[Dataloss] [ekmi] Re: fringe: Open source laptop tracking

[Stian Øvrevåge]

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 5:01 AM, Allen <netsecurity at sound-by-design.com> wrote:
> Arshad,
>
> I don't think you analysis, which I agree with, goes far enough.
>
> 1) Steal laptop.
> 2) Remove battery.
> 3) Remove HD.
> 4) Use HD cloning software such as Apricorn - hardware and software
> only $40 - and clone to any HD that is laying about
> 5) Mount clone as USB attached to a desktop
> 6) Attach old HD as USB attached and wipe old HD with DBAN or
> similar tool
> 7) Use Aloha Bob or equivalent to selectively migrate OS and basic
> productivity software such as Office from clone.
> 8) Remount HD in laptop
> 9) Sell the sucker.
>
> Best,
>
> Allen
>

With expertise like this the thief could probably get by doing
something other than jacking laptops.

Without having done any research I believe that dataloss like this, in
most cases, is an unfortunate side-effect of hardware theft. The
thiefs objective is not the data stored on the device but the device
itself. It simply isn't economical for most thieves to do this:

1. Expensive in both time and competence.
2. Not the thiefs problem if data leaks.
3. It is easy to figure what kind of sensitive and valuable data is
stored on servers, not so easy on laptops. Thief either has to do some
hefty recon-work or steal many laptops to get what he is after.
4. Thief has to have a contact-network that allows him to resell
specific data to a very limited costumer-base, compared to generic
hardware which everyone can use.

So yes, I do believe that this will help in many cases. And if you
bother doing this you also bother encrypting your data so that
shouldn't really be an issue.

BRgds,
-- 
Stian Øvrevåge