Thinkpads Forum

I signed up with Mcafee Antitheft services and I recommend you stay away, poor everything and their reps have no clue on the product. Now I went with computrace but for some reason computrace is being installed on the bios rather then the AT chip, even though intel is advertising computrace as one of the vendors for AT services using this chip.
Absolute ( computrace) has no idea why why their tracking sw is being installed on the bios and not the intel AT chip. I have a T420 wondering if anyone knows why computrace isnt being installed on the AT chip. Also if anyone recommends such services from a particular company.

bass1175 wrote:... Mcafee Antitheft services ... computrace ... anyone recommends such services ...

I see that you have several threads you started, and they all revolve around such programs/"services". I don't know how much you understand technically of what these "services" do, so please excuse this note if you find it too basic or insufficiently evenhanded.

To put it undiplomatically, nobody who knows something about computers would permit any such "service" anywhere near his personal unit -- not even in the same ZIP Code! Period.

Many good reasons for that view, and they all distill to the fact that these services are predicated on the "service" being able to take control of the machine away from whoever is using it ... and that person, most likely, will be YOU.

This is not a case where YMMV -- it won't. At the very best, these "services" won't cause you harm (beyond their cost) ...
Here is a proper analogue:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chairman

Theres two sides to this service and I dont personally believe in conspiracy fictitious theories. But if your that concerned/worried then I urge you to ditch your smartphone, and even more dangerous then any of these services, Google! Which have the means to easily dig up things you've searched for dating 10 years back with ease, along with your IP address for every search. Your smart phone is no harder and has nicer features such as a high res camera, Mic, complete voice recoding, access to email clients, and GPS.

Computrace or any of these services are actually the least of the worries when concerned about tracking. And in the vent your belongings are stolen, you usually get more then your laptop back.

Computrace and the types of services have helped put many bad guys behind bars while making companies profitable by keeping their equipment.

With that said, what can computrace do with my location? Or a step higher, the Government? Anything they want, they can call your ISP or Google and get a lot more info then your whereabouts.

bass1175 wrote:I dont personally believe in conspiracy fictitious theories... these services are actually the least of the worries when concerned about tracking ...

Goodness -- did you miss the point in its entirety?! The issue here has NOTHING to do with tracking or any of the other items you mentioned, but rather that YOUR own ability to access the computer can be taken away from you, as much accidentally as intentionally.

The issue is not "conspiracies", but rather imperfect complex software -- perhaps designed to be too clever by half! -- which can take unwanted and imprudent actions with respect to the usability of the machine and/or its data.

You stated in another thread that CompuTrace circumvented your attempt to update your BIOS. It should not be much of a stretch to appreciate that these "services" arrogate unto themselves exclusive powers which prudence would indicate should be kept in your control.

The issue with these "services" is the conceit that they can make correct irreversible decisions predicated on imperfect assumptions about the current state of the computer being monitored. By their very nature, these "services" behave exactly like persistent viruses -- after all, how else could they deliver what they promise?! -- and, consequently, the real-time autonomous decisions they make are necessarily outside any domain of user consent.

Fine if that is of no concern to you ... thought I'd mention it, in case it interested someone ...

Excuse my misunderstanding, was hard to decipher the point of the message with that wiki link of the "chairman".

On another note, ironically only a few days later, this gets released today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/ju ... s-nsa-data

bass1175 wrote:... ironically only a few days later, this gets released today.

Off topic:
Thanks for the clarification. The point of the film analogy was that it is generally preferable not to have an exploding device in one's head that can be detonated remotely without one's consent. <-- Hopefully, not a particularly controversial proposition!

Regarding your link above: as much "predictably" as "ironically" ...
All the best.