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Laptop owners turn to tracing software as theft soars
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN, Times Staff Writer Laptop computers used by the students at Episcopal High School in Houston don't contain sensitive information about the nation's war efforts in Afghanistan. These Compaq computers hold personal essays, musical downloads and important information, like their buddies' birthdates. Not quite a terrorist target for theft. But as the laptop computer becomes more popular and more powerful than some home PCs, these notebook-size machines have become especially attractive to thieves. According to Safeware, the Insurance Agency Inc., a company that insures computers and high tech equipment, 591,000 notebook computers were stolen nationwide last year, a 53 percent jump from the previous year. That's why Steve Eisenberg, director of technology at the private Houston school, subscribes to a tracing software called ComputracePlus that tracks computers over the Internet the same way LoJack can pinpoint cars on a highway. The first time someone logs on to the Internet on a computer reported stolen, the monitoring company can tell where the machine is, down to the street. "As soon as we started with Computrace, our losses went down to zero," Eisenberg said. It seems like everyone has a laptop these days. College students keep them in their dorms, telecommuters use them from home, and business travelers log on during flights. Dave Jordan, chief information security privacy officer for the Arlington County government in Virginia, said that as more Americans are juicing up their portable PCs, walking away with one has become commonplace. "Laptops are more powerful than they have ever been," Jordan said. "That tends to make them more attractive to people who may otherwise have ignored them. People with poor ethics may not have stolen them in the past. There was no value. Now they come with DVDs, stereo sound cards, high-resolution screens. You have a very powerful machine now in a laptop." Because of their compact size and light weight, they're easily left behind and easily picked up. "Especially if you're a teenager, it's easier to lose," Eisenberg said. "They go to McDonald's, have a hamburger, walk out and forget they left their laptop there," he said. Authorities said stolen laptops are often sold on the street, sometimes in exchange for drugs. When a laptop was stolen from the trunk of a car last year, tracing software found the laptop in the possession of a woman who said she had paid $75 for it on the street, Eisenberg said. Pawn shops haven't been very popular destinations. "We don't get a lot," said William Smoak, district president of the Florida Pawnbrowker's Association and owner of B's Pawn Shop in St. Petersburg. "People tend to hold onto them, I guess." Tracing software, a relatively new concept in computer tracking that costs about $50 a year for monitoring, is a small price to pay for peace of mind, said Jordan, who is overseeing the installation of computer tracking software for the county's 4,000 laptop-using employees. He works closely with the Pentagon and said he doubts Central Command, where two laptops were reported missing last week, contained any sort of tracing software. "Traditionally, the government has taken a lackadaisical approach to protecting their portable assets," said Jordan, whose office used ComputracePlus last year to recover a laptop taken to Maryland after it was stolen. "They can't presume it's being protected because it's behind a fence with a guy with an M-16."
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
