GadgetTrak Relaunched as Paid Service
- March 18th, 2007
- 8 Comments
GadgetTrak has relaunched as a paid subscription service that gives users the ability to track down stolen gadgets using social-engineering software installed on the gadget’s memory. The service, which I posted about last month, involves installing a piece of software on the device’s memory that, when plugged in and accessed, secretly reports the location, IP address, computer name and user host name — among other info — to a central server. It is up to the user, however, to provide the information to law enforcement to recover the device.
The fee for the service is $1 a month, which covers protection for five devices. Besides MP3 players and USB thumb drives, several cells phones like the Samsung Blackjack and Motorola Razer V3i, along with digital cameras and the Sony PSP are supported.
The site also offers sticker labels for those who are honest enough to go online and report the items as missing. I wonder what the odds of that are.
Unfortunately, the service still only is supported for thieves who use Windows-based machines. But on the plus side, the software can now bypass most firewalls.
As a whole, the service sounds promising. However, until it offers a more fool-proof method of tracking down thieves and devices — and OS X support — I’m going to pass.
Ryan Dinford (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Just to play the devil’s advocate, but how “fool proof” is any anti-theft system really? This solution seems to work better than anything else out there for gadgets.
Wayne Ma (Who am I?)
1 year ago
Well, there’s always embedded GPS …
Nick B. (Who am I?)
1 year ago
I’m going to pass on this until Mac OS Support too - take for example my iPod, formatted for Mac OS - as soon as it’s plugged into a windows PC, it requests a format so that it can be read and written to in Windows.
Bang goes the tracking app that resides on it.
Or if the thief has stolen my Macbook Pro to go with it, the app is just going to sit there looking pretty doing nothing. A free iPod and Macbook Pro to the culprit.
No thanks.
Geoff (Who am I?)
1 year ago
@Commenters
You make it sound like this will MAKE your gadget get stolen. Sure it doesn’t support OSX, or it might get caught by a firewall, but its dirt-cheap, and its loads better than what you probably have now (nothing). If you can afford a GPS locator to put into your gadget, great for you, but GadgetTrak is pretty good for everyone else.
Only problem that I have with it is that the icon and the “My Stuff” label probably give it away to a thief when he sees it on an ipod. Check this out:
http://www.gearfire.net/5-ways-to-maximize-the-effectiveness-of-gadgettrak-w-your-gadgets/
emma (Who am I?)
1 year ago
cool blog!
Jessie W (Who am I?)
11 months ago
Well, it is always to have something to protect than to have nothing at all. This is the biggest mistake a lot of people made thinking nah, the car won’t get into an accident as I am a careful driver. But probably not so to the guy who crashed on you.
I bought this other software verey I for my macbook pro also cos losing a phone without any form of protect is as good as sitting duck too.
Erich Zimmerman (Who am I?)
9 months ago
This anti-theft “solution” stinks.
easily defeated. only works if the thief is dumb enough to click on the “install me” dialog that pops up when plugged in.
hard reset your stolen device and it’s gone.
how can they charge for this?
Abnopleplalge (Who am I?)
7 months ago
=”http://www.xrum.977mb.com”>new year foto