Re: Laptop

[Allison Dolan <adolan () MIT EDU>]

Given the street value for info that can be used for identity theft
(one report: $2/record), even relatively unsophisticated thieves
might want to see what they have before selling just as a laptop - or
at least know a fence that knows how to check for PII.  The 'kill'
feature of the Computrace/LoJack product would seem to help mitigate
the theft of the information.


Allison F. Dolan
Program Director, Protecting Personally Identifiable Information
(617) 252-1461




On Jun 11, 2008, at 2:34 PM, Valdis Kletnieks wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:24:15 PDT, Sarah Stevens said:
> > If lo-jack is BIOS-based, and one has administrative access to the
> > laptop,
> > what stops the person from disabling the software?
>
> Nothing, other than the fact that usually, a laptop is stolen by
> somebody
> who is just looking for quick cash to finance a drug or alcohol
> habit. As
> a result, you only have to defend against somebody who has most of
> their
> neurons chemically inhibited.
>
> Trying to defend a laptop against a targeted attack by somebody who
> has all their neurons and is stealing *that* laptop because they
> know it
> has sensitive info on it is a lot more difficult...