Intel Anti-Theft Technology Transforms a Stolen Laptop into a Brick
If you’ve ever had your laptop stolen, then you know what a dreadful experience it can be. Even worse than losing one of your most prized, and likely most expensive possessions, is the fact that you’ve lost all that valuable data on it. Assuming you are savvy enough to keep fresh backups, the most disheartening part comes with the realization that some crook out there has all your data – your financial and personal files – and perhaps even your company’s data.
Maybe you’ve heard of remote wipe for smartphones. For example, if you lose your Blackberry and you’re running on Microsoft Exchange, an IT administrator can remotely wipe the device so that the data doesn’t fall in to the wrong hands. Now that kind of technology has come to laptops in the form of Intel Anti-Theft Technology. The way it works is that after a few failed password attempts, your laptop’s data becomes disabled and the computer shuts down and becomes a brick. And if you’re ever fortunate enough to recover the laptop, don’t worry – the laptop can be reactivated remotely.
The following laptops currently support Intel Anti-Theft Technology Lenovo ThinkPad T400, T500, X301, X200, W500, R500 and Fujitsu Lifebook E8420 and the Fujitsu Lifebook T5010.
So what should you do if you dont have one of these laptops? Password protecting your computer is an easy way to protect your data from falling in to the wrong hands, but that isn’t fool proof, as there are plenty of clever crooks who can bypass passwords. So if you have any very valuable data files on your laptop’s hard drive, place them in password encrypted folders. Also, it doesn’t hurt to shel out the cash for an affordable service like LoJack which can help retrieve your stolen laptop altogether. A free open source alternative to LoJack, for both Mac and PC is Adeona which is able to trace the location of your laptop as well, but it doesn’t offer the customer support and reliablity of LoJack. Alternatively, you could always hide a small GPS tracker like the Spark Nano in your laptop bag, so that if a laptop is stolen, you’ll be able to trace it. Ofcourse, this is assuming that the thief doesn’t ditch the bag, which he probably wont.
