Lojack in the BIOS

chimeracoder · 2011-09-08 03:43:18

Prey has gotten a decent amount of press today, thanks to a success story. I have little use for Prey, however; my GRUB setup is complicated enough that any would-be thief would probably get frustrated trying to boot my computer and end up wiping the hard drive to install Windows.

I've heard of Windows users installing Lojack (or a similar program) so that it stays in the BIOS and therefore is immune to system reinstalls. Have any Archers had success with this approach?

(If it makes a difference, I do not, at the moment, dual-boot my computer).

Inxsible · 2011-09-08 03:54:02

to be honest, BIOS can be flashed too, so unless that Lojack survives a BIOS flash, I think it wouldn't be much of a hindrance to a savvy thief.

lifeafter2am · 2011-09-08 04:02:46

chimeracoder wrote:

my GRUB setup is complicated enough that any would-be thief would probably get frustrated trying to boot my computer and end up wiping the hard drive to install Windows.

Unless your partitions are encrypted, what does it matter if your grub is complicated? One can easily boot a live distro and just mount your partitions ... heck some of them will even automount all your available volumes.

chimeracoder · 2011-09-08 04:05:10

lifeafter2am wrote:

chimeracoder wrote:
my GRUB setup is complicated enough that any would-be thief would probably get frustrated trying to boot my computer and end up wiping the hard drive to install Windows.
Unless your partitions are encrypted, what does it matter if your grub is complicated? One can easily boot a live distro and just mount your partitions ... heck some of them will even automount all your available volumes.

It matters because Prey won't work if they can't figure out how to boot my computer.

Obviously it won't work if they boot a live distro anyway either. It wasn't meant to say that I'm more protected - just that Prey wouldn't be that useful.

ANOKNUSA · 2011-09-08 04:27:10

Inxsible wrote:

to be honest, BIOS can be flashed too, so unless that Lojack survives a BIOS flash, I think it wouldn't be much of a hindrance to a savvy thief.

This is kind of a matter of circumstance, as in my neighborhood one has to deal less with "cronie for cartel running electronic chop shop" thieves, and more with "steal something that looks valuable and quickly hock it for crack" thieves. In the latter case, I wouldn't mind using something that ups the odds a little of getting my machine back; in the former case, get some insurance.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-09-08 03:43:18

Lojack in the BIOS

#2 2011-09-08 03:54:02

Re: Lojack in the BIOS

#3 2011-09-08 04:02:46

Re: Lojack in the BIOS

#4 2011-09-08 04:05:10

Re: Lojack in the BIOS

#5 2011-09-08 04:27:10

Re: Lojack in the BIOS

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