The pub worker theft device
As a homeless internet developer, I spend a lot of my time in pubs using their wifi and drinking their beer, drinking beer has a side-effect, and not just on my code quality, my bladder fills and I need to partake of the facillities, this means abandoning the laptop on the table of a strange pub in a strange town - the data’s safe, that’s encrypted - not for me the embarrassment of losing a laptop chock full of an unsecured source tree, but the machine is worth a fair bit, and it’d be bloody annoying too.
So I was thinking - T60’s and indeed all decent laptops already have an accellerometer in it, why isn’t there a program which starts shrieking “Help, Help, he’s stealing me” at full volume. Probably be really crap, but it should at least exist - people?
Of course if you do see a strange bloke sitting in a corner drinking alone yet talking to himself and imaginary people on IRC, go buy him a drink - it might be me.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:42 am
So the next time I want to steal a laptop that’s on, I’ll have to hold its power button for about 4 seconds first. Thanks for the heads up.
I had a laptop stolen a few years ago. My only consolation is the knowledge that it would have fallen to bits by now had I still had it. I got CCTV footage of the guy stealing it, but because you couldn’t see it inside the bag it was in, they probably couldn’t do much.
Sounds like garbage to me, but that’s what we pay our taxes for..
I just take my laptop with me to the toilet.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:57 am
If you’d gotten the X60s then you’d have just been able slip it in your pocket. :-)
August 18th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
If only you had a MacBook :)
iAlertU is just what you’re talking about. It’s “armed” using the apple remote and gives off a nice reassuring beepbeep that sounds like a car alarm. If anyone tries to move your machine (or fiddle with any of the buttons) it starts flashing and making noise. It even takes a phot of the would-be thief using the built in camera :)
http://www.slappingturtle.com/home/?p=3
August 18th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
JW, I know I’ve put on weight recently, but my shorts aren’t exactly big enough for an X60 ! I am thinking of getting one anyway though, I still wouldn’t carry it to the toilet, urine is bad for a laptop - I’m sure!
Ricky - the Power button in locked mode would also set off the alarm - simple…
October 6th, 2006 at 7:26 am
I would no doubt buy you a drink if we ever had the pleasure of meeting in a pub, why not just take the laptop with you its not like you need two hands to hold it, one hand for the laptop, the other for, well you know, anyways I am thinking it would be a mercury switch that when it detected movement it would trigger an alarm on the laptop maybe one day we could track the stolen laptop from our cellphones because it has a gps chip in it.
April 20th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Jim - I don’t believe software can block (or even catch) a Power Button press if it’s not released. That’s why one can reset a laptop whenever the operating system freezes (the “famous” 4 second press already stated by Ricky)! :-P
I had already thought of a similar mechanism about two years ago but I somehow left the idea aside because I really don’t believe one can catch these low level hardware signals, deactivate them (or even at least catch the event) in order to allow implementing this feature. :-|
On the other hand, if one is able to implement this, I would also add an extra verification: if the laptop is attached to AC Power, simply unplugging would also trigger the alarm. And don’t forget to unmute the laptop sound (before increasing volume to maximum and playing the configured sound) - it’s a common way, at least for me, to prevent disturbing others with annoying “dings” and “clicks”. ;-)
Finally, the whole idea would be useless if one simply has earphones attached to the laptop (another very common thing), producing imperceptible sound! :-|
I hope laptop manufacturers start implementing mechanisms like this into hardware, because I believe this sort of thing can only reside there (being, of course, configured at software-level)… :-)
Regards,
Helder
P.S.: Hope I’m not helping any laptop burglars… :-D
May 27th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
[…] To complete the apple annoyances, they’ve patented the anti-theft device I talked about last time, let’s hope the bar on patent obviousness carries on raising to avoid this sort of thing. […]
August 20th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
[…] The pub worker theft device As a homeless internet developer, I spend a lot of my time in pubs using their wifi and drinking their beer, drinking beer has a side-effect, and not just on my code quality, my bladder fills and I need to partake of the facillities, this means abandoning the laptop on … […]