I read an interesting story in that was published in the Fall 2004 issue of 2600 (The Hacker Quarterly) about a guy that wrote his own “call home” beacon to protect his PowerBook in the event it was ever lost or stolen. “The basic idea behind this idea is to run a cron job as root every five or ten minutes that runs a simple command. This command acts as a beacon.”
Other security tips in the article that should be heeded by all PowerBook users include:
– Install an Open Firmware password
– Require a password for changes to System Preferences
– Password protect all users accounts
The 2600 article “Laptop Security” includes the source code to the beacon and is available in PDF and HTML.
I read an interesting story in that was published in the Fall 2004 issue of 2600 (The Hacker Quarterly) about a guy that wrote his own “call home” beacon to protect his PowerBook in the event it was ever lost or stolen. “The basic idea behind this idea is to run a cron job as root every five or ten minutes that runs a simple command. This command acts as a beacon.”
Other security tips in the article that should be heeded by all PowerBook users include:
– Install an Open Firmware password
– Require a password for changes to System Preferences
– Password protect all users accounts
The 2600 article “Laptop Security” includes the source code to the beacon and is available in PDF and HTML.
