4 Mac Security Apps Compared

David Appleyard — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:00:14 +0000

The security of your Mac can fall into a few different categories. One such category would be that of preventing data loss (i.e. making regular backups). Apple has helped to make this easy in recent years with the inclusion of Time Machine in OS X. Another category is trying to prevent, or minimize the problem of, theft. This is something more difficult to defend against than a corrupted hard drive, as it’s not just a case of regularly backing data up.

Because the theft of a laptop is a great deal less common than a failed hard drive, it can easily be overlooked by Mac users. Fortunately, there are a number of applications which can step in to help you locate a stolen or missing laptop. This article will provide an overview of several competing applications, comparing them on features and price.

MacTrak from GadgetTrak

MacTrak for OS X is heralded as “the most advanced theft recovery solution available for Apple systems”.

The software is activated by logging into your MacTrak.me account and clicking a button to activate tracking. The next time your Mac connects to the Internet the software will activate and start sending you emails with the specific location and network environment of the system, as well as use the camera to take a photo of who is using the system every 30 minutes.

Some of the extra features offered by MacTrak are:

Wi-Fi Positioning: The ability to accurately pinpoint the location of your Mac through analyzing Wi-Fi networks
Flickr Integration: Social media at its best. Photos taken every 30 minutes are uploaded to Flickr with location details
Network Information: It also collects network information to provide to authorities

It is priced at $60 — a one off payment which doesn’t need renewing every year. It’s transferrable between computers.

iAlertU

iAlertU doesn’t take the form of a laptop tracking application, rather aiming to warn you at the point when someone is attempting to run off with your precious Mac. The software is ‘armed’ either through a menu bar button, or via the Apple Remote Control (think similar to a remote control car alarm).

Through the use of either the laptop motion sensor or trackpad/keyboard inputs, iAlertU is able to determine when someone is using or moving your laptop without permission. An audible alarm is sounded — it makes quite a racket — and a photo is taken using the iSight camera before being emailed to a pre-defined address. The alarm will continue to sound even after the laptop has closed, making a silent escape fairly difficult!

The problem with this software is that once your laptop is gone, the software doesn’t include any tracking facilities. The upside is that iAlertU is completely free.

Adeona

Adeona is an open source application and doesn’t rely on a proprietary, central service. Very strong encryption is used for storing and sending location information, and emphasis in placed on ensuring that you are the only person able to track the laptop (which is good, as it would be somewhat disconcerting if someone else was tracking your every move).

Three features are pushed as the main reasons to use Adeona:

Private: Adeona uses state-of-the-art cryptographic mechanisms to ensure that the owner is the only party that can use the system to reveal the locations visited by a device.
Reliable: Adeona uses a community-based remote storage facility, ensuring retrievability of recent location updates.
Open source and free: A big advantage over more expensive competing applications

As with other competitors, the OS X version has the ability to take photos using the built in iSight camera. Location information is stored at OpenDHT, and remains accessible for one week after capture. The information sent includes the internal IP address, external IP address, nearby routers, a photo and the wireless access point name.

As the software is completely free, it’s worth taking a look at.

LoJack

The final piece of software to be considered is LoJack. While possibly having the best name of the bunch, it also offers a good range of functionality. They also claim that LoJack is able to recover 3 out of 4 laptops stolen with the software installed. Impressive!

The premium version is priced the same as MacTrak, at $60, but this is a yearly rather than one-off cost. The difference here is that, rather than just offering a software service, LoJack also has a dedicated theft recovery team who will assist in tracking down your stolen machine. It is staffed by former police officers and security professionals and carries a private investigation agency license.

Other services included are ‘data delete’ — a tool to remotely wipe your laptop — and a $1000 service guarantee if they’re unable to track down your laptop (with a few conditions). These extra two features are included in the $60 package, but are not with the cheaper, $40 standard edition.

While this doesn’t apply to OS X, it’s worth noting that LoJack has an agreement with several laptop manufacturers to build their software into the compute BIOS, ensuring that it survives a re-install of the operating system.

Conclusion

Many people do not use a security service/software package for their laptop and may simply extend their house insurance to cover a loss or theft. If you would like to be able to locate a missing Mac, along with potentially catching those responsible, using software such as LoJack or MacTrak would certainly be advisable. They offer a great range of services and have an impressive track record. $60 is not a great deal to pay for the peace of mind and added security.

Both the free iAlertU and Adeona are great tools, but aren’t backed up with quite the same support and service network as the commercial software.

Do you use a piece of security software, or do you think it’s unnecessary caution? I’d be interested to hear your opinion.

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Adeona: Open Source Asset Tracking & Retrieval

Bob Rudis — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:00:19 +0000

Chances are fairly decent that there are a good number of TAB readers who have been impacted by the loss of either their laptop or cell phone (or iPhone) due to theft. Estimates are that 12,000 laptops are lost or stolen each week at airports and that only 30 percent of owners are successful in retrieving the asset. Over half of them (estimated) contain confidential or personal information, making the losses even more costly.

The use of Internet tracking systems – which send (to a hosted service) periodic updates of asset location via a small agent loaded on the asset – can help increase the likelihood of asset recovery. Most of these services, such as Computrace LoJack for Laptops, are commercial (i.e. require a software purchase and a monthly or yearly fee), and some even work directly with law enforcement in the event your system is lost or stolen. If you are willing to go the more open source route, or just cannot afford the commercial options, Adeona may just be what you’ve been looking for.

How Does It Work?

Written by the folks over at the University of Washington, this small agent saves location updates to the open source distributed storage service OpenDHT in such a way that only you, the owner, is able to retrieve and – for systems with a camera – can even capture an image of the current user with each location update via the freeware isightcapture utility (which is included with the package).

When you first install the agent, you create a retrieval file that is encrypted via a passphrase. Keep this file handy – i.e. with you! – as you’ll need it to retrieve the location information! It is a good idea to remove it from your main system once created and backed up since it is a necessary component of the retrieval process and can be of use to the person who improperly obtained your resource.

Adeona works without intervention of any kind, but the burning question should be: how do I recover or locate my system? You can use any OS X, Windows or Linux system to grab any amount of location history you wish, but you will need that retrieval file to do so.

But, Does It Work?

The efficacy of most Internet-based asset tracking/retrieval programs is tied to the level and quality of access to the Internet of the device, the intelligence of the individual who improperly obtained the device and the skill of the law enforcement agency performing the investigation. Adeona requires access to the Internet to store location data and, while it uses port 80 (which should be open almost everywhere), it also uses port 5852 for OpenDHT access. Many corporate and personal firewalls may block this port.

A smart thief (not many are smart, though, otherwise they probably would not be thieves) may also know how to disable tracking software and would be intelligent enough to ensure they are not connected to the Internet while they are checking out your system.

Finally, the type of detail provided in the route tracking information may be difficult for your local law enforcement office to handle. However, under no circumstances should you undertake the investigation into your own hands. If an individual was willing to break the law to obtain your machine, you cannot assume they will be less likely to do you physical harm.

Adeona is a good, free choice in the asset tracking space, but I’d like to get feedback from TAB readers (who install and try to use it) on just how easy it was to work with and collect any suggestions as to how you think it could be improved. Also, if you have any tracking success stories, feel free to drop those in the comments as well.