Protection against theft - how to... ?

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polityk · #1 Post by **polityk** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:24 am

Well...
At the beginning a short story:

Imagine a big car park in the city center.
20 Cars parked randomly, 10 of them has laptop computers in their trunks.
Computers are either turned off, hibernated od suspended, but for sure not powered on.
Now imagine a thief, who by some means knows exactly in which cars are the laptops,
and steals every one of the 10 computers not even touching the empty cars.

The history is made up, but the problem is real.
I know from a very reliable source,
that as many accidents with stolen laptops as occured recently in some city is almost impossible to be just coincidence,
and that probably someone has figured out a way to locate a laptop in your car.
The owners claim that noone could see them putting the laptop into the trunk.

Now the questions:
How is it possible to detect a laptop hidden in a trunk ?
How to protect yourself against it ?

I have some own theories, but i would like to hear as many concepts as possible.
------------------
My theories:
a) a recently used laptop is quite hot - infrared cam? but is it possible through the trunk ?

b) EM emissions, but is it possible to isolate some specific kind of an emission that is generated only by laptops ?
what if the laptop is powered down ? are there ANY EM emissions ?
car's own electronics wuold probably mask any delicate EM right?

c) a virus that enables WIFI or BT card and sends some info, or a WIFI or BT card some how set fot "wake on lan"

d) some how locating the Lithium battery, but when it's powered down probably only a kind of clock is ticking and nothing more..
are all the battery's safety circuits working or not when a laptop i powered down?

and again: This topic is really serious...

#2 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:41 am

It being Poland (no offense meant), perhaps all those cars that were broken into, were Mercedes, BMW, Audi and the like, rather than Skoda or Lada or Wartburg?

polityk · #3 Post by **polityk** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:36 am

none taken, but i see that you are stuck in 1970's...
great times though, but really it's time to move forward.

Do you suggest that it was because
you could see that the car is expensive and the owner has money
it's obvious that he has a laptop in the trunk ? ridiculous...

Back to the topic:
The point here is that there was no accident when a car was broken into
and there was no laptop inside, the accidents were very specific:
only rear window broken and always it was about a laptop in the trunk.

#4 Post by **carbon_unit** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:44 am

Maybe they simply watched the owner put the laptop in the trunk and followed them until they parked the car. Wait a couple of minutes for the owner to get away from the car and then go for it.

polityk · #5 Post by **polityk** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:47 am

the first thought was the same, but it happened too many times.
besides owners claim that the packed the computer for example at home in the garage, or hat it in a backpack, bag or anything else not made especially to cary laptops so it looked like any other things packes into the trunk.

Hernandez · #6 Post by **Hernandez** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:40 am

polityk wrote:
How to protect yourself against it ?

Hey, ThinkPad is not so heavy, i always take mine with me.
Unfortunetly this is Poland, and you can still loose your bag from a front seat, waiting for a traffic lights.

kosse · #7 Post by **kosse** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:47 am

polityk wrote:
d) some how locating the Lithium battery, but when it's powered down probably only a kind of clock is ticking and nothing more..
are all the battery's safety circuits working or not when a laptop i powered down?

I know from army experiences that some sensitive navigational instruments like this (I don't know the english name, it has 6000 angular mil circle and it works using the earth's magnetic field..a kind of compass on steroids) get really easily messed up in presense of batteries. Even ordinary AA batteries in the pocket of camo suit made them malfunction. I could imagine a gadget like this to go crazy near a laptop battery. Then again, the presence of a car (metal!) should cause problems too so I'm not sure if you could detect a battery through the trunk..

polityk · #8 Post by **polityk** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 11:02 am

Kosse - thanks, that's the kind of answer i was waiting for :]
I'll try to find out what is this device

Hernandez - well, I know it and i do the same, but sometimes i just have to leave the bag in the trunk...
and i'm also interested if it's possible to detect the laptop and how, because to my knowledge it's not..

#9 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:36 am

Howzat? With some good 2008 (not 1970s) research technique (Google) I found this:
Malaysian car thieves use mystery gadget to break into cars containing laptops

#10 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:07 am

Who cares how they do it. The moral of the story is never leave a laptop in an unoccupied automobile. The effects of heat and cold on a laptop in a closed car should be enough to dissuade anyone (reasonably intelligent) from this behavior to begin with.

http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingy ... optips.htm

#11 Post by **bill bolton** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:27 am

polityk wrote:and again: This topic is really serious...

Without a solid citation supporting the proposition, its quite unreasonable to take this as a serious topic.

Cheers,

Bill B.

qviri · #12 Post by **qviri** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:32 am

Harryc wrote:Who cares how they do it.

I do. I don't have a car to leave a laptop in, but the topic is interesting and mentally stimulating.

#13 Post by **Harryc** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 9:36 am

qviri wrote:I do. I don't have a car to leave a laptop in, but the topic is interesting and mentally stimulating.

I'll make you a deal. I have absolutely no issue with continuing this discussion, but if we start to get into an area where somebody is describing how to get information on or how to build such a device ( if it exists) , then we'll lock the thread for obvious reasons. Fair enough?

qviri · #14 Post by **qviri** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:10 am

Harryc wrote:I'll make you a deal. I have absolutely no issue with continuing this discussion, but if we start to get into an area where somebody is describing how to get information on or how to build such a device ( if it exists) , then we'll lock the thread for obvious reasons. Fair enough?

I'm going to have to refer you to RealBlackStuff's second post then

You're the mod, your call.

#15 Post by **JaneL** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 10:31 am

This has gone far enough.

Protection against theft - how to... ?

Protection against theft - how to... ?

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