[A copy product from others designed a year before... this is news?
 And giving such rave reviews over a product seems a bit weird
 for a security site. Plugging BrickHouse, and now PC Phone Home,
 you can't help but wonder what AntiOnline gets for these
 endorsements.]

http://www.antionline.com/cgi-bin/News?type=antionline&date=06-28-1999&story=phone.news

 Get The DIRT On PC Phone Home
 Wednesday, June 30, 1999 at 15:21:00
 by John Vranesevich - Founder of AntiOnline

 "There were 509,000 Laptops and PCs stolen in the USA last year.
 According to the FBI, 97% of them will never be recovered. That's
 astounding.", Frank Jones, President Of Codex Data Systems, gave
 AntiOnline an exclusive first look at their newest product, PC
 Phone Home, which they say will help to change all that.

[Of course, this product comes over a year after previous
 products like 'CyberAngel'. Like most things, articles detailing
 how they worked were full of errors.]

[snip..]

 If the user's computer is stolen, they report it to their local
 police department as usual. They then also report the theft to
 Codex Data Systems. Codex's servers then go into full alert,
 looking for the digital tracking beacon that the user's PC will
 give off the next time it goes online. Codex will then, for no
 extra fee, work with the detective in charge of the theft to help
 recover the stolen goods.

[Translated. Your serial number is added to a filter list as each
 laptop 'calls home'. Of course, this begs the question of privacy.
 With this software, everytime you login, they know about it, and 
 from where.]

[snip..]

 Codex Data Systems is known for their D.I.R.T. software, which is
 sold to law enforcement and military organizations as a 'virtual
 listening device', and is said to loosely resemble the famous
 Back Orifice Trojan.

[And hopefully it will not bring up the same types of questions
 that DIRT did.]