by Jeff Bertolucci, PCWorld  

If you've ever lost a laptop or had one stolen, you know what an awful feeling it leaves behind. But a new breed of laptop security software is turning the tables on thieves, giving owners and police a fighting chance of recovering the missing property and sometimes even bringing thieves to justice.

Stories of laptop theft are all too common. A 2008 report from Dell Computer and the Ponemon Institute shows that up to 12,000 laptops are lost in U.S. airports every week. And a 2002 Gartner study says that the odds that a randomly selected laptop will be stolen are 1 in 10. The vast majority of these computers are never recovered.

Laptops are appealing to thieves hoping to make a quick buck. Many such criminals struggle with substance abuse. "They're people with drug problems, methamphetamine problems," says Marc Hinch, an agent with the San Mateo County [California] Vehicle Theft Task Force.

"Go to a crankster's house and you'll find a lot of stolen property—he's got six or seven laptops in there," says Hinch, who runs a Website called Stolen911 where people can list and search for stolen property.

How It Works

Laptop security software won't prevent thieves from jacking your hardware, but it can help police recover your computer after it's been pinched, and in some cases catch the thief, too.

Computer-tracking apps such as Flipcode Ltd.'s Hidden ($15/year basic coverage), ActiveTrak's GadgetTrak ($35/year), and Absolute Software's LoJack for Laptops ($40/year) use IP addresses to pinpoint the location of a stolen laptop. ActiveTrak's GadgetTrak uses Wi-Fi positioning to locate devices within 10 to 20 meters of accuracy. When (and if) the thief connects to the Internet, the software begins sending e-mail alerts back to the software maker and to the laptop owner's e-mail account. LoJack forwards this information to law enforcement, whereas GadgetTrak and Hidden require users to take that step themselves.

The software also reports the IP address that the laptop is connecting from. The software company and/or police can then subpoena the appropriate ISP to obtain the physical address associated with the IP address. This approach isn't perfect, however. A thief who logs on from Starbucks obviously isn't using his home address. Or he might steal his neighbor's Wi-Fi, in which case the police may knock at the door of a guy who's just too naive to secure his home router.

GadgetTrak and Hidden use a laptop's Webcam to take secret photos of whoever's using the computer. Absolute Software removed this feature from its security products, following a controversial 2010 incident in which parents accused a suburban Philadelphia school district of spying on students with school-issued laptops. The district was using Absolute's LANRev software, which included the picture-taking feature.

Do these programs work? Definitely. These real-world recovery stories show how.

Pilfered in Portlandia

In October 2010, somebody smashed the front window of Nancy Wiebelhaus's home in Portland, Oregon, and ran off with three laptops: two MacBooks and a MacBook Pro.

One of the MacBooks was running GadgetTrak. "I bought it because the same thing happened a couple of years ago when we had three laptops stolen. These kinds of property crimes are really, really common in my neighborhood," says Wiebelhaus, an eighth-grade language arts teacher.

Once activated, GadgetTrak begins tracking location and network information whenever the stolen laptop connects to the Internet. It also captures photos of the person using the device, and sends them to the computer's owner.

"Over the course of a week or two, I got three videos of people who had my laptop," says Wiebelhaus. GadgetTrak also sent her an IP address that the suspects were using to go online.

She forwarded the information to Portland Police Department, which subpoenaed the Internet service provider. The ISP identified the customer who had been assigned that particular IP address.

The detective on the case immediately recognized the name of the customer. The suspect was already in jail, having been arrested recently on another crime.

The defendant, Tracy Miller, 48, ended up pleading "no contest" to the burglary. He was sentence to an additional 31 months in prison.

"While the software helped in catching the person who broke into my house, in the end I never did get my laptops back," says Wiebelhaus.

Miller reportedly told police that he had traded one of the MacBooks to his dealer for drugs. The whereabouts of the other two laptops is unknown.

'This Guy Has My MacBook'

When Oakland, California, resident Joshua Kaufman arrived home on March 21, 2011, he found his apartment burglarized and his MacBook stolen. He reported the crime to Oakland Police Department the same day.

Kaufman's laptop was running Hidden, a Mac-recovery app that captures spy photos of the thief (and sometimes of friends and family, too), screenshots of computing activities, and location information. With Hidden's help, Kaufman immediately began amassing a dossier of photos, screenshots, and network and location information about his missing Mac.

The pictures and screens chronicle a scruffy-looking guy's adventures with Kaufman's laptop. In one shot, the man is sleeping on a sofa; in another, he's sitting up in bed (with a naked torso), staring at the screen; in a third, he's driving while using the MacBook.

The police investigation, however, was going nowhere. One detective told Kaufman the cops were simply too busy to deal with his case.

On April 25, Kaufman gave the OPD additional evidence that he had collected via the Hidden software. (Hidden requires that users file a police report and supply evidence to police themselves). Still, no progress. He later sent two e-mail queries to the investigator on the case, asking if there was any progress. Crickets.

On May 27, a frustrated but undaunted Kaufman created a Tumblr blog, "This Guy Has My MacBook," designed to prod the police into action. It featured photos and screen activity of the aforementioned Scruffy Guy, including a shot of someone deleting Kaufman's MacBook user account.

"The Tumblr blog didn't receive much attention until I tweeted about it on the morning of Tuesday, May 31. Within a few hours, it was tweeted and liked thousands of times," Kaufman wrote on his blog.

What happened next speaks to the viral power of social networks—and their ability to thoroughly embarrass public officials.

That same afternoon, Kaufman received a call from an Oakland police officer, who said that she had been contacted by ABC's Good Morning America about Kaufman's case. The OPD would follow up on the investigation immediately, she said.

Within hours, police had arrested the guy with the laptop: a 27-year-old limo driver from the adjacent city of Berkeley. They had used evidence that Kaufman had collected with Hidden, including the limo driver's Gmail address, which pointed to his employer.

"The officers recovered the stolen MacBook that evening from the limo driver's home, and returned it to its rightful owner the next day.

Kaufman doesn't think that the limo driver stole his laptop, but rather that he bought it cheap off the street. The case is still under investigation.

Kaufman's vigilante quest was successful, but the makers of LoJack security software warn against this brand of do-it-yourself justice.

Laptop theft "is often more than a petty crime, and can lead to encounters with very serious operations and dangerous criminals," says Lyle Singular, Absolute Software's VP of recovery services.

Is Kaufman worried?

"I'm somewhat concerned about my personal safety since starting the blog. It's entirely possible that the man or others representing him may try to harm me, but I'm not going to stop going outside or living my life," writes Kaufman to PCWorld via e-mail.

"All I can do is be vigilant, and look out for myself as much as possible," he adds.

Things to do in Denver when you’re hooked on crank

In the summer of 2010, Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood was struck by a rash of nighttime burglaries. The robbers hit 21 homes, and police had few clues to work with, other than a partial description of one of the culprits.

The case was bizarre. “Burglaries just don’t happen at night—very seldom anymore,” says Denver police burglary detective John Haney, who solved the case with his brother and fellow detective Mark. The bad guys “don’t want to see anybody,” he says. “They want to kick your door in when you’re not home.”

Another development concerned police: The thieves were growing bolder and more brazen. In one incident, one of the intruders had pressed a knife against a woman’s throat.

Thanks to security software and some dogged detective work, the police were able to nab the villains. After checking the paperwork associated with the victims’ stolen items—which included a 2005 Toyota Solara, cell phones, cameras, and household items—John Haney noticed that one of the laptops that the thieves had grabbed included an installed copy of LoJack.

“Did you know you’re paying for LoJack?” he asked the laptop’s owner.

“What is LoJack?” the woman replied.

“Well, you paid for it, and hopefully it will help,” he told her.

Haney contacted Absolute Software, which provided an IP address pinpointing where the stolen laptop had connected to the Internet, along with a photo of a man using the computer.

“They were on it right away,” says Haney of the Absolute team. “They were a huge help.”

The information led police to a Denver-area home, where the occupants identified the man in the photo as Zakee Toliver, who later confessed to the crimes and ratted out his juvenile partner. Toliver received a 12-year prison sentence for his role in the home invasions.

Haney believes security software is worth the expense. “Laptops are stolen so often, and if more people were to pay for a tracking system and keep their paperwork, it would really help,” he says.