Issue 4: Laptop LoJack

May 25, 2007

With the advent of increasingly desirable mobile devices, theft risk has exploded. These are no longer rare enough that tracking a stolen unit is an easy feat. Additionally, more power and more storage means that more valuable data is stored on PDAs and laptops. In turn, anti-theft measures should be bumped accordingly.

Today, we want to share with you one of our favorite laptop tricks, suggested by our always awesome patrons, to help in their recovery. It's not fool- or fail-proof (what is?) but it is very ingenious and definitely worth a shot. It's also fun to set up!

Credit for a recent posting "Set up a laptop LoJack with DynDNS" goes to the good people at Lifehacker. We wish to salute them and send many a cheer for their support.

Our signature free Dynamic DNS tracks servers across IP changes and ensures the same hostname points to the appropriate IP, whatever it is. This is what allows our two million users to operate home servers, among other exciting applications.

Replace "server" by "mobile device" and "IP change" with "network change." You now have a way to track mobile devices by looking at the IP address associated with their domain name.

The first thing to do is to create a new dynamic host in free Dynamic DNS or Custom DNS (DNS Hosting). Then, install the ddns update client for your platform and set it up so that it updates the record you created. Restart your machine if need be and let a few minutes elapse. If you log back to your DynDNS account and look at the IP address associated with your hostname, you can see it will match your current one.

Most monitoring services can now let you know if your machine is online by pinging the domain you just set up. A simple traceroute can then lead you to the device itself. You could also plug the IP address into a geolocalisation service to pinpoint its position.

If you have any problem whatsoever, remember that our support team is here to help.

Companies can also use this method to track their fleet of laptops and notice if they go online at times they should not.

Of course, a thief could initialize your drive or not connect stolen machine to the Internet. In many cases, however, thieves are in a hurry and fail to take either precaution. Such simple LoJack does not replace proper data encryption, user authentication and physical security for your machines. It can, however, help mitigate theft risks.

A word about privacy, which is always our utmost concern. Described LoJack solution allows you to track your machine but it also allows other people who could guess your domain to do so. We never recommend running a server on a mobile machine (servers and mobile machines have different specifications for a reason) but if you do, be aware that may mean people can also access the data you serve from the machine by connecting to the domain name you just created.

These are the very principles on which the DNS, and the Internet are built. They are also the very reasons for which Dynamic DNS is so popular so they should not come as a surprise. If you are, however, concerned that someone may be able to track you down this way, unit recovery systems may not be your thing (in some applications, better to lose a unit than be able to track it down). That is your call and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have so that you can make a sound, informed decision.

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