From the AEGIS e-Journal, Volume 5 Number 4, April 2002
PC Phone Home $29 for individual copy. Enterprise version available. Freeware version (not tamper-resistant) also available. Brigadoon Software, Inc. http://www.pcphonehome.com/ Tel: 1-845-624-0909 Fax: 1-845-624-0990 Theft of laptops is a problem, and Brigadoon Software has come up with an interesting approach to dealing with this issue: They install a stealth email application (which resists format, low-level format, and FDISK) that sends you periodic emails on sign-on, giving you the date, time, and IP address of the sign-on. Given this information (and a court order), the ISP can give police the telephone number from which the connection was made, from which the police can locate the address. The assumption behind this is that the thief is likely to use the stolen machine to sign on to the internet. In order to facilitate this, and to prevent the bypassing of the program, it is important to set the BOIS so that the computer will only boot from the C drive, and to put a password on the BIOS program so that this cannot be changed by anyone other than you. A corollary of this is that you can’t BIOS-level password-protect the hard drive at boot time, because you want the thief to be able to boot your machine and sign onto the internet. Obviously, it would be best if the tracking email were sent to an address that would appear on some machine other than yours. This is a clever idea that appears to work well. While nothing is perfect, $29 seems to be a very reasonable price for an individual to pay to increase the likelihood of getting their stolen laptop back (we don’t know the cost for bulk purchases within a corporation), At the time of writing, PC Phone Home is available for the Windows and Macintosh OS’, with Linux, Palm, and PocketPC versions coming soon. 7. Free-Subscription/Unsubscription/Copyright Information •• ÆGIS e-journal is supported and maintained by voluntary efforts. This publication is owned, published, and copyright © 2002 by The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc. and Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc. It is edited ÆGIS, April 2002 11 jointly by Richard Isaacs (RBIsaacs@lubrinco.com) and L. Burke Files (LBFiles@lubrinco.com). 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LUBRINCO identifies and quantifies threats and vulnerabilities, and their associated risk, then manages the vulnerabilities so you can transfer or live with the residual risk. We prevent disastrous financial loss to your company, and physical harm to you, your family, and your staff. For information on The LUBRINCO Group and its services, or for the archive of all past issues of ÆGIS e-journal in PDF format, please go to http://www.lubrinco.com/. To sign up for a complimentary subscription to ÆGIS e-journal or the ÆGIS e- journal PDF notification list, go to http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=7768 or send an email to ejournal@lubrinco.com. ÆGIS, April 2002 12 To subscribe to our AvantGo channel, go to http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=1773 To be removed from the subscription list, follow the instructions on the mailing you received, or send an e-mail to ejournal@lubrinco.com. 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Article Title, from the April 2002 ÆGIS e-journal (© 2002 LUBRINCO & FEE), to be found at http://www.lubrinco.com/. ÆGIS e-journal is a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, operating styles, theories, and related topics for corporate managers who make decisions about threats typically outside the expertise available in-house, yet which have the potential to affect their company’s domestic and international bottom lines. Nothing appearing in ÆGIS e-journal should be construed as legal advice. The information provided is “general information,” not “specific advice.” The solution to any problem is highly dependent upon the precise facts involved. Thus, before making any reliance upon anything said here, you should consult with an appropriately skilled professional. Opinions ÆGIS, April 2002 13 expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher, and may be presented to encourage a dialogue among subscribers. The publisher and any re-publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any information published in ÆGIS e-journal. Please be safe, and be smart.