GadgetTrak Blog: Laptop Theft Recovery & Mobile Device Theft Recovery

GadgetTrak Review Boston Globe - “Software helps you track your gadgets”

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:02:04 +0000

Perhaps the worst thing about portable devices is that they’re so easy to carry around, we can barely hang on to them. Asurion, a Kansas City company that insures portable devices, says Americans lose about 60 million cellphones every year. Our laptop computers don’t fare much better. A 2008 study by Ponemon Institute LLC, a research outfit in Traverse City, Mich., calculated that every week, 12,000 laptops are lost or stolen in the nation’s airports alone.

Luckily, some gadgets are smart enough to call for help. A Portland, Ore., company called GadgetTrak has created some smart software to help them do it.

I tested two of their products. One was PC-Trak, for hunting down lost or stolen Windows laptops, which costs $25 a year. There’s also a version for Apple Macintosh laptops, which I didn’t try. The other was GadgetTrak for BlackBerry smartphones, which sells for a one-time price of $25. It is also available for phones that use Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software, but it’s not yet offered for Google Android phones. There’s a free version for Apple’s iPhone, but it lacks some advanced features. Apple famously prevents iPhone applications from running constantly in the background, a limitation that cripples GadgetTrak on the iPhone.

Read Full Review

GadgetTrak Featured on Engadget

admin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:59:39 +0000

GadgetTrak retrieves 95 percent of stolen laptops, puts RoboCop to shame (video)

Want your stolen gear back? Don’t call some gung-ho superhero who’s as likely to blow up your small grocery store as he is to catch those perps, call GadgetTrak instead. The little startup company has grown since we last heard of it back in 2007, and is now operating a $25 per year tracking service that has delivered a statistically significant 95 percent success rate on reuniting gadgets with their owners. Available for Mac OS and Windows laptops, as well as mobile phones (BlackBerrys, WinMo, and iPhone) and even removable USB storage, the software’s intelligent enough to remotely activate your webcam and ping the incriminating info back directly to you — no data is sent to GadgetTrak. Check out some recent news coverage of the software and its implementation in local schools after the break.

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GadgetTrak Unveils Theft Ring Targetting Portland Schools

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 02:26:37 +0000

Over the past few months Portland area schools have been victimized by a number burglaries targeting computer equipment. One of the schools had enough and installed GadgetTrak software on a number of laptops. Within a week the school was broken into again, but this time they stole the wrong laptops. The software was activated and started sending photos of who was using the stolen computer and location, with this information the police were able to work with GadgetTrak to identify the location of the device. The police recovered the laptop and identified key suspects for at least four of the school burglaries that have occured over the past few months.

GadgetTrak Recovers Stolen Laptop & Jewelry - Springfield, Oregon

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:25:11 +0000

Another laptop has been recovered thanks to GadgetTrak. A Mac was stolen from our customer Kari Hardre during a home burglary along with jewelry, the GadgetTrak software activated and sent location, network data and images of the thief back.

“They kicked the front door in, so I would invest that $50. It’s an investment well worth it,” said Kari Hardre.

NASA Laptop Stolen

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:25:26 +0000

A professor from Georgia State University says his life’s work is gone after his laptop was reportedly stolen which was loaded with years of valuable NASA research. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Indie+Relief: All Jan. 20 GadgetTrak Sales Goes to Help Haiti

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:12:24 +0000

All online sales revenue today will go to Haiti relief. We have partnered with other software developers through Indie+Relief to donate all Jan. 20 sales to support the relief efforts in Haiti. We will be donating all of today’s sales directly to the Mangrove Fund.

The Mangrove Fund was established in 2007 in order to help existing organizations and people who provide sustainable assistance and support to impoverished Haitian communities. They look for proven track records of success which result from the local relationships and knowledge base necessary to create long-term positive economic benefits within Haitian communities.

The 7.0 earthquake is only the most recent of a string of calamities to strike Haiti. However, it is by far the most devastating. Mangrove will provide ull support to the rescue efforts currently being launched and will be funding several organizations who will be directly involved on the ground, including Vwa Ayiti and entities devoted directly to assisting children living in any one of Haiti’s hundreds of orphanages.

100% of the monies we receive during this campaign will be sent directly to organizations leading the relief and recovery efforts.

GadgetTrak Good Morning America Feature : 5 Tips to Keep Your Gadget Gifts Working Like New

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:46:13 +0000

We were featured in a great piece by Good Morning America on Christmas Day regarding how to protect the gadgets your received on Christmas Day. GadgetTrak was featured as tip number two:

GadgetTrak uses GPS and WiFi signals to locate your lost electronic and lock it down remotely so a thief cannot use it and police can track it.

Read the full story on Good Morning America

This is actually the second time GadgetTrak has featured on Good Morning America, in a previous episode our technology was also described in more depth with technology corespondent Becky Worley:

GadgetTrak’s MacTrak Featured In MacBook All-in-One For Dummies

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:27:50 +0000

GadgetTrak’s MacTrak was featured in its own section of the newly published “MacBook All-in-One For Dummies” by Mark L. Chambers.

Using a Security Application

The unthinkable happens: Your MacBook is stolen while you’re on vacation or on a business trip, and you know that the chances that it will be returned are net to nil. You’ve resigned yourself to replacing it ( and all your data ). But wait! What if I told you taht you might just receive an e-mail message on your desktop computer that tells you Internet ( IP ) address of the thief or perhaps even the address where he or she is staying?

If this scenario sounds a little like a James Bond movie, you’ll be surprised to learn that several tracker applications are available for Mac OS X that will run invisibly on your laptop. A track application can turn your MacBook into a transmitting beacon, broadcasting its current location and all the Internet information it can get to you - allowing you to alert police and apprehend the crook ( who might be in the middle of creating an iPhoto library).

For example, MacTrak from GadgetTrak ( www.gadgettrak.com ) invisibly sends an email to you each time your laptop is connect to the Internet. The e-mail outlines the network environment and physical location of your MacBook, using WiFi positioning. ( Heck your MacBook even takes survveilance photos using its iSight camera and uploads those images to your Flickr account!)

MacTrak costs about $30 per year, which is pocket change for a corporate Road Warrior or design professional who depends on both the laptop and irreplaceable data it contains.

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Laptop stolen? All isn’t lost - PC-Trak Review

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:19:49 +0000

Another great review for GadgetTrak’s PC-Trak anti-theft software for Windows. Peter Grad of The Record in New Jersey took PC-Trak for a test drive.

I tested the program by switching the activation on. When I turned on the “stolen” laptop, I immediately received e-mail notification that the laptop had been switched on. The notification provided me with a remarkably accurate location of the laptop – latitude and longitude numbers, an approximate street address and a link to a Google map pinpointing to within a few dozen yards the image of my street where the laptop’s Internet connection was detected.Were I using the laptop while moving, map images would be updated periodically.

In addition, Gadget Trak quietly instructed my laptop to snap photos every half hour, capturing the thief – in my test, me — in flagrante delicto, which in this case was basically me feasting on a pint of H*agen-Dazs.

The images were automatically uploaded to Flickr, a free photo-sharing Web site, which can be accessed from anywhere.

So Gadget Trak not only zooms in on your stolen equipment’s location, but it accumulates enough hard data and images to help prosecute a criminal case.

Read Full Review

Meth Use & Mobile Device Theft

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:58:05 +0000

Through the majority of our recoveries one thing I have noticed that has tied them together, they involved a methamphetamine addict. Doing some research it is shocking to learn that nationally police believe that 75-80% of all property crimes are committed by people addicted to methamphetamine, or who profit from addicts. It is not only the device being fenced for quick money or drugs, but also identity theft as the devices sold are full of valuable data. We will be donating $100 to The Meth Project for every theft recovery we make that involves a methamphetamine addict.