DOES ABSOLUTE LOJACK FOR LAPTOPS TAKE PHOTOS OF CRIMINALS INSTALL
If someone has physical access to a computer, it would be possible to install this software and turn it on remotely.
For one thing, there are many legitimate programs on the market that are used to control “nanny cams,” or Webcams used at vacation homes and other remote locations. There are, however, other ways to remotely turn on a laptop’s Webcam. It doesn’t really help find out the location of the device,” he said. In that case, it’s not a photograph of the criminal. By the time it’s been reported, the laptop has been sold, and the person using it isn’t the same person who stole it, “so taking a photograph of them really proves no value. Often, the person who is photographed using the laptop is not the person who stole it. “The photography doesn’t always take a picture of the criminal, and it’s not always permissible in a court of law,” he said. Midgley said the company doesn’t typically use Webcam photography, even if it’s available. “That allows us to pinpoint the location of the device…we then provide the details over to the local law enforcement, who then go in and recover the device.” Midgely said the recovery team is made up of former law enforcement officers and that the company has relationships with well more than 1,000 law enforcement agencies across North America. Absolute tracks the location of devices every 24 hours, but once a device is reported stolen it increases to once every 15 minutes, according to Midgley. Two of the recovery methods are GPS and Internet Protocol location tracking. “For us to begin a theft recovery process, we need a case file from the police,” he said. Company policy, according to Midgley, prohibits them for doing that until a police report is filed. But unlike the old LANRev, only Absolute engineers can track devices and activate recovery features. I interviewed Midgley by phone from his office in Vancouver.īoth the Computrace and LoJack products can be used to turn on a Webcam and photograph the user in the event of a theft investigation. Unlike LANRev, Absolute’s current theft recovery products can’t be activated by end users, according to Vice President for Global Marketing Stephen Midgley. For those functions, Absolute offers Computrace for enterprise customers (including schools) and LoJack for Laptops for consumers.
The blog Stryde Hax has more detail about Perbix’s reported activities.Ībsolute has changed the name of the program to Absolute Manager and will be marketing it for remote management of PCs, Macs, and iPhones, but the product will no longer be used for theft or loss recovery.
In one portion of the Webcast (not in the YouTube video), Perbix says, “You can go into curtain mode, so if you’re controlling someone’s machine and you don’t want them to see what you’re doing you just click on the curtain mode icon…you can take a snapshot of the screen by clicking on the little camera icon.” Scroll down to the end of this post to listen to a 28-second audio excerpt from the Webcast, in which Perbix talks about “curtain mode.” In a YouTube video attributed to Perbix, he says, “I’ve actually had some laptops we thought were stolen which actually were still in a classroom because they were misplaced, and by the time we found out that they were back I had to turn the tracking off and I had a good 20 snapshots of the teacher and the students using the machines in the classroom.” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Mike Perbix, a network technician from the district, had recorded a Webcast where he talked about his use of LANRev. An Absolute Software spokesman verified that it is also his understanding that the school used LANRev software. The product was published by Pole Position Software, which was acquired last year by Vancouver, B.C.-based Absolute Software. The answer is yes, though the newest version of the software used by the district to monitor its computers can no longer be used to activate Webcams or even track stolen computers.Īccording to Harriton High School student Phil Hayes, officials at the Lower Merion School District used a program called LANRev to manage and track the Macintosh laptops issued to students. The school district admitted to activating the Webcams 42 times during a 14-month period, claiming that it did so only to track lost or stolen laptops.īut for anyone with a Webcam (and Webcams are now built in to many laptops and desktops), the question is whether you are vulnerable to having your Webcam remotely turned on. The Webcam spy case in the Lower Merion School District near Philadelphia has raised concern as to whether others with Webcams are vulnerable to remote spying.
0 kommentar(er)
