Stolen Computer Can Be Traced Finally

Dear Friends, 

 After long and long time I m again infront of you with my blog with a creative idea. This time I thought I have got success to tell you the way to trace the stolen Laptop/Computer. I belief this is the only way for the Law Enforcing Agencies ( Police ). Perhaps you are thinking I am telling about any product to purchase and install, which will work even after format as it works on firmware level. But that is not the fact here. As a member of LEA I can't say about any product it is just logic based. Earlier I already discussed about how to recover stolen laptop in three parts for making clear my friends about my logic and it got stamped in my mind when I had an opportunity to attend two seminars in New Delhi ( Seminar on 5th ASSOCHAM International Conference on Cyber & Network Security ) at Hotel Le Meridien and the other in Kolkata at Hotel Golden Park ( Seminar on Green Computing and Cyber Security )arranged by NCS Computech Ltd with their other partners.

 In the New Delhi both Symantec and Kaspersky antivirus companies were the partners and in Kolkata conference man from Quick Heal Mr. Manohar was the principal person in the entire interactive session. So I took the chance in both the place to interact with them in one to one situation. I told my idea to them and learnt from them how they maintain their database in case of free antivirus service for a limited period and for the limited number of licences. I told you earlier in my other articles about this that no Internet Service Provider can help us in case of detecting/recovering stolen laptop and only the antivirus companies can help us to solve this problem. I asked all of them the same question and in reply they told " We keep the three identifiable unique numbers of a system when the person install their products in his system and we keep all of those in our database as generally a person can't change all those three at a time and if it is done the person will change his laptop or computer. " Now the question is what are those unique identifications. I asked them about this. They replied MAC id of LAN and another MAC id if it is and Hardware id. 

So I asked them " If I install your free version by connecting to internet my Laptop/PDA/Computer with bluetooth or wifi or data card how will you get my LAN MAC id." In reply what I learnt that in the antivirus installation program there are programs, which are called MAC id and Hardware id extractor and that helps them to get the LAN MAC id and Hardware id. So I asked them again " Can we send you the request for searching stolen laptop with the help of those in your database ? And can we know that from which IP address with date and time it was activated again or updated again ? " In reply I learn it is very much possible as all those things are part of their database. So finally my suggestion to all the persons, who use computer/laptop/PDA in the internet please keep this unique identities in your personal database, which is definitely in pen and paper. This will be required to supply to the LEA for searching your stolen or lost laptop with the help of antivirus companies. LEAs are requested to send the request to the antivirus companies like stolen mobile searching request to mobile service providers. 

Now the question is how you will get your hardware id and MAC id. About getting the MAC id I wrote it earlier in my other articles about how to trace stolen laptop here but for getting the hardware id please Google it and its a very small size program. Over this Quick Heal Antivirus Companies has started a good job by providing a service through their http://trackmylaptop.net. The interested persons can also get their MAC id extractor from here. Thanks to quick heal for their this kind of support even to the non quick heal users. 

 My friends I hope this will help you and I think finally I have got the way to trace the stolen laptop without using any third party software, which is available in the market. And this was my research for the last 3 years about how to search a stolen laptop without using any third party laptop tracker and what should be the role of LEAs to help their citizens. If Govt. of each country creates pressure upon the antivirus companies this will not be the problem for both the LEA and Citizens to get this facility. This is the duty of the antivirus companies to help the nation where they are doing their Billion $ business. 

There is another way of searching stolen laptop. That is with the help of original operating system like Microsoft's products. The OS activation key may help us to find out the stolen laptops/others as all the originals OSs ( Not open Source ) are updated on the net and from which IP addresses these are updated this must be kept by the service providers. This also requires a Govt. interference for passing a regulation for pressurizing the operating system ( Not open Source ) developers. I don't know whether US Govt. has done so and if they do this Microsoft will definitely help the LEAs in this field. I contacted with then but no fruit full result has yet got from them. In this case the laptop thief if formats the computer it will not be possible for Microsoft like other OS developers to get the data in the net with a particular activation key. I think this is also clear to you. 

 Waiting for your comments for implementing this in every countries of the world. 

 Thanking you,

 Sujit Mukherjee