Need Help With Protecting My Laptop

08/08/2009 | Skydancer

[SkyDancer]

Hope this is the right area to post this geek thing. I'm trying to locate a program to protect my laptop in case it's stolen. I have passwords on it but I would like to have a USB flash drive as a key/lock. If the flash drive is not installed then the laptop can't be booted or accessed in any way. The USB flash drive has to be inserted into the laptop before it's turned on and the laptop needs to access a program on it before it would boot. Any ideas?

[rabscuttle385]

If someone gets physical access to the laptop, it’s toast, e.g., the thief could remove the disk drive and boot it using another laptop.

Don’t save passwords. Encrypt the contents of the disk drive. Make backups regularly, and store them in a safe place.

Those are probably your best bets.

[SkyDancer]

Would there be some way of writing something to the chip in the computer?

[AppyPappy]

You cannot do it. Not without costing you a lot of trouble.

[bigbob]

Here’s one device that will do what you describe:

http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-64058-Key-Security-Device/dp/B0000C88CK

There are probably others. Good luck!

[SkyDancer]

If it’s stolen I just want to cause as much trouble as I can for whoever did it ... they can replace the hard drive and have a new laptop but it sure would be great if they frustrated themselves trying to get it to boot ....

[waynesa98]

computrace’s (lojack for laptops) premium lets you delete files off your stolen laptop, as well as gives you $1000 if they can't get it back. Most new laptops have bios that are compatible with lojack, thus even if the hard drive is removed, it still calls home. I'm pretty sure even if the bios are updated it still calls home(computrace that is)

[rabscuttle385]

You could set a BIOS or firmware password but that’s easy to bypass.

[Andy from Chapel Hill]

Get one with pre-boot fingerprint authentication.

www.authentec.com

[SkyDancer]

How can they bypass a BIOS password? What I have so far is when the laptop boots it goes to a blue screen where it says: Enter Current Password. Then it boots to my page where it asks for another one. If you go to the BIOS it asks for the admin password and also I have a password on the hard drive but if that’s replaced .....

[SkyDancer]

What’s lojack and how do I get it?

[Future Snake Eater]

I imagine you can remove the battery and clear the CMOS to remove a BIOS password.

[Andy from Chapel Hill]

More specifically:

http://www.authentec.com/news-item.cfm?newsID=116

[rabscuttle385]

See post 12. The BIOS/firmware can be reset.

[Spiff]

TrueCrypt does whole-disk encryption and it can be configured to require both a passphrase and a keyfile that can be located on a USB drive. Further, you can set up a completely invisible, undetectable encrypted volume within the primary, visible encrypted volume that only you will know about and that only you will be able to access.

TrueCrypt is free and I've used it for years. www.truecrypt.org

[devane617]

Yea, LoJack is about the only kinda safe way to do this. My iPhone will allow you to locate it anywhere if it goes missing. I believe LoJack will trace your laptop to the IP where it pops up on the network.

If you know anything about programming, you could write a small program to email the current IP each time the LT is brought up. It is really not that difficult and I suspect if you search the net you will find such a program for your OS.

[SkyDancer]

Thanks!!! Just ordered it ... was what I was looking for. Now I hope I don’t loose that key. The other stuff people here have posted are good stuff too. I have a lot of sensitive FAA stuff on that laptop and I don’t want unauthorized people to see it or get it ....

[AppyPappy]

You can put in a BIOS password but if you ever forget it, it’s over.

[puppypusher]

If You use a BIOS Password the computer will be totally locked unless the thief is capable of uploading a new Bios which I think would be unlikely.

Also you should encrypt your Hard Drive through Your Bios.That way the Information would be unusable to your average thief.

[SkyDancer]

So say I loose my password(s) I can remove the battery and the CMOS will reset to factory settings? Hmmmm ....