problem, if you have all your other data stored using something like 1Password.<p>I know for sure I have a tracker installed on my laptop, but since it's running in "stealth" mode, I have no clue what it is or where to find it. I guess I am not hacky enough.
Wait, all he had to do was report the guy's name, address, and photo to the police, and they got the computer back <i>for him</i>? It sounds like the London Metro Police are a lot better than the ones in, say, San Francisco.
What I worry about with many of these recovery stories is that you're probably not humiliating the criminal, just some unlucky person who bought the computer on Craigslist.
The guy browsed the internet for muslim revelation videos. I could have give him 1 tip to be in God/Allah's good Grace: Don't steal other people's stuff.
"took a report and dusted for prints, performed typical forensics"<p>I'm impressed that the police dust for prints in England. I've never heard of someone getting that kind of thoroughness for a domestic burglary where I live.
Why didn't a real hacker have a keylogger installed on his machine instead of just the webcam thing? You could have gotten the guys' password to his facebook
This article seems to imply this "hacker" used some actual skill set to retrieve their stolen goods. Installing tracking software on a mac and then bragging about it when stolen and then found doesn't fit with what I'd call being a hacker.<p>Nice story though. And I'm happy another rioting / looting is going to court to answer for there actions.
Did Sam Odio's blog get hacked? Because I refuse to believe that the Sam whose comments I've been reading on HN would steal from someone. Sam how is what you're doing different from what Anonymous et al are doing? However irritating Jonathan's experiment is, it doesn't give you the right to impose you idea of morality on them.