Do you use a laptop and also carry it often on tours? Then, there is always a risk that the laptop may get stolen or lost or you may yourself forget to collect it back after leaving it somewhere. Have you taken any specific precautions or any concrete steps to ensure that it is not stolen or lost, and to trace it in case it is ever stolen or lost? Instead of having to pray for its recovery after it is stolen or lost, why not use Prey today before it is lost or stolen so that Prey can help you trace it after getting stolen or lost? Well, Prey is an absolutely free and open-source program that can track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen. It is lightweight and works in all operating systems. It is advisable that you use Prey for the safety and security of your laptop as also of your precious data stored on it.
How it works:
Once you have installed Prey on your laptop, at specified time intervals, it automatically wakes up and checks a URL (that has been set by you) to see if it should gather the traces of the laptop and send the report to your designated email address. If the aforesaid URL doesn’t exist yet, Prey will simply go to sleep again. However, if the aforesaid URL exists then Prey starts sending report about your laptop to your designated email address.
Therefore, what you’ve to do is something like this. Download Prey. Install it on your laptop. Configure it as explained below. Select or designate the URL which it should check at specific intervals. However, till the laptop is actually with you (i.e., till it is not stolen or not lost) you don’t have to actually create that URL. So, till your laptop is safe, the designated URL (which is named by you) will not exist. This makes Prey to check the URL and on finding that the URL still does not exist, it will presume that the laptop is safe in your own hands; so, it will immediately go to sleep again and will check again after the specified intervals. This non-existing URL will ensure that Prey does not keep sending you false reports (of tracing your laptop) when it has not even been stolen!
Now suppose, unfortunately, your laptop gets stolen or is lost. What do you do now? Well, you’ve to immediately create the web page with the designated URL selected by you. So, next time when Prey (presuming that the thief, or the person who finds your lost laptop, switches it on and starts operating it) tries to check the said URL, it will find the URL to be existing; therefore, it will immediately start sending you the reports about its whereabouts (see the details below what it reports) at your designated email address.
Thus, the catch lies in the fact as to whether your designated URL exists or not. If it does not exist it means that your laptop is safe. And, if the URL exists it means that you have now created that URL because your laptop has been stolen and accordingly Prey starts sending you reports about your laptop at the designated email address.
Which URL you should designate?
Well, you can designate any URL that can be under your command. Its address can be anything. The actual web page at the URL can be anything; it can even be a blank page when you create it after your laptop is stolen. The only important thing to remember is that it must not exist when the laptop is safe with you and that it should immediately be created after your laptop gets stolen or is lost. And, it is for this purpose that you’ll have to have control over that URL. So, you can designate any URL on your website, your blog, your free site or your friend’s site or any URL that you can create on any free site.
For example, for my laptop, I have designated the following URL:
http://www.techsuperb.com/my_stolen_laptop.html
No, no, don’t try to click on this URL. It does not exist as yet! Because, I am typing this text on the very same laptop, so it is still safe in my hands!! This URL will come into existence as and when my laptop gets lost or stolen, if at all!!!
What if I don’t have access to any URL or don’t know how to create it:
Don’t worry even if you don’t have any URL under control and don’t want to or cannot create or designate a URL even on a free site or if you don’t have the technical expertise to create a web page. Prey allows you to use an alternative mechanism for reporting about your lost laptop. You can designate the Prey Control Panel to monitor the movement of your laptop. But, for this purpose, after installing Prey, you’ll have to acquire a free set of API key and Device key from the Prey site; it is absolutely free. Read documentation on that site to find out how this method will work.
How to configure Prey for the URL and email address?
After installing Prey, simply run it. The following Prey Configurator window will appear on the screen:
If you want to use your own URL and your own email to trace your laptop in case of getting stolen or lost, select the email radio-button. On the other hand, if you want to use the Prey’s API key and Device key instead of your own URL, then select the http radio-button. Now, fill in the other details which are self-explanatory and simple. That’s it!
What if the person who finds my laptop never switches it on or reformats it before using it?
Well, if the person who finds your laptop never switches it on or reformats it before using it, then of course Prey cannot help you. But then, there is a good chance that he may actually use it and that too before reformatting it. It may be due to his curiosity to check what is stored on your laptop. Or, it may be because he wants to see or steal your sensitive files on your laptop or to see you stored passwords or to visit the sites (including those for your online purchases or for online stock trading, etc.) for which you’ve stored the passwords in your browser. In any case, if you don’t use Prey you may never get back your laptop if stolen. But, if you use it, there is at least some chance that the thief may use your laptop giving a chance to Prey to report about it, which may help you in tracing your laptop. Some chance to recover your stolen laptop is always better than no chance at all. And, Prey is absolutely free, so there is no cost involved in taking this extra precaution, more so if you travel a lot a carry your laptop with you.
Any privacy issues?
None. If you are using your own URL to trace your laptop if stolen, the reports about your stolen laptop will arrive in your own email box. Even if you use Prey’s API key to trace laptop, the reports about your laptop do not contain any privacy-related material. In fact, when your laptop itself is stolen, that itself is the biggest privacy issue because the thief can steal all your private and sensitive data stored on your laptop! In any case, Prey being an open-source application, you can check its source-code and assure yourself that there are no privacy concerns or traps.
What if the thief is not able to login to the laptop as he may not know my password?
Of course, if the thief cannot login to your laptop and cannot operate it, Prey will not get a chance to run on your laptop and to send you the reports. In fact, my advice in this regard is that you may perhaps weigh the pros and cons of the option of having one user account on your laptop without password so that the thief could operate it without password; but then, in such a situation, you must take the precaution that all your sensitive data must not be accessible through that user account which does not require password. In such a scenario, all your sensitive data must be in password-protected folders (and/or in private and non-shared folders in password-protected user accounts) and depending upon how important the data is, you can also encrypt your important data with a strong password.
What sort of reports will be sent by Prey to my email account if my laptop gets stolen?
The reports sent by Prey will include data on the list of current running programs on your laptop (at the time the thief is running it), the recently modified files, active connections (i.e., IP address details), running uptime, screenshot of the running desktop of your laptop, and even a picture of the person who’s using laptop if your laptop has an integrated webcam! So, you may get information about the IP address from which the laptop is being used, the details of the nearest wi-fi hotspot, and may be even the pictures of the thief. Once you get the IP address, you can easily find out his actual location, if needed by taking help of the ISP under whose control that IP address falls (for more details, see my article, How to find out IP address and location of email sender).
Please read the Prey documentation for more details. So, when are you installing Prey on your laptop? If not for the security of your laptop, then at least for the security of your precious data which may be stored on it?
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I was very excited to see this article I thought I can use this software on my laptop. But, it is not working on my laptop…
Please ignore my last comment. I tried again and it worked. Actually I was entering a wrong smtp server name. Therefore I was not getting email when I experimented to check if Prey sends me email if show my laptop is stolen. Good software. Thanks for the tip.