Ask Slashdot: How Do You Prepare For The Theft Of Your PC? 262
A security-conscious Slashdot reader has theft insurance -- but worries whether it covers PC theft. And besides the hassles of recreating every customization after restoring from backups, there's also the issue of keeping personal data private.
I currently keep important information on a hidden, encrypted partition so an ordinary thief won't get much off of it, but that is about the extent of my preparation... What would you do? Some sort of beacon to let you know where your stuff is? Remote wipe? Online backup?
There's a couple of issues here -- including privacy, data recovery, deterrence, compensation -- each leading to different ways to answer the question: what can you actually do to prepare for the possibility? So use the comments to share your own experiences. How have you prepared for the theft of your PC?
There's a couple of issues here -- including privacy, data recovery, deterrence, compensation -- each leading to different ways to answer the question: what can you actually do to prepare for the possibility? So use the comments to share your own experiences. How have you prepared for the theft of your PC?
backups (Score:2)
distributed architecture.
Re:backups (Score:4, Interesting)
Hard Drive Encryption is the best solution, IMHO. There are Self Encrypting Drives (SEDs). Many solid state drives have encryption built in. Sweet. Nothing but fine. You gotta turn it on though. RTFM.
PGP Hard Drive Encryption is great. And there's Bitlocker (Windows) too.
Yes, backups are a very good idea. And backing up to or having your backups at multiple locations (Distributed Architecture), even better. But you gotta plan for updates. Just a thought: sensitive files should be encrypted, period. And if all your secret stuff is already encrypted, do you really need to encrypt your backup?
Online backup services are available too, like Carbonite($). Good rep. Haven't tried 'em.
For a full system image, trust Clonezilla - IFF you get it from the source (http://clonezilla.org/ [clonezilla.org]). It's straightforward, but read the docs anyway. There are other options, but I go with what I know. And I know that if you're moving from a Dell(x) to an Asus(y), a full system image might not be what you're looking for.
For small stuff, like documents and files, you might think about copying to a Flash drive. Just a warning: they are notoriously easy to recover deleted files from.
Don't forget to backup your .vimrc, if you're into Vim. I forget every time.
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Read the reviews [facebook.com].
Lost my Hard Drive. Everything backed up to BB. BB Takes a week to put on a drive to FEDEX. After 4 days I get a notice that they had a network error and my order was cancelled. So i was directed to place he same order again. I'm on week 2. Still no drive from Fedex. BB Support cannot tell me how much longer this will be. However they appreciate my patience, which is nice. You can store all the info in the world. But if it's taking 2 weeks to get 1.5 TB to a customer you are missing the point. Expectations are two days not two weeks. You have to do better.
Backblaze: Sorry to hear you had an issue with the restores Bill. We are working hard to speed them up so that you can get your data back quickly! Rest assured that as soon as the 1.5TB is copied on to a hard drive - it'll get shipped overnight to you.
Re: backups (Score:2)
In Windows, I've enabled OneDrive, and not only that, I make that my primary storage. Yeah, there's all those cries about privacy, but being able to retrieve my data seamlessly outweighs that. While none of my computers have ever been stolen, I did have a WinBook die on me, so it was very useful to be able to retrieve my stuff from the OneDrive backup.
I do wish such a mechanism existed for things like FreeBSD: dunno about Linux. Have something like an automatic backup to Dropbox (or any cloud storage o
Crashplan (Score:2)
I used to roll my own remote cron backups but when Crashplan came along I stopped. The problem with all other backup services out there is that even if they let you store as much as you liked the problem is 1) restores are a hideous problem at network speeds . 2) how do you validate the backups 3) Dump level 0 initial backups take forever.
Crash plan solves this. They let you use your own disks attached to a computer at your friends house. (presumably you return the favor). The initial backup is done loca
Re: backups (Score:2, Funny)
A backup gun.
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Short answer:
I do not need to prepare because it has been part of the whole process for a while.
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My main PC is in a Corsair 800D case and weighs about 50 pounds. Nobody is walking away with it. Wouldn't put anything critical on a laptop that I took around with me.
Re:backups (Score:5, Funny)
My main PC is in a Corsair 800D case and weighs about 50 pounds. Nobody is walking away with it.
Did you miss a sentence where the PC is in a 10 ton safe/vault? I can easily carry a 50lb PC case to the van out front. I regularly carry a large bag of dog food and all my groceries over 1/2 mile (I live in a large city and walk to the grocery store) without any trouble at all, and I've moved apartments by myself a bunch of times. I don't think it's wise to rely on the weight of your case to save you.
Now... my ancient 8u rackmount case, that's mounted in a telco rack (which, for some unfathomable reason, the wife likes in the living room), would be impossible to steal without significant disassembly (the rack won't fit through the stairwell). That's still no reason to think it can't be stolen.
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Make twice as many trips and carry one. Your twenty or thirty year older self will thank you.
I was you.
Re: backups (Score:5, Funny)
Also, this question seems like a trap. If you want to know how I secure my stuff, you'll have to steal it and find out.
Go Ahead, Make My Day! (Score:2)
Do you feel lucky punk?
Re: backups (Score:5, Informative)
If you have an SSD, and want to add a HDD, and just want to keep it in sync periodically, and you're running Linux... consider checking out MD raid1 using "write-mostly" on the HDD. For example: http://tansi.info/hybrid/ [tansi.info]
Using that, almost all reads will go to the SSD, and writes will go to both. It was originally added for mirroring over a (slow) network interface, which you could also add as a 3rd mirror if you prefer.
Before someone else says it, a mirror is not a backup. If you, or someone else using your computer, or through some program error, or through a virus/bug/etc, delete data, that deletion will sync to the mirror as quickly as you have it set to do so and you won't have a copy of it, unless you add some form of versioning or backup.
I'm sure everyone has their own preferences, but if you're starting from just your primary drive, and it's your personal computer (as opposed to work), then I'd recommend adding redundancy and backups in the following order of priority:
1. Offsite backup your most precious files. There are a TON of solutions for this. You can keep your file list short and limit it to small-ish files (ie. don't back up your DVD collection in this backup set, even if you consider it important). Possible solutions would include dropbox, crashplan, google drive, sync.com, spideroak, tresorit, mega, etc.
2. Local redundancy/mirror. This is the bit you're talking about. If I loose a drive due to hardware failure, I want to keep going ASAP, and this is the best way to do that.. just make sure you test it and can move over to it and back.
3. Local large/full backups. These can go to an external drive or two. Grab an external HDD with USB 3 that's plenty big (just get the biggest you can find within your budget - maybe a 4tb?). What software to use to make the backup... that's tricky, but there's lots of viable options, and a lot of it depends on how much effort you are able to put in up front. A lot of what this backs up will be fairly useless - do you really need a copy of all your OS files and game files and stuff you can just re-download later (and probably will, if you do need to do a completely rebuild)? Probably not, but just grab everything so you don't miss anything later on.
4. Offsite those full backups. Use multiple external drives. Take at least one offsite periodically. Take it to work, or a friends place, or a storage facility, or safe deposit box.
FWIW, crashplan can be used for all but #2 above. I don't work there; just a happy customer. It's free to back up to a local drive, or to another computer of your own (or friend/family/work).
My PC! (Score:2)
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You know what else is dark? Hitler.
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he knew how to stop bolsheviks from stealing his country though, very effectively.
Password and full image backups (Score:4, Insightful)
Most (almost all burglars / robbers) don't care about the contents of your machine, only what they can sell it for. And they certainly aren't going to be capable crackers.
Have a password to make turning it on a dead end run disc image backups as your best way of storing all your data and settings, if you can replace with similar out identical h/w you only have to restore and away you go.
Re:Password and full image backups (Score:5, Interesting)
This...
Insurance will cover the cost of replacing the hardware, backups take care of recovering the data, just make sure the backups don't get stolen/destroyed with the machine.
If the thief can't power the machine on due to a password they will either throw it away, or sell it cheap to someone more capable of dealing with it who will either wipe the data and install fresh or just sell the individual components.
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just make sure the backups don't get stolen/destroyed with the machine.
That's why backups you want available are stored in the cloud. And backups you want secret are stored on an encrypted USB drive. Lose the computer, the data you want is around. And the stuff you'd rather have destroyed than leaked is inaccessible. Best of both worlds.
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Insurance is for catastrophic claims. Just making a claim like this will raise your premiums for the next five years. You can't win with those bastards.
Get a giant friendly dog and a pump 12 gauge loaded with #5 (so it won't overpenetrate and kill the neighbor's kid in her bed, also 'has a good spread').
Re: Password and full image backups (Score:5, Informative)
My experience with homeowners' insurance is that once the deductible is met, the amount paid per item is usually *way* more than the amount you could have conceivably sold it for on eBay. You might not walk away with a brand new item for free (if the item is more than a year old), but unless you're broke & living paycheck to paycheck, you'll walk away from the transaction feeling like you got an even better deal than the thief.
After Hurricane Wilma, there was *unbelievable* large-scale de-hoarding of old/broken electronic gear once people realized they could use it as an excuse to cash in on ancient hardware by claiming it as a storm loss (hardware that was almost zero-value to begin with by virtue of BEING in a box in the garage/shed/back porch, but collectively worth thousands as an insurance claim... and that's not even *counting* the outright fraud that occurred (things that magically ended up in the 'damaged' pile, despite surviving the storm just fine). Or things that had NEGATIVE value, like a half-dozen non-HD CRT TVs and monitors piled on a back porch when the storm hit that ended up getting the homeowner $200-500 apiece.
The one area where insurance will really fuck you is with new cars (since most cars instantly lose 25% of their value the INSTANT you take ownership). The smart thing to do with new cars is to take advantage of zero-down low-interest financing, then drag your feet after the accident until the insurance agrees to pay off the entire loan balance. Eventually, they WILL, because every day you delay costs them a hundred bucks for storage, administration, and your rental car... eventually, they'll give in just to close your case. By extension, the worst thing you can possibly do is buy a brand-new car with a large down-payment... if you get into an accident within a year, they'll totally fuck you over. Insurers LOVE to declare any accident where airbags deploy as a 'total loss', because the scrap value of its remaining parts is more than they'd otherwise have to spend on repair. In many cases, the aggregate value of your destroyed car's parts to a scrapyard *exceeds* the amount the insurance will offer to pay you.
re: insurance and payouts (Score:3)
Actually, my experience has been that the VAST majority of the time a computer is stolen, it's a laptop that gets stolen while the owner is out and about someplace with it. Therefore, even if it's covered under the homeowners' policy, it's not going to make any sense to claim it. Even if it was a high-end system with costly accessories in the laptop bag -- it wouldn't be worth THAT much over any deductible. And homeowners' insurance tends to automatically drop you if you make 2 claims within something like
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"Power On Password"
I required it for every portable in the Firm.
We had a break in and a laptop was among the items taken.
The police brought the portable to me and I opened it up. They let me have it back.
Fixed that for you (Score:2, Insightful)
Encryption is all you need, stop worrying! Unless your "thief" is the FBI.
I don't (Score:2)
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I keep my harddrives in an encrypted safe
Re: I don't (Score:2)
I encrypt my hard drive, put it in a safe, encrypt the safe as well, bury it in the yard, and finally encrypt the yard for good measure.
backups + encryption (Score:3, Informative)
For privacy, the simplest and most helpful thing to do is use full-disk encryption for your hard drive. This will significantly increase the amount of effort required to access your data and any online accounts (e.g. bank accounts).
For data, I just store all of my sensitive data on the cloud (e.g. tax returns, personal documents). If you have large amounts of important data such as photos, you may have to pay a monthly fee for good cloud storage. But it's definitely worth it. There are many, many other things that can go wrong besides theft that can cause data loss.
It's also good to practice good online account security (e.g. using 2-factor authentication), and make sure to reset all of your critical passwords in the event of theft of a computer.
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Interesting how many people are saying encryption, encryption, encryption. That's not really going to help if they steal the only (encrypted) copy of your data. Backups are also a pain because you still need to restore everything, and unless you're restoring to exactly identical hardware you'll need to reinstall your OS and then by extension any apps on it.
My anti-theft measure is a hardened steel cable through a metal plate on my PC and then the metal frame of the desk it's at. Try stealing that.
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The question is not how to prevent theft, but how do you prepare for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:backups + encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
My anti-theft measure is a hardened steel cable
Unless you're talking about something like the support cables for the Golden Gate Bridge, I've never seen a cable that couldn't be defeated by a decent pair of bolt cutters.
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What sort of burglars are you expecting that drive around with a trunk full of heavy engineering tools that they carry into each house they break into on the remote chance they'll need them? The typical burglary is: go to the house looking as inconspicuous as possible (hint: carrying bolt cutters and power tools and whatnot is a dead giveaway that you're not a door-to-door salesman), force entry, grab anything easily accessible in the 30-45s before the alarm goes off, get out.
In my case it'd take them the
Re:backups + encryption (Score:4, Informative)
Bitlocker + OwnCloud/Seafile (Score:3)
My laptop is bitlocker encrypted. All my stuff is synced to a several hundred MB Seafile library. Modern Windows with online accounts takes care of backing up customisations quite well too. A lot of open source apps especially store customisations in a file, they are in a Seafile library.
The only thing I'll lose if someone steals my laptop is the $200 insurance cost and a few hours of my time reinstalling a few programs.
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Maybe that was supposed to say several hundred GB... A few hundred MB doesn't get me very far.
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Smith & Wesson 29 (Score:2)
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Full loaded with its .44 special cartridges, works better than any backup as a deterrent against laptop thieves.
Unless the potential thieves know you have a weapon and reckon that you will:
a) be prepared to use it
b) be at home when they break in
c) would not be deterred by their greater force or number
Then all that being armed does is make you (mistakenly) feel more secure. It's nothing more than a safety blanket for you to hide behind.
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Re: Smith & Wesson 29 (Score:2)
I'm prepared to kill anyone that walks in my house uninvited, the fact that you aren't is sad.
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Re: (Score:2)
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So you're prepared to kill people just because they want to steal your laptop?
I wouldn't kill them, I'd probably just wing 'em.
Re:Smith & Wesson 29 (Score:4, Funny)
Yes Sir, but the question here was: What if all fails and the valuable piece of equipment has fallen victim to thieves?
And here I suggest, first and foremost, a bottle of tequila to wash away the pain.
And to gather some courage to detonate the thermo-nuclear charge, which was thoughtfully placed in the device, for just such cases.
Oh, and backups and encryption the people here are talking about sound like a wise thing too.
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Full loaded with its .44 special cartridges, works better than any backup as a deterrent against laptop thieves.
Do you have a fully autonomous Smith and Wesson 29 at home? Or is your solution highly dependent on your involvement in which case it's unlikely the laptop would get stolen in the first place.
#fuckingamericans
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I know you're trolling. That cannon overpenetrates for a neighborhood. Gonna shoot a kid through 3 walls.
Save it for Grizzly hunting, backup weapon.
Seriously? (Score:3)
If you're going to go that far just use Tails OS and backup the encrypted volume on some cheap cloud storage. You have backup, you have encryption, and even some theoretical thief doesn't get any of it, short of kidnapping you and hitting you a bunch with a hammer.
Build one that is too heavy to steal (Score:5, Funny)
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Security through obscurity (Score:5, Funny)
First, track down one of those Dell laptops from the early 2000s - the two-inch thick ones which used desktop processors and weighed something like ten pounds.
Then take the ginormous power brick from that laptop, hollow it out, and hide your MacBook in there.
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Damn it!
I thought that was my secret!
Full Disk Encryption & Backups & iscsi (Score:2)
Some questions to start with:
1.) Why keeping a hidden encrypted partition?
Its easier and more secure to have FDE in place because some programm .. perhaps notepad++ might buffer for example the text files that contain your passwords (password managers have some security issues themself).
2.) Backups / local & online "offsite"
Do you maintain the internet connection for your parents? .. put a small remote controlled server there and store only encrypted data on it.
encrypt backups too :)
here is how I do it:
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Are you sure you are important enough as a person to warrant that much effort?
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Simple and short answer: Yes.
I value my data, my privacy and the data integrity to be important enough to warrant that much effort .. and from my point of view, people that don't, will realize that later, what they lost, but only when it happens.
I'm aware of the dangers of the offline and the online world and as such I take the neccessary precaution not to get worried over the awareness.
Example, my house burns down I buy a cheap computer and restore my data from the root server.
And that much effort .. you r
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Are you sure you are important enough as a person to warrant that much effort?
The victims 'importance' (or lack thereof) has little to do with data security. Once your device (PC/tablet/mobile/whatever) is lost or stolen, what happens next could just be for the Lulz...
Case in point. A friend of mine lost her mobile phone. It was found by nefarious folks who got into it and-
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1.a) the root server is a remote server: yes
iscsi just exports the local drives to the localhost
then my homeserver tunnels into and the iscsi-"client" (I hate the iscsi nomenclature) connects to localhost.
The tunnel is for authentification purpose(yeah iscsi can use some auth too but I was just lazy and wanted to have an small footprint config) and also for security because I do trust "ssh" much>much>much more than putting out an iscsi-server - even on a non-std. port number onto the internet. With th
Re: (Score:2)
1.) when I work
2.) when I work on my cars
3.) when I excersise my free time
As I stated in another post, to (re-)create the setup does/did not take much time, nor does it take much time to maintain, cause I tend not to do things more often if they are easy=time efficient to automate and to validate the results.
Revealing data (Score:5, Insightful)
First, the cost of repairs after a break-in will far exceed the value of your PC. And in addition, the increased insurance premiums will probably dwarf the repair costs, too.
Most burglaries are drugs-related. All the thief wants is to get in, grab enough to pay for their next fix and run away. All this stuff about organised robberies, knowing what to look for, recognising a pearl in the pigsh... , thefts to facilitate hacking - that only happens in bad movies.
There is not a housebreaker in the world who has any technical knowledge. All they will see is a PC-shaped box. And being a PC, it's resale value is negligible. it probably isn't even worth carrying to their car. I would suggest buying a broken Macbook or iPhone as a decoy and leaving that as a "sacrifice". Being instantly recognisable and easily portable, that would be stolen in preference to what you actually value.
If you are still worried that a thief will steal all your little secrets, then the simple solution is to run Linux. Anyone in the thief's circle will not recognise that as being Windows and they will therefore toss the PC at the earliest opportunity.
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All this stuff about organised robberies, knowing what to look for, recognising a pearl in the pigsh... , thefts to facilitate hacking - that only happens in bad movies.
It happens in real life too, but only if your home is worth north of $5 million or when your job already prevents you from having sensitive data on personal devices.
Yeah... if you live in a shitty basement apartment because you miss mom... nobody is breaking in looking for pearls. They are looking for small electronics, cash, and any drugs you got.
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Ultimately though, the best strategy for protecting your PC is to not have much on it. Keep your data on a NAS/small server or three locked in a heavy cabinet secured to the floor.
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Completely replacing a window is less than $500
And before any insurance company will touch you in the future, you will need to replace your front door (and any other exterior doors) with enhanced, secure, doors. Plus locks on all your ground-floor windows, maybe a burglar alarm too.
reckon on several thousand $$$$ spent and non-claimable. And after that, to add insult to injury, your premiums will be much higher - at least for few years.
Think it would be cheaper to not claim and keep quiet? Even worse idea. If you are found out, which you would be,
Remote tracking software (Score:2)
How do I prepapre for the theft? I have Prey installed https://www.preyproject.com/ [preyproject.com] , and leave the machine unlocked and unencrypted. When it was stolen, the police arrested the thief within 90 minutes of him switching the machine on. (This works, of course, becase thieves are not smart.)
For really confidential stuff, we have other secure machines and procedures. The notebooks are for daily work.
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I dunno about wife beater, but the rest of your description matches the temporary user of my notebook.
Is there a non-obvious solution here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Material loss: Insurance (read the small print and make sure you get a policy that covers it).
Privacy loss: Encrypt the disk. Commercial and open source full disk encryption software is easily available.
Data loss: Backups. Plenty of affordable online backup/storage solutions are available, some specialising in specifically in backups (Backblaze, Crashplan), others that are more generic (Amazon Drive, Google Drive).
Shit stained diapers (Score:5, Funny)
Dedicated Desaster Recovery HDD (Score:2)
Like most, I like my desaster recovery to be hassle free. I've found the most important aspect of this to be dedicated HDDs for this. I use 2.5" external 0.5 or 1TB HDDs. On macOS TimeMachine and on linux BackInTime. Same thing.
The external USB HDDs have labels on them, like "(HOSTNAME) TimeMachine" or "(HOSTNAME) BackInTime". I don't use these for anything else. This is important!
TimeMachine / BackInTime cover my main users home dir. Pure and simple.
For archiving I have two seperate USB HDDs of the same ty
Forgot to mention ... (Score:2)
... encrypted HDD or homedir. Really important if you don't want a stolen computer leading to ID theft and a large type fuckup of your life.
Nothing you can do except encrypt and insure (Score:5, Interesting)
So I was at the receiving end of a burglary last year. The wife woke me up because she heard something. And in some sort of half-sleep/half-awake state, I stormed down and charged at the two guys that were riffling through our possessions.
Thank god I live in Europe so burglars aren't armed or anything. They ran away to the front door and tried to escape. I ran after them and when they were opening the front door, attacked them. At some point during the pushing and shoving, I woke up and thought -- what the fuck do I actually care?
So I said "okay guys, let's stop here. I haven't actually seen your faces and I'm not looking" (I started staring at the floor) "and I don't really care, just take that stuff and go". They took off and I called the cops. They took fingerprints and stuff but never caught them.
They took an iPad, a MacBook and some money. I remote-locked the iPad, and realized I had Prey [preyproject.com] running on the MacBook. I switched the MacBook to "lost mode" but one year later, it appears they formatted the drive before connecting to the internet. The files on the MacBook weren't encrypted, the iPad was.
Lessons learned:
- I got most of the value back through the insurance
- Install Prey or some other remote locking software stuff
- Don't go and fight burglars, it's not worth it
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>Thank god I live in Europe so burglars aren't armed or anything.
Yes, in Europe people that break into your house never carry any sort of weapon. And they are generally nice fellows that you can share a pint with afterward.
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They took off and I called the cops. They took fingerprints and stuff but never caught them.
Yeah, that's how it goes with police.
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Thank god I live in Europe so burglars aren't armed or anything.
Umm, no. Knives are a thing. And I can show you where you can (legally) buy a handgun within the EU (Schengen area). And then drive it anywhere you want, strict gun laws or not.
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You're lucky. Even in Europe burglary is becoming more violent, and contrary to the US, there is no my house, my castle legislation. You're lucky, because you were able to have the time to assess the situation and discuss with the burglars. If intent were different or drugs were at play, most likely it would have a totally different outcome.
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If intent were different or drugs were at play, most likely it would have a totally different outcome.
Yup. The burglars were two youngsters who were just as afraid as I was. I was very, very lucky indeed, and I very much agree with you on the other points.
Re:Nothing you can do except encrypt and insure (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many possible outcomes during and following a home invasion, and invasion experiences are rare. It matters whether his wife feels safe after, in their house or on the street, and nobody knows how they will behave until tested.
Correct there. If you would've asked me in advance how I'd react, I would not in a thousand years have guessed my reaction. But I got into this weird sleep-rage and it took an actual fight to finally snap out of it. It was like someone else was at the wheel, some primal lizard-brain reaction.
Don't put the keys to the kingdom on there at all (Score:3)
While a thief could do a social engineering attack on another using your email settings (another reason to not autosave a password) it's more hard work than them getting your banking details.
IMHO the likelihood of theft is why certificate only logins to VPNs or ssh are an extremely bad idea especially on laptops and tablets. Sure, use a cert, but if there is no passphrase than any thief or script kiddie that 0wns the device can get into whatever you can get into.
Simples (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Backup
2. Enough money to buy a new one
3. Encryption
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Yup.
If you're "recreating your configuration", it means your backups are incomplete.
You have to expect to never get that item back, most thieves will just wipe it and sell it on really quickly. They are also not loathe to just destroy it if they can't get rid of it safely or if they think it might be being tracked.
If you encrypt EVERYTHING (why would you only encrypt a small part?), they can never access it. P.S. this also makes them more likely to wipe it, or just destroy it for parts.
Amazing how people
Backups. (Score:2)
Drive encryption on, Backup to Hidden NAS in the house, backup to encrypted cloud storage.
Really trivial solutions that have been available for everyone for over half a decade now.
Put a big fucking bomb in it (Score:2)
That is easy ... (Score:2)
250g of C4, shaped charge directed at the place where the user is sitting. ...
As soon as it gets activated and decides via its network connection that it is at the wrong place in the universe, it gets triggered.
An additional termite charge in the hard drives should make sure it can not be traced back to me
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And then your DHCP-setup changes unexpectedly. If you survive, I am sure they will find you a nice, permanent space in prison, as you surely are a terrorist that blew himself up by being stupid.
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First of all I obviously was joking.
Secondly how the funk should my DHCP set up suddenly change?
And thirdly, why would that fake/fluke my location in any way if it changed?
BACKUPS! (Score:2)
Full Image of hard drive on an external hard drive of flash drive.
Lock 'em up... (Score:2)
this isn't rocket science (Score:2)
2. Full-disk encryption.
3. External backups of critical data.
4. Mitigate risk of theft happening in the first place.
To be fair, I only do #1 and #4 currently. Though I'm supposed to be doing #2 as part of company policy.
I know a bit on this subject. (Score:5, Informative)
I used to be the "crack" man for a couple of home burglars. IE, I used to unknowingly crack windows passwords, reinstall OS's, etc for some guys who would break into houses and steal shit. They told me that they'd buy the laptops for cheap at flea markets, and flip them. I of course didn't believe it, so I started recording serial numbers around the 3rd laptop. Funny enough, eventually I buddied up with them and one of them came clean with what they do and how they do it. (Wanting me to do more laptops at a bulk discount.) I agreed, did a few more for them, and then submitted all the serial numbers, text messages, and license plates to the police... In all I cracked/reinstalled around 20 computers, only a couple came back as hits as stolen by the police.
After that, I had to get serious about defense. If those fuckers ever put two and two together, they'll know who busted them. On top of this, I have tens of thousands of easily steal-able computer stuff too.
So here is what I learned working with professional thieves:
1) They want to get in as quick and quite as possible.
2) They want to get in when no one is home (9am-3pm)
3) They want to be not visible from the road, but close to the main road. (So back side of apartment buildings.)
4) They want to be in and out in 3-5minutes. Thus negating burglar alarms.
5) They're looking for easy to steal stuff. Laptops,Guns, Money/IDs, Video Games, Video Game Consoles, TV's, PC's, anything else (in that order).
6) They don't have a soul, they don't give a shit about you or your stuff.
Here is how you prevent your PC from being stolen:
1) Start with making your home difficult to break in:
Most entries are through an exterior door, generally by kicking it in. Replace all striker plates with a 4 screw system that has at least 2 2-inch long screws. Replace or add a metal plate around the lock of the door. You can do both of these in an apartment, and turn 1 kick entry into a 10 kick, possible no entry.
If you own the home your self, replace all exterior doors and door frames with steal frames. Metal doors and metal frames are extremely difficult to kick in.
Next are the windows. Keep all windows locked on every floor! A thief can easily climb up to a second story window and open it. Next, make your windows break proof. Some fire paranoid people will say don't do this, but home thief is much more common than breaking a window and jumping out of it during a fire. There are several security films that you can apply to a window that can make it withstand repeated attempts to smash it in with a hammer. Please note, this is EVERY window. Don't think a thief will shimmy in a busted garage door glass... These people are scum of the earth.
If you have a garage door, make sure the door opener opener is not using a common opening system. I don't know too much about garage security, so do some research.
Buy a doorbell camera. Make sure they can see it. This also helps great with UPS.
Finally, stick some home security stickers around your house. Make sure they're of real security companies. Even if you don't have service, a thief isn't going to pick your house if its difficult to get in, and the neighbor's is easier.
2) Securing your PC.
Once a thief is in your home, there isn't really much you can do. The main thing is, you have to make getting what they want so difficult that it'll take longer than 5 minutes. Easily frustrated, thieves are on a clock, and will just grab the easy to get stuff and run.
IF you have a laptop, this means one of those security cables. Although a decent wire cutter (which some thieves will have with them) will slice through them with ease. So with that in mind, unless you keep your laptop in a anchored safe, it's gone. Get insurance. Ditto with video game consoles, video games, etc.
The PC is a little different beast. Short of having a complete anchored rack cabinet with locks, there are two things you can do (one of which I currently do, the other I will pro
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I forgot to mention the second thing to do with PCs, that I currently don't do.
Buy a cheap smart cellphone, with bare minimum service. Wire the usb charger to your computer. Mute the phone. And that's it! You have a cheap lo-jack system. It charges when the computer is on, it has 2 days battery life when the computer is off. Install a program that feeds you GPS coordinates if you send it a text. (There are a couple apps that do this.) Give that number/commands to the cops when you report your stuff stolen.
Full-disk encryption and do not use hibernate (Score:2)
Do real, clean shutdowns every time. Yes, it is more effort, but you can either have security or convenience, not both. Apart from that, backups. You may want to put everything important in an SVN or GIT repository and sync whenever you are online.
I have no preparation plan (Score:2)
Bitlocker drive encryption + Dropbox (Score:2)
I use Bitlocker drive encryption and have my Documents/pictures/music etc on my dropbox. This arrangement prepares me for lost/stolen computers as well as (far more common) hardware failures. It also gives me near-real-time sync to my other PCs as well.
There are some nice bonuses to this arrangement.
I (via my unlimited data) sync my photos to my PCs with dropbox automagically in near real-time.
I can pull up password safe on my Android Phone from my dropbox-made-available-offline psafe3 file.
lock, key, and neighbours (Score:2)
Safe neighbourhoods count for a lot. No one's breaking into my house.
prevent the theft in the first place? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A UPS buffered shutdown would be better, because truecrypt(-- veracrypt) will overwrite the key data in RAM during shutdown.
A hard reset might make it possible to perform a memory freeze attack and extract the encryption key from the ram directly.
This attack is not just theory, it is used by for example law enforcement agencies and known to work.
So one might just kill your electrical power before rolling in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Security screen door, outside the front door. Hinge pins are set. IIRC somebody mushroomed the ends pretty good.
Supreme court said cops can go in and 'secure the front room of the house' (shoot dog etc), without your consent, if you open the door. But not if you have a security door on the outside.
Everybody should have one, you're a _communist_ if you don't.
If they want in, they attach a chain to the security door and pull it off. But the pushin to checkout if you've got anything worth stealing (civi
Re: (Score:2)
I hadn't heard of them before but the only 3G + GPS solutions using Python I've heard of are Telit modules, doing a search for Telit products it's probably something like the following:
HE910 Mini PCIe - 3G [telit.com]
Please register for the darwin award! (Score:2)
He was killed by an exploding grenade he had installed to kill thieves that would temper with his property. Unfortunatly he forgot the grenade and accessed the computer hardware with the neccessary precaution. .. or ..
Was found guilty and got sentenced to death for trip-wire 1st degree murdering an FBI agent trying to access his computer hardware.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, your lifetime spot in federal prison is already reserved. Just hope they do not make you a "terrorist".