Prey – secure your laptop

I just found a useful little freeware program called Prey which may be useful for laptops, or indeed any computer. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac and it’s open source.

What it does is simple. Should your machine be stolen, if the thief logs in (this is the only pitfall, in my opinion) the program will automatically email you a load of details every few minutes. These include its IP address, wi-fi network name, screenshots and – if you have a webcam attached – a picture from it. With luck that may even capture the thief.

How does the machine know it’s stolen and not being used by the real user? When it fires up, Prey checks for the existance of a web page. Any web page, it’s customisable. I’ve told it to look for a page on my blog called “stolen”, so should I find my laptop’s gone walkies then I create that page on my blog. If the page exists then Prey starts emailing details.

It’s only on v0.2 so it’s pretty much beta but it works as far as I can test it under Ubuntu. I’ve not installed it on XP or Win7 as yet. The only thing that’s not clear about the Ubuntu version is how to change the configuration once it’s installed – there’s no menu item or command to run. Go to the directory where you’ve installed it (default is /usr/share/prey) and edit the “config” file with your choice of text editor. It’s well-commented.

As I mentioned above, Prey will only trigger once a user has logged in. As it’s installed as root and runs under root’s crontab (or in the case of Windows as a system process) it will execute no matter what user logs in. Of course, if you have only password-protected accounts then a lot of people will just shrug their shoulders, format it and sell it on.

Hidden in the config file is what looks like a feature that’s not yet implemented – to create a dummy “guest” account with no password that will lure a thief into having a snoop and therefore giving Prey a chance to execute. Of course, you could to this manually. Prey will automatically attempt to locate the nearest publicly-accessible wi-fi connection should it be activated in a bid to get that information out to you.

It’s a teeny program, may or may not help… but for the effort it takes to install it I reckon it’s worthwhile. Of course, I’d also recommend opening the machine up and scrawling your postcode in indelible marker or UV pen somewhere as well. And registering the serial number with Immobilise (or Immobilise in the US).