Mac anti-theft Software

My friend Tom mentioned in a comment to the post on the theft of one of our Macs about LoJack software that he'd installed on his machines.

I've been meaning to write about something similar I found called Undercover from Orbicule. Should I be paranoid and not write to the world at large that my Macs have anti-theft software installed? Well, dammit. I'm sure the 3 of you that read this blog are honest people! And, is it not a good test of such software that it can't easily be disabled?

Undercover looked interesting to me as it is specifically Mac software. Among other features, Orbicule make the claim that, once activated, their software will make use of installed iSight cameras to take photos of the machine user! Cool (if our police force can be bothered to do anything with the information of course!). Such features are on top of the ones we would expect such as IP address reporting, etc.

I was also intrigued how Undercover would work if the thief just erased the disk. Using firmware passwords in most recent PowerPC and Intel Macs makes this quite difficult to do (though the user must set these up).

An attraction of Undercover was the family pack license for up to 5 Macs for just $10 more ($49 instead of $39).

However, the proof with both LoJack and Undercover is when they're needed. I hope neither Tom nor I have to experience that! I'd welcome comments from users of either of these pieces of software - especially about experiences good or bad when they really needed it. Both products are welcome entrants to the MacOS software marketplace.

Tags: Apple, MacBook, Orbicule, Undercover, LoJack, anti-theft